I don't want another baby who has to nurse to sleep

[Rikki Jean]

I need some advice, or at the very least, a little bit of encouragement.

Long story short- DS1 always nursed to sleep, had a high suck need (has some sensory issues), and wasn't able to fall asleep w/me w/o nursing until he was about three (when he was w/dh's grandma or even my mother's helper sometimes, they could always rock him to sleep; with me though, the boob was it).

DS2 has followed the same path, except that he's still 27 months, and there has been no end to not nursing to sleep.

I'm worn out. I'm having baby #3 any second now, and I'm terrified of having yet another three years of nursing someone to sleep every night, by which time I'll probably have another baby anyway.

I feel really silly because I've been a mom for four-and-a-half years and I don't have any other tools to put my children to sleep. Nursing to sleep was always just so easy and convenient in the early months, so I never bothered to try anything else. It's come back to bite me in the butt with both boys, and something's gotta give...

So, what are some attachment-friendly things that I can eventually do with my new baby to help him/her fall asleep w/o having to nurse? IIRC, nursing to sleep is really all there is in the first six weeks or so anyway, but what about after that? FTR, I'm pretty much anti-pacifier, so that's not an option for us.


I'm sure that I had something else to say, but the baby ate my brain, so now I can't remember!

[Peony]

Ok, I've soo been there. DS is my #3, the oldest is 7 so I have been nursing one kid or another to sleep for 7 years now! I was determined that DS had to be able to go to sleep by some other method then the breast, I also do have to leave him more for work and I didn't do that with the girls. It worked for about 8-9 months, I could nurse him some other times I held him and he did demand a paci despite me never using one before. Then he stopped nursing to sleep completely, stopped taking the paci, and I had to resort to bouncing him to sleep in a sling 3 times a day. You know what, I want him to just nurse to sleep always after doing this! Bouncing a 20 lb 10 month old on my front for 45 minutes at a time while my other children run screaming through the house is much harder then popping a nipple in his mouth. I think I have learned that the grass isn't always greener.

[Rikki Jean]

Originally Posted by Peony

Ok, I've soo been there. DS is my #3, the oldest is 7 so I have been nursing one kid or another to sleep for 7 years now! I was determined that DS had to be able to go to sleep by some other method then the breast, I also do have to leave him more for work and I didn't do that with the girls. It worked for about 8-9 months, I could nurse him some other times I held him and he did demand a paci despite me never using one before. Then he stopped nursing to sleep completely, stopped taking the paci, and I had to resort to bouncing him to sleep in a sling 3 times a day. You know what, I want him to just nurse to sleep always after doing this! Bouncing a 20 lb 10 month old on my front for 45 minutes at a time while my other children run screaming through the house is much harder then popping a nipple in his mouth. I think I have learned that the grass isn't always greener.

I guess my thought is that, if I can rock/bounce/whatever to sleep, then my DH can too. My boys have never been receptive to my DH putting them to sleep when they could nurse to sleep instead. DH puts DS1 to sleep in his bed now, but it was four years in the making. We're expecting to still be having babies for the next 15-20 years, and I can't imagine nursing to sleep for two more decades!

[lovesea]

With dd (2nd child), I co-slept and breastfed on demand as I did with ds. What I did differently though was when in bed in the middle of the night if I felt she'd finished feeding I'd pull off. I started doing this just to ease my back intending to change sides but I discovered that more often than not she'd just roll over herself and go back to sleep. Around 5 or 6 months at bedtime she started pulling off the breast before she was asleep but she was so drowsy I'd just lay still and she'd drop off. By 12 months she was more or less sleeping through. I'm probably making it sound like she was an easy baby -she wasn't, she was much fussier than ds. I can't guarantee that this will work for you, I was so surprised it worked for me. I just wanted to share to let you know that all babies are different and you never know what may happen. With ds I was afraid to take him off the breast until he was in a completely deep sleep. Don't be afraid to try something different and don't assume that it won't work because it didn't with your other kids.

