Milkbank Blog
Soothing The Baby To Sleep
I just got online to type this after a couple of hours of lying next to my baby in bed. It’s basically torture when the sun goes down. I’m not kidding. I believe the problem is that she has gotten used to be nursed to sleep in our bed.
In the evening I usually put her down in her crib while she’s fast asleep. However after about a half an hour she usually wakes up and cries. Then I nurse her in bed and she stays with me and my snoring husband until the morning.
I am trying to find a way where she can sleep in her crib all night. When she was first born I used to just put her down and she would go to sleep herself. She still can do that if I catch her at the right time. For example her nap time is at noon and if she has been awake a couple of hours and looks drowsy than I will put her down and leave her in her room.
I also am worried that when I finally stop nursing her, she won’t want to let go of the breast at night. Maybe I worry too much about these sorts of things but hey, I’m sleep deprived.
A Babycenter article says this:
If your baby is used to breast- or bottle-feeding as he goes to sleep in your arms, you’ll have to break his need to suck to sleep. You can move your child’s feeding to earlier in the bedtime routine or slowly reduce the number of ounces or number of minutes of this feeding. Or when you see your baby starting to drift off during a feeding, promptly end his meal and finish the rest of the bedtime routine before laying him down.
Actually, this works because she does go to sleep after I unlatch her from my breast. It’s just getting her out of our bed that needs fixing!
As for leaving the baby in her crib to cry a little , that is a no-can-do for me since my son sleeps in the next room and there is no way we want him to wake up!
I guess I’ll just have to wait until this stage of hers is over. I will practice more of leaving her to sooth herself to sleep in the day though. A mom needs her rest!
(Photo: group weston)
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