What You Should Know About Feeding to Sleep

Babies naturally get sleepy while eating, especially when they are newborns. But is it ok to feed your baby to sleep consistently? In this blog post I will cover everything you need to know about feeding to sleep.

Is it “wrong” to feed my baby to sleep?

Let’s start by answering this question…NO! Every family and baby is different. As long as it is safe and age-appropriate, there is no “wrong” way to help your baby sleep. If feeding to sleep works for you, then please continue to do so. You’ll know it is no longer working when it doesn’t feel sustainable anymore and you can’t imagine continuing your current sleep routine for the foreseeable future.

Here are a few reasons you may not want to rely on feeding your baby to sleep:

• If your baby is falling asleep in the middle of a feed, they may not be taking a full feed before passing out. This can lead to wanting to eat more frequent smaller snacks all day rather than full feeds every 2-3 hours. Babies on a habit of snacking all day often struggle with shorter naps and more frequent night wake ups.

• Babies can eventually become reliant on feeding to fall asleep. Some families are fine with this! However many families will find that their baby isn’t able to lengthen naps independently and is waking frequently at night. If your baby relies on feeding to fall asleep, they will most likely wake up after short naps or frequently in the middle of the night needing help to fall back asleep.

• Feeding to sleep can often become unsustainable. This may look something like feeding your baby, laying them down just for them to wake up quickly after, then putting them back on the breast or bottle to try and get them to go back to sleep even though they just ate. This can feel frustrating and may make it hard for you or your baby to get restorative rest.

So what can you do to move away from feeding to sleep?

It depends on the age of your baby.

0-3 Months:

If your baby is younger than 4 months, I recommend moving their feeds to the beginning of their wake windows. Babies 4 months old and younger are typically only awake 45-90 minutes max. In this case, an eat-wake-sleep routine can work well. Moving the feed to when your baby wakes up from a nap will help them stay awake while eating and will break the association between eating and sleeping.

Rather than rely on feeding when it comes to naptime or bedtime, you can implement the 6 S’s to soothe them to sleep. These are:

• swaddle

• side

• shush

• suck

• sway

• eyebrow stroke

4+ Months

If your baby is older and is starting to stay awake for 2+ hours at a time, an eat-wake-sleep routine usually stops working. In that case, I would move their feeds to the middle of their wake window or 20-30 minutes before their nap.

From here, you have a couple choices. The first is to start rocking or patting your baby to sleep rather than feeding. While your baby still relies on you to fall asleep with this method, it is often more sustainable because it doesn't need to involve milk every single time you need to help your baby get back to sleep. It also allows you to move away from a "snacking" schedule with your baby. And finally, if you are breastfeeding, it allows others to be able to put your baby down as well so they don't only rely on you.

One thing you shoud know is if you decide to rock or pat to sleep rather than feeding at 4+ months, your baby may continue to wake in between sleep cycles (usually 30-45 minutes into a nap and every 2-3 hours at night) needing that same help to get back to sleep.

If you are ready for your baby to take 1-2 hour naps on their own and start sleeping longer stretches at night, you'll want to actually teach your baby to fall asleep completely independently.

You can do this in a gradual or accelerated way depending on your baby's temperament, your timeline, and your baby's needs. For an individualized step-by-step plan with ongoing group support, join my next Group Sleep Coaching Session.

We have a new group sleep coaching session starting at the beginning of each month. Join the group now, dive into the course, then bring me all your questions to our live kickoff call at the beginning of the month before getting started (or send me a message if you can't make the call!) Don't miss out on this amazing opportunity for better rest for you and your baby.

CLICK HERE TO JOIN THE GROUP!