15/12/2025
Ah, the Eat Play Sleep routine
I never understand this obsession with not letting your baby feed to sleep. It totally goes against normal baby behaviour. Babies love to breastfeed for all sorts of reasons, and being tired is one of them!
Mother Nature gave us sleep inducing hormones when we latch a baby on. They calm baby and make them drowsy. Why on earth wouldn't we use them? It is far easier, quicker and calmer than any other method of settling a baby
True, some babies don't feed to sleep as easily. I had one of these babies; due mostly to my large over-supply of milk with my 4th child. It was horrendous. I swear he didn