[PlayaMama]

with my ds i night weaned abruptly at 18 months because i was going crazy (like literally, lack of sleep was making me see things) and it was not pleasant but, on the up side, after that he has always been able to go to sleep easily and stress free after reading several books with us. if he's not tired then he gets up and i know that if he's laid down for several minutes and he's still awake that he's really not tired.

my dd was pretty much the same except i did what the pp did and started pulling the nipple out early and half the time she seriously just rolled over and went to sleep. i was amazed.

my dd is now 2 and the milk is going away. she's sad about it, and she complained tonight briefly and then rolled over and went to sleep on her own. with her i've also found it successful to nurse and then just be quiet and lie still. she tries to get my attention by rocking on me but _rarely_ even fusses, she just gradually talks to herself less and less and then she's asleep.

my mom told me that was how she got me to sleep when i was little and i tried it and it worked great, who knew?

[Maluhia]

What about working on the Pantley Pull Off from The No Cry Sleep Solution with this new baby so that you won't always have to?

[Louisep]

Agree with pp, unless your baby sleeps well, the grass isn't greener. I had to rock, bounce, dance repeat and dh would not do. This did stop by 10 months though. Now we lie down and cuddle to sleep. And repeat at night. I still don't get anymore sleep.

One thing that was awesome for awhile was a baby hammock. Between 3.5-5 months either of us could rock him to sleep in that. Then he started rolling over in it and went through a major sleep regression.

Definitely pick up a copy of NCSS. Lots of advice in there.

[lkmiscnet]

Please pardon my ignorance (I'm a first time mom to a 9 mo old DS), but why the objection to the pacifier? If you're being used as a human pacifier and your child has that need to suck, what's the downside?

[rzberrymom]

Did you swaddle either of your kiddos? I didn't with my first (who always nursed to sleep) but use a miracle blanket with my second--she has pretty much never needed to nurse all the way to sleep because of that thing. It relaxes her at night and she'll go to bed wide awake and smiling at me. I don't use it during the day, but she'll happily drift off on her own in the middle of the living room floor while my 5 year old is dancing around. For the rest of her naps, I have her in a wrap and she drifts off to sleep in that too.

I definitely use a pacifier for an assist though. The kid was furious if I tried to get her to nurse for comfort, but instead wanted to suck on my finger for hours every day and I couldn't keep it up. She has no need for the pacifier at night though, as long as she's swaddled.

[beebalmmama]

Well I was going to suggest a pacifier until I saw your objection to it. I had a strong letdown with a high needs for sucking baby. Otherwise I would suggest trying the Pantley pull off. I started doing this with ds 1 when he was 9 months or so, sometimes it was an in and out for a bit until he really let it go and fell asleep. Fortunately this ds (3 months) prefers to drop off the nipple and then get patted to sleep. Although he still needs you lying next to him.

When ds 1 was getting older (2 or so), we started nursing before getting in bed. But this was easier for me then because he left the family bed at 18 months. So we would nurse in my bed and then head to his bed to sleep. I'm not sure what your sleep arrangement is though.

[rzberrymom]

I forgot another thing that has helped. We EC, and so at bedtime I nurse her on both sides and then take her to the potty. Having an empty bladder definitely helps her drift off to sleep peacefully, and taking her to the potty after nursing also means that she got used to falling asleep without being on the breast. I don't generally EC during the night, but I can if I need to--she responds to the cue to pee, so if she's restless at night and nursing like crazy I can cue her to pee in the little potty and she'll go back to sleep peacefully.

If you're interested in that, the book Diaper Free Baby helped me so much when I was getting started.

[D_McG]

I got 'nursed out' with my first, too. So with my second I was just more in tune with my own needs. That meant that I was going out once a month and DD would have to deal with DH at bedtime. If DS needed me then DD would have to go to sleep with DH. If I was all touched out from the day then I wasn't going to nurse to sleep. If nursing to sleep was taking too long and I was getting skin crawly with it the I'd do something else.

