How To Stop Nursing Baby To Sleep? Nursing your baby could be one of the best times of motherhood for both of you. But it does come with its challenges.
You should know that there are two types of nursing: the regular feeding nursing schedule, which is a must for your baby’s health and development, but also the so-called comfort nursing.
Many new mothers tend to struggle with stopping comfort nursing as their baby grows older. A frequent complaint such as baby won’t go back to sleep without nursing, how to stop nursing to sleep one year old? Read on!
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How To Stop Nursing Baby To Sleep?
Some methods will help you stop nursing your baby to sleep, such as creating a nap routine that doesn’t involve nursing. Also, creating a sleep-friendly atmosphere will reduce your baby’s need for nursing to fall asleep. You can also allow the father to feed the baby at night to break the nursing before sleep habits.
We will address all these methods and more, as follows!
How to stop baby from comfort nursing?
Creating a napping schedule that doesn’t involve nursing will be a significant change in the right direction.
- This might not come so naturally at first, but if you stick to your new schedule, you will get rid of the comfort nursing habit eventually.
- The purpose of this new napping routine is to disassociate sleeping time from nursing time. You can start changing the napping routine by putting your baby to sleep outdoors where they can enjoy the sun and a breeze.
- Simultaneously with this napping routine, you should modify your nursing routine as well. Try nursing your baby at least one hour before nap time or after nap time.
- This type of schedule will help you put a gap between their sleep and eating time. It will be a good idea to start this type of schedule after your baby is one year old.
- After this age, babies are more flexible in terms of needs and schedules so you can adapt their schedule to yours in a more efficient way.
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How to get baby to sleep without nursing?
Creating the right environment to encourage your baby to fall asleep is also going to help a lot in this transition process.
- An excellent start for this is to reduce the lights and quiet the room down to help your baby fall asleep in proper conditions.
- You can put some background, ambient music if you want, but make sure you choose a tune that is soft and relaxing.
- White noise is known for helping babies fall asleep, and you can create that type of proper atmosphere better with such a noise too.
- Getting your little one used to such peaceful conditions before bedtime will not just reduce the need for comfort nursing. Still, it will also help them sustain great habits over the years.
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How to break feed to sleep association?
You might want to get the father involved for a change if you need to break the feed to sleep association.
- When you struggle with reducing comfort nursing, your partner might help more than you expect them to. For instance, the dad of the baby can cover the night time feeding. All you have to do is give them a bottle with milk and have them feed the baby before bedtime.
- However, this is also a transition phase by itself, so make sure you don’t convert it into a new routine that is unproductive.
- If your partner covers the last meal of the day, eventually, your baby will not associate sleeping with nursing, and they will be able to go to bed without milk unless they are hungry.
- If your baby is hungry, you shouldn’t skip feeding them before bedtime. So, it is vital to make the difference between comfort nursing and regular meals.
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Do babies grow out of feed to sleep phase naturally?
You might also wonder if your baby will grow out of the comfort nursing phase naturally, without your intervention.
- The truth is that all babies are different, and they will grow out of this stage at different ages.
- Some will need help, while others will just stop asking for comfort in nursing by themselves.
- But if your baby doesn’t stop this habit, it doesn’t mean that there is anything wrong with them.
- Most babies need assistance to dissociate sleep from nursing in a healthy manner.
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The main reason why most mothers want to end the comfort nursing phase is so they can get back to their sleeping schedule. But this has an excellent benefit for the baby as well.
If you help your baby get out of this phase, they will also find it easier to go from nursing to solid food.
Since they will not be so attached to nursing, introducing different dishes to them will not be as challenging, and this can be an impressive advantage later down the road!
Key References
- “HEALTH PROFESSIONALS’ GUIDE TO: CARING FOR YOUR BABY AT NIGHT. Accessed August 13, 2020. Link.
- “Creating a safe sleep environment for your baby”. Accessed August 13, 2020. Link.
- “Breastfeeding and Short Sleep Duration in Mothers and 6 to 11 Month Old Infants”. Accessed August 13, 2020. Link.
