There are a few ways to break the feed to sleep association, but the most common is to gradually reduce the amount of time spent feeding during the night. This can be done by either cutting down on the number of night feedings, or by lengthening the interval between feedings.
Many parents face the issue of sleep association but most of them are unaware of the methods on How to break feed to sleep association of the baby.
Here you will learn how to break feed to sleep association.
Babies generally wake up in the middle of the night, and even though some superhero babies start sleeping all night by age three or four, the majority wake up and cry for their parents.
The infant is conditioned to fall asleep (or sleep again) while sucking on something. A newborn begins to fall asleep immediately after birth while breast-fed or with a bottle in their mouth.
However, when big habits are formed they can be hard to unlearn, especially if a baby falls asleep sucking for more than six months.
The practice of feeding to sleep helps many newborns sleep well. If the baby consistently wakes up in the night due to a short nap, a prolonged settling, or another frequent night wake-up, it is time to start working on breaking that association.
It will teach her how to fall asleep independently.
But first, you need to know.
Why Do We Stick to Feeding To Sleep?
Often, feeding newborns to sleep is one of the best ways to get them to sleep. Breast milk can create a powerful combination with nursing and sucking so that tired babies often fall asleep when fed.
Additionally, newborns have trouble surviving for longer than an hour at a time, so if feeding takes longer than an hour, it’s increasingly likely the baby will nod off during feeding.
It is still possible to get your baby to sleep by feeding them to sleep as your baby gets older. The baby soon learns to fall asleep by feeding, which leads to a firm habit.
As time goes on, children will want to be fed back to sleep every time they wake during the night, which is on average six times a night for a child over five months.
You will need to feed them when their sleep cycle phase is in the awake phase, then whenever their sleep cycle phase returns to that awake phase they will cry out for you to feed them back to sleep. There is a sleep-feed association.
How To Break Feed To Sleep Association? Here is what you need to do.
A structured schedule for daytime and bedtime for babies over 5 months is recommended, for example, a 9 am, 1 pm, and 4.30 pm schedule, as well as a 7 pm schedule for the evening.
In addition, you can feed your baby whenever she wakes up during the day rather than right before bedtime.
If you want to teach the baby self-settling, wait several days for it to develop new sleep associations. Try to put your baby into a sleeping bag after you have fed her, keep her warm with a comforter while she has her diaper changed, and play white noise as she falls asleep.
Then, these associations will replace YOU as the major sleeping association.
You should stop feeding the baby when she falls asleep. Instead, feed her until drowsy. Place her in bed, pat her, sssh her, put firm pressure on her stomach, and let her fall into a deep sleep on bad.
The most important part of the weaning process is teaching your newborn to fall asleep in her bed rather than on you.
If you feed your baby at 6.30 pm, you should try to awaken him for 10 minutes before bedtime. This can be done through cuddling, stories, walking around the house, or massage.
If you currently feed your baby until she is asleep, you might want to increase the time gradually. If you feed the baby tonight, aim to get them into bed within 30 seconds, tomorrow, aim for a minute.
Feed your baby until calm and then pat until drowsy in bed as soon as they fall asleep in bed normally.
After the feed, you can increase the amount of time your baby is awake between the time he has a feed and when he is put to bed awake.
You can use a dummy to settle an extremely sucky baby at night and bedtime. About 5 months after a baby is born, the baby can learn to put his dummy back in himself, which means you won’t have to feed him back to sleep!
You should also gradually reduce your baby’s patting until he or she becomes drowsy or falls asleep.
It is also important to maintain consistency. If your infant wakes up at night, do the same thing for your bedtime! If your baby can be put down drowsy but awake, do the same at night.
As your baby learns to get to sleep without sucking, you unlatch her mouth and gently close her mouth repeatedly. It requires consistency and patience, but it will work if you’re dedicated to it.
To get her to fall asleep without being rocked once she’s used to falling asleep that way. After rocking her a bit, you then stop and sit, holding her calmly, before she actually sleeps.
You may have to rock again if she protests. Even after you stop rocking, she will soon start falling asleep. This may take 25 attempts.
During the first week, you should keep your bedtime routine as it is, just plays the music at a low volume.
Even though CD labels promise otherwise, it will take 7 to 10 days for your baby to become accustomed to any type of music, and you want to make sure he has a positive association with this new routine.
When you’ve worked hard to ensure your baby’s sleep is a calm and positive experience, you may not want to go too quickly.
This is the point when you have to reassure yourself that you’re not in for a serious challenge, but it’s possible to teach your baby to fall asleep without feeding.
Your baby will be asleep in your arms once he has become accustomed to relaxing without being fed or rocked to sleep. He will then be fed then placed in his cot when he is relaxed and calm.
If rocking seems to help, you can keep your hand on him firmly and gently hold his hand in yours.
You can set the stage for long-term sleep patterns in your child by teaching them healthy habits at an early age!
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