I have with few exceptions never nursed DD while grinding my teeth. I promised myself and her that I wouldn't do that. That I would consider our nursing relationship to be precious and wouldn't make it into the ugly thing it became with DS. I would weigh my needs as carefully as I weighed hers (and understand that they are often inextricably linked).

She still nurses to sleep a lot. But it's fine. Because she has from almost the very start gotten used to falling asleep in other ways and with other people. It hasn't always been tear free (of course she is always comforted) . But there are four of us with needs in this house and the person making the most noise isn't always the person with the greatest need.

[almadianna]

You really cant make a child not nurse to sleep if they have a high need to suck, I also dont like pacifiers and have had two kids that have the high need to suck thing. The only thing I can suggest is having them suck their thumb.

[Rikki Jean]

Thanks for the input everyone.

Originally Posted by PlayaMama

with my ds i night weaned abruptly at 18 months because i was going crazy (like literally, lack of sleep was making me see things) and it was not pleasant but, on the up side, after that he has always been able to go to sleep easily and stress free after reading several books with us. if he's not tired then he gets up and i know that if he's laid down for several minutes and he's still awake that he's really not tired.

my dd was pretty much the same except i did what the pp did and started pulling the nipple out early and half the time she seriously just rolled over and went to sleep. i was amazed.

I had considered night-weaning DS1 when I was pg with DS2, but I was worried about encouraging him to wean altogether, since I wanted to CLW (and he has weaned on his own! ). I thought about it again with DS2 during this pregnancy, and I went back and forth on it a lot. I finally decided that it would have been a good idea...except for the fact that the baby is coming any time now, and so any type of change in nursing is not going to be a good idea for him. I guess I kind of shot myself in the foot with that one...

Originally Posted by Maluhia

What about working on the Pantley Pull Off from The No Cry Sleep Solution with this new baby so that you won't always have to?

You know, I always forget that I have NCSS and did read it when DS1 was younger. I don't remember why I didn't end up applying any of her methods. I'm guessing that, at the time, I decided it wasn't worth it, but my view has definitely changed on that.

How soon can you do the pull-off? I'm guessing that with a newborn this would be an issue, since you want to make sure that they get as much milk in them as possible. I mean, i know that the baby is going to tell me if he/she isn't done anyway, so maybe that's a moot point...

Originally Posted by Louisep

Agree with pp, unless your baby sleeps well, the grass isn't greener. I had to rock, bounce, dance repeat and dh would not do. This did stop by 10 months though. Now we lie down and cuddle to sleep. And repeat at night. I still don't get anymore sleep.

Well, with DS2 he DID sleep well. He was actually an awesome sleeper for the first five months (he was somehow magically sleeping through the night at 6 weeks, which had nothing to do with any sleep training that we were employing...Jay Gordon says this is impossible, but when I shared my story with him at a LLL conference last year, he was rather stumped!), so I really thought it wouldn't be an issue for us. However, the day he turned five months old, everything changed, and it's been a struggle since then.

FTR, I'm not looking for a small baby to STTN (I just want to clarify that in case it sounded like that from what I just said above). I don't know that I'm even looking for an older baby/toddler to STTN. I just don't know that I can do another few years (or more) of it taking up to an hour every night to nurse a child to sleep, with similar situations at nap time. It's draining me emotionally and physically.

Originally Posted by Louisep

One thing that was awesome for awhile was a baby hammock. Between 3.5-5 months either of us could rock him to sleep in that. Then he started rolling over in it and went through a major sleep regression.

I've thought about these, but something freaks me out about them. Not sure why...

Originally Posted by lkmiscnet

Please pardon my ignorance (I'm a first time mom to a 9 mo old DS), but why the objection to the pacifier? If you're being used as a human pacifier and your child has that need to suck, what's the downside?

The reasons that I'm opposed to pacifiers are:
-Interference with lactational amenorrhea
-Contribution to orthodontic issues
-The opportunity to ignore the reason that a baby is fussing or crying. So often, I see pacifiers just popped into a fussy baby's mouth, w/o the real issue being addressed. I'm not saying that anyone here does that, but I do see it often, and it's not something that I'm willing to leave an open door to for my child. I've seen it with plenty of EBF moms who just want to get a few more things done before they have to nurse their two-week-old, and it breaks my heart.

