Nursing Baby to Sleep

I am so glad that you asked this question. I am a new mom to a beautiful baby girl (4 months old now), and I nurse her to sleep every night...and we cosleep with her so i can nurse her back to sleep when she wakes up at night. When im home during the day, i nurse her for her naps...and when im at work..grandma or daddy give her a bottle and she falls asleep. when she is tired you can either give her a pacifier or just sit and hold her and she will fall asleep. but she doesnt fall asleep with out someone helping to soothe her...and i was really wondering how bad is this going to be down the road. i dont want to do the cry it out. i feel like it is just plain mean. so its good to know that we have people out there that agree with how we get our babies to sleep.

We held my daughter to put her to sleep for naps, and she nursed to sleep, until she was 8 months old. She still nursed to sleep after that, if she fell asleep and stayed asleep at that point, otherwise we started letting her cry to sleep because we felt she was old enough. It was really hard for me, since we always held her and I had NO problem doing that, but I'm glad we did it because it only took 2 days/nights until she didn't cry and just went down on her own no problem. Like I said, she oftentimes still nursed to sleep for bedtime, and if she stayed down that was great, but it was nice that we could put her down when she was tired without having to hold her for an hour or more until she was really out. I agree, it does not feel natural to let your kids cry, and I wouldn't do it any earlier than 8-9 mos, but it's all about your own choices. I do not think nursing to sleep causes any detriment to kids' sleep habits.

I did exactly as you are doing (well almost...I work full-time). Anyway, I just want to let you know that my son, who is now 3 1/2 years old, is an awesome sleeper, w/no sleep issues whatsoever, despite the fact that he was nursed to sleep practically every single day and night for a year or so. My advice is to NOT listen to books or anybody else....just follow the cues of your baby. IMHO, how can being an attentive mom who listens to your babies needs, create a bad habit? Rather, it is the other way around....a baby whose cries go unnoticed is a baby that learns that its cries are hopeless (it actually has a name...."learned hopelessness"). I hate those books that "sleep train" babies. I think they are cruel and go against what Mother Nature intended a mother to do.

Enjoy all that special cuddle time, because before you know it, it will be over :-(

I'm sure your going to get advice from people who will tell you that you should wake him after nursing so he learns to fall asleep on his own, but I would listen to your instinct and keep doing what you're doing. Obviously he can soothe himself to sleep on his own if he's sleeping through the night. I think after a while, we read so many books and listen to so much advice that we forget that most of the time, mom's know what's best for their child. I think it's good to read the books and take bits and peices from each one to use, but it will drive you crazy if you try to listen to them all, especially since most of them contradict each other.
I think it would be different if he couldn't soothe himself back to sleep at night, be he seems to be ablt to so I wouldn't worry about it. Take it from the mom of a two year old, those nights of snuggling your baby to sleep don't last long, enjoy it while you can!

I'm so glad you're getting other responses telling you to keep doing what you're doing. We hear so many people telling us to let them cry it out, which at a certain age I think is okay, but definitely not that young. I wasn't able to nurse, but our son did take a bottle and always fell asleep while feeding until he was a year old. After that, we would stay in his room with him until he fell asleep - for about 3 months. Slowly we would stay shorter and shorter periods of time, until finally we didn't need to stay in there at all. By 1 1/2 he was sleeping for 12 to 13 hours every night without waking and at 3, he is an excellent sleeper.

I think if it's working for both of you, it's fine. I haven't personally known anyone who did any kind of sleep training for the principle of it, but because they needed to (exhausted baby, or exhausted parents, or baby who had to fall asleep at daycare.) If he's able to get himself back to sleep on his own, that's a huge deal and I wouldn't worry about the nursing to sleep at all.

I was told never to nurse my son to sleep, although very easy and tempting, because you don't want him to expect that always(what if someone else has to put him to bed). My son would go sleep except for in someone's arms for the first three months, and although I loved holding my cuddly baby, moms need rest! I slept with him on the couch a lot b/c I could lie down safely in bed-I was at the end of my rope! Then my dr. told me about sleep training(perfect age), where you put him in the crib and wait for five minutes of crying, pick him up to comfort him, then go away for 10 minutes, thry again at 15, and so on. Although not fun to hear the cries(harder on moms than on babies, I'm told), it worked and within a few nights I had a perfect baby at night-then the toddler years come! I really recommend this. Like the sleep lady says, sleeping habits are learned, and if you pick him up whenever he cries, I think that in the long run it just creates problems and will never end. Good luck!

PS-You need to do a bedtime routine so he knows it's time also. Like rocking, singing...

hi there,
my opinion might not count for as much, because i have twins and i guess some things are done almost out of desperation.
my girls are 10 months old now. i used to love when they would fall asleep in my arms (they have almost always have been on diffrnt schedls).
however, i think it is harder for the babies to not be able to fall asleep on their own. after 3-4 months i think it's better to teach them to fall asleep on their own. if your baby falls asleep when being nurse, may be you could try bathing right before going to sleep, and not before feeding.
letiing them cry themselves to sleep is not as bad as it sounds; 2-3 minutes only seems like 10-15.
you can also start by standing right next to the crib the first day or two.
my sister used to let her kids sleep with her - she now has 4 kids. at least 2 of the youngest are in bed with her almost every nite! and her 7 year old only stopped doing that less thn a year ago.
i guess you should also think if you are doing it fo the baby's sake, or because it feels so wonderful and beautiful to hold your baby while the baby is falling asleep :)
it's hard. just try to do what you think is right for the baby, and what you think will work best for your family in the long run.
all the best.

T.,
Wow! You sound like me! I exclusively nursed my daughter Grace (now 3 yrs)-- and often she'd fall asleep after nursing and I'd put her down. I, like you, worried about this all the time. And I always thought there was a "right" way to do it-- but that I just didn't know what that right way was. I was convinced that someone out there knew a secret that I didn't know! Guess what? There is no secret.
Your son is sleeping through the night. That's great! He's sleeping, so you're sleeping-- and a rested mom is half the battle.
I'll tell you where we are at now that Grace is 37 months. When she was one she settled into a two nap a day pattern (both, nursed and rocked down to sleep). When she was two she (not me) dropped to one nap (and the start time for that nap has shifted since then from 12:30 to 2:00 p.m.). The most important change she made is when we weaned her. Around 12 months we introduced cows milk in Gerber sippy cups. Around 21 months we were only nursing twice a day (for nap and bed)-- and as part of the weaning process, I knew we had to drop one of those. So I started asking my husband to do bedtime. He'd take up a little sippy cup of milk, read stories, say prayers, sing hymns and rock her until she fell asleep. One night, she just asked to be put into bed awake after the "routine"-- and she fell asleep (Eureka!). That's been our routine ever since-- she puts herself to sleep at bed. So now we're down to only one nap-- and, unfortunately, she still needs to be rocked down, but I don't care! Eventually, as she grows into her preschool years, she will no longer require a nap. She's got the important part down-- bedtime.
Believe me, I worried through all those stages. And I'm here today (a survivor-- because Grace did not sleep through the night until 9 mo. and with crying it out-- which was so hard for me, my husband sent me to the basement bedroom with earplugs because my mommy instincts/hormones couldn't take it) to say, your son will learn to sleep on his own. Since he's sleeping all the way through, I wouldn't mess with that pattern for now-- and see how he does later. What's most important is that he gets lots of sleep for good development.
I'm no expert-- and yes, we did read Healthy Sleep Habits Happy Child (which only made me wish I could conjure up a sleep expert to come to my house). Don't worry! You're son is a remarkable sleeper!