Feed/Sleep Routine at 8 months

[Ezz]

I've never really tried to put DS into a routine - I just go with the flow. But he seems to be settling into a 2 day-sleep pattern at the moment (one about 10am and one about 2pm).

His meals go something like this:

5-6am BF
7-8am solids
10-ish BF
12-1pm solids
2-ish BF
5-5:30pm solids
7-ish BF

Now - here is the problem. Calvin has been settling himself to sleep since he was about 3 months old (with lots of encouragement from me!). But with this new routine he's sorted for himself, I end up feeding him just before he goes to sleep (otherwise the BF are either too close together and he won't eat, or too far apart). He then falls asleep on the boob & I put him into bed. But I don't really want him to be feeding to sleep. It was so much hard work to teach him to self-settle in the first place that I don't want him to forget how and start relying on a BF!! (mainly because I don't want to be the one who has to put him to bed. I'm doing a casual day back at work in a couple of weeks, so he will be staying with my friend for the day).

Any suggestions?

Would you wake him up again when he falls asleep on the boob? (seems such a shame when he's peacefully sleeping...)

For those who do feed to sleep, what do you do when you can't be there at bedtime?

[KatieRabbit]

My Dd did this a couple of months ago when I couldn't space out feeds properly either with a sleep-feed-play routine. I actually don't worry about this routine anymore. Perhaps you could go sleep-feed-play-feed sort of thing given he is only having 2 sleeps. Or could you rearrange his eating/drinking so that they are closer together ie solids within 1/2 hour of b'feed so that a diff pattern could emerge? Anyway, the feed to sleep (every sleep- and she was having about 3 a day) only lasted about 3 weeks before she stopped herself. Now I feed to sleep at 6pm every night and she still falls asleep herself for her 2 daytime naps. I haven't ever left her so can't comment on what to do when I can't be there!

[jackrose]

I've never really tried to put DS into a routine - I just go with the flow. But he seems to be settling into a 2 day-sleep pattern at the moment (one about 10am and one about 2pm).

snap! My 8 month old is exactly the same.

Now - here is the problem. Calvin has been settling himself to sleep since he was about 3 months old (with lots of encouragement from me!). But with this new routine he's sorted for himself, I end up feeding him just before he goes to sleep (otherwise the BF are either too close together and he won't eat, or too far apart). He then falls asleep on the boob & I put him into bed. But I don't really want him to be feeding to sleep. It was so much hard work to teach him to self-settle in the first place that I don't want him to forget how and start relying on a BF!!

Snap again!
My DD went from a wonderful self-settler and then began to fall asleep on the breast. This is where I developed a real problem as she started to associate sleep with the breast and began waking up all night and looking for the breast. At the worst she woke half hourly and needed my breast to resettle. It was horrible (I have posted about it elsewhere)

This may not happen to you, as I am sure there are many people who successfully breastfeed to sleep without any problem, I just thought you may benefit from knowing what may happen.

Good luck with what you decide.

[Cally]

Could you bring the 10 and 2 BF forward about 1/2 hour (may also involve bringing forward lunch), then hopefully he won't fall asleep as he won't be as tired. Maybe feed and then have some quiet time in his room (read a couple of stories together) before putting him down?

[Willow]

Ezz, this has happened with us too over the last month or so. DS hardly eats anything so I encourage him to eat some food before his b'feeds now as I am going back to work soon too.

I guess the difference is that he doesn't actually fall asleep on the breast. I feed him then put him to bed awake and he still settles himself off to sleep in his cot.

I've been stressing about this a lot the last few weeks but now I'm just going with it. It seems to have been a natural progression and not something I decided to do, so I'm just going with it. I do worry about the whole 'feed to sleep association' thing but figure he is still self settling and sleeps well so I'm just not going to worry about it. If I think back to DD at this age, I think this became her pattern too eventually ie feed then sleep rather than sleep then feed.

Are you feeding him in his room? Maybe feed him 10 mins earlier in the loungeroom or something and if he still falls asleep, I'd gently try to wake him and see what happens.

[Ezz]

Thanks everyone for your ideas

I'm not really worried about having a "feed-play-sleep" routine - it was more a concern that he would get used to being fed to sleep.

Cally - Thanks for the suggestion of feeding a bit earlier. I have been trying to do that where possible.

Willow - That's exactly what I have been doing the last couple of days & it seems to be working well I feed him in the loungeroom, then take him upstairs, change his nappy etc before I put him to bed. He is not entirely happy about the nappy change (because he would really rather be sleeping!!) - but it seems to do the trick. I put into bed awake & then he falls asleep