Anyway, those are my reasons. I don't pass any judgment on anyone who chooses to do differently, but those are the reasons for my family.

Originally Posted by rzberrymom

Did you swaddle either of your kiddos? I didn't with my first (who always nursed to sleep) but use a miracle blanket with my second--she has pretty much never needed to nurse all the way to sleep because of that thing. It relaxes her at night and she'll go to bed wide awake and smiling at me. I don't use it during the day, but she'll happily drift off on her own in the middle of the living room floor while my 5 year old is dancing around. For the rest of her naps, I have her in a wrap and she drifts off to sleep in that too.

Swaddling always seemed to slip my mind with my boys. I've been thinking it about every day lately, so that maybe I won't forget to try it out with this baby! I think that it could have been really helpful for DS1, if only I had remembered to keep up with it after the first few weeks!

Originally Posted by rzberrymom

I definitely use a pacifier for an assist though. The kid was furious if I tried to get her to nurse for comfort, but instead wanted to suck on my finger for hours every day and I couldn't keep it up. She has no need for the pacifier at night though, as long as she's swaddled.

Again, DS2 has changed so much since his first five months. In the beginning, he wasn't really interested in comfort nursing, and didn't want to suck on anything else either. I don't know what happened at five months that made everything go awry...

Originally Posted by beebalmmama

When ds 1 was getting older (2 or so), we started nursing before getting in bed. But this was easier for me then because he left the family bed at 18 months. So we would nurse in my bed and then head to his bed to sleep. I'm not sure what your sleep arrangement is though.

DS1 didn't leave our bed until he was four. I'm hoping to get DS2 out sooner rather than later, but I don't know how that's going to go with the baby coming. A few months ago, he was sleeping with DS1 for a good part of the night, but then I got to pregnant to be able to get in bed with them (they have this bed w/a mattress on the floor, under the bunk), so he wasn't going to sleep down there anymore. I'm hoping that he'll want to sleep with DS1 again soon after the baby is born, but we shall see...

Originally Posted by rzberrymom

I forgot another thing that has helped. We EC, and so at bedtime I nurse her on both sides and then take her to the potty. Having an empty bladder definitely helps her drift off to sleep peacefully, and taking her to the potty after nursing also means that she got used to falling asleep without being on the breast. I don't generally EC during the night, but I can if I need to--she responds to the cue to pee, so if she's restless at night and nursing like crazy I can cue her to pee in the little potty and she'll go back to sleep peacefully.

If you're interested in that, the book Diaper Free Baby helped me so much when I was getting started.

I've gone back and forth on the EC issue, and at this point, I've decided that it's not something I can handle adding to the load. I know that's kind of silly, since women did it forever before diapers came around, but they also lived much differently than we do. I wish it were an option for me right now, because I certainly hate changing diapers with toddler poop in them!

Originally Posted by D_McG

I got 'nursed out' with my first, too. So with my second I was just more in tune with my own needs. That meant that I was going out once a month and DD would have to deal with DH at bedtime. If DS needed me then DD would have to go to sleep with DH. If I was all touched out from the day then I wasn't going to nurse to sleep. If nursing to sleep was taking too long and I was getting skin crawly with it the I'd do something else.

Yeah, I pretty much told DH the other day that sometimes he's just going to have to take care of putting DS2 to sleep, and they're going to have to figure out how to make it work. I always remind him that if I died today, he'd have to figure out a solution. I know it's not the same thing at all, but I just hate the fact that I'm the go-to just because I'm here (and I don't mean that as a slam to my DH; I try not to put too much pressure on him, because he has three jobs so that I can stay home with our children, which means he's usually working 7 days/week, sometimes 70 hours/week).

Originally Posted by D_McG

I have with few exceptions never nursed DD while grinding my teeth. I promised myself and her that I wouldn't do that. That I would consider our nursing relationship to be precious and wouldn't make it into the ugly thing it became with DS. I would weigh my needs as carefully as I weighed hers (and understand that they are often inextricably linked).

