Breastfeeding before bed

[melbrad]

I have noticed that if I feed, give a bath before bed this wakes up not calm down my dd.  It seems to work best if we give a bath, feed, and then go to bed. However, the feed sometimes puts her to sleep.  This is the only time during the day where food is closely linked to sleep.  Is this setting her up for bad habits?  Any suggestions?

[JacobMarksMummy]

I thats what works for your DD then definatly dont change it! What you could do is wake her just a little so she is aware of the transition from breast to her bed. It doesnt take long for a bad habit to form and although one might not I wouldnt risk the chance, you could be setting yourself up for bigger problems later on. Let us know how she goes 

[Superman'sMom]

I have been feeding before bed sicen he was 4/5 months old for the same reasons. I would say try to avoid the falling asleep. I didn't think it would be much of a problem but it caused night wakings. So now I keep him up and make sure he is awake going into his bed. It willl be hard but now he almost knows not to fall asleep as strange as that sounds. If he starts to fall asleep he will sit himself up! Funny....but Fraiser's Mom suggested I have a storytime after the feed...I didn't need to do that but it is a good suggestion. It maybe harder to get him to sleep, atleast for a while, but it will be worth it to not have to wake up all night!

Hth, I know some babies that can fall asleep eating and not wake up, if you are a lucky one blessed with a easy sleeper than you maybe able to do this.

[x95stocchier]

I had the same problem. Try changing the diaper after the feed, but before you put her down.  If she can sleep through the change, then great for you and don't worry about it!  If she wakes up a little, you are teaching her the independent sleep skills.

My only concern would be if you are always going to have to be there to put her down....what I mean by this is if you want a night off, or out with DH, etc, can someone else get the same result with a bottle?

Good luck!

[Carter'sMama]

I did the last feed right before bed up until about a month ago    The only reason was that it was the only time all day where food was close to sleep time.  Carter would go down very easily for naps without a feed and at night if he was too wound up to drift on the boob he would still go down easily for bed.  Therefore I knew that he didn't NEED it for sleep.

I actually found that HE was the one who suddenly stopped falling asleep on the breast.  When this began to happen I started doing the last feed before his bath so he would not associate it with bed at all.  Then when I dropped that feed last week he didn't even notice.

What I did do too was I would feed him in our family room and hang out with DH and then when he was done (usually kind of asleep) I would walk to his crib with him on my shoulder to wake him up a bit.  He was almost always awake when I put him in his crib and I would just have to rub his belly a bit to settle him.

I must admit that doing the feed right before bed could set you up for bad habits in the future (I just lucked out I guess  ).  Why don't you do bath, bf, and then a quick story (at first then graduate to a longer story).  That is a good routine to carry on into toddlerhood.  Besides it's great to cuddle and read together even if they aren't paying attention to the story!  Dim the lights if you can and set up a relaxing atmosphere.  It might be just what she needs to doze off!

HTH