She still nurses to sleep a lot. But it's fine. Because she has from almost the very start gotten used to falling asleep in other ways and with other people. It hasn't always been tear free (of course she is always comforted) . But there are four of us with needs in this house and the person making the most noise isn't always the person with the greatest need.

Thank you so much for your encouraging words!

Originally Posted by almadianna

You really cant make a child not nurse to sleep if they have a high need to suck, I also dont like pacifiers and have had two kids that have the high need to suck thing. The only thing I can suggest is having them suck their thumb.

Well, DS2 doesn't have a high suck need, just DS1 did. I realize that might not have been clear from my OP, so I apologize for that. So, I really think that things could have been different for DS2 if I had done them different from the beginning...

Besides that, even though DS1 had a high suck need, he never had an issue falling asleep with DH's grandma, who did nothing other than rock him. He was also able to fall asleep in the car, and sometimes on my back in the MT. He was never sucking at any of those times, so

[ktmama]

FWIW, even if you did offer a paci, it's still only one other method. IME, a mama needs several tricks up her sleeve! My own experience with ds is that I've had to change things up A LOT!

My ds has a high suck need and I had a strong let down early, so nursing to sleep has never worked for us. Even if it had, I don't think I would have encouraged it based on my experiences with my dd 1 and 2. So, that's why I've had a paci for him, but only at bedtime. Now that he's nine mo, he sucks on it for a minute or two and then spits it out (that's how I know I can safely lay him down).

Another thing I've done is not nurse him in his/our room. Now I'm nursing in his room, but then getting him into his jammies after that. Have you considered just having your dh put the new baby to bed (you know, after a few months when a routine starts being more important)? I can't imagine being solely responsible for getting three little kids into bed every night....

I'm sure you'll come up with a great plan!

[nina_yyc]

Originally Posted by D_McG

I got 'nursed out' with my first, too. So with my second I was just more in tune with my own needs. That meant that I was going out once a month and DD would have to deal with DH at bedtime. If DS needed me then DD would have to go to sleep with DH. If I was all touched out from the day then I wasn't going to nurse to sleep. If nursing to sleep was taking too long and I was getting skin crawly with it the I'd do something else.

I have with few exceptions never nursed DD while grinding my teeth. I promised myself and her that I wouldn't do that. That I would consider our nursing relationship to be precious and wouldn't make it into the ugly thing it became with DS. I would weigh my needs as carefully as I weighed hers (and understand that they are often inextricably linked).

She still nurses to sleep a lot. But it's fine. Because she has from almost the very start gotten used to falling asleep in other ways and with other people. It hasn't always been tear free (of course she is always comforted) . But there are four of us with needs in this house and the person making the most noise isn't always the person with the greatest need.

Great post.

[tanyam926]

It sounds like you are just tired in general w/ soon to be 3 kids so close in age. That's definately understandable.

The fact is that babies need help to go to sleep, it's biological and has nothing to do parenting techniques. Some need more help than others. Breastmilk actually has sleep inducing substances in it.

I think that in order to stay sane when we become parents we need to be flexible and not get too stuck on ideas about what babies should and should not do or be like. This has REALLY helped me in my mothering journey.

I have always felt that nursing my babies to sleep is so much easier than other methods. (Ds1 always needed way more rocking/bouncing/walking the hallway than my others). If I am nursing someone to sleep then dh has had to run interference w/the other kids. Maybe that would work at your house too?

Basically what I am trying to say is that it's okay that your babies all nurse to sleep. Most babies prefer to go to sleep that way and it doesn't last forever. It's also okay to try different things if that's not working for you but if nursing to sleep is just easier or those other things don't work as well, that's okay too.

I am trying to be encouraging but I don't think it's coming out well. You are a wonderful mama, you are tired, being a mom is soooooo hard. I know how you feel. Just give yourself permission to do what works best, whatever that is, and try to work everything else around it.

Sorry I can't express myself very well. Hope you find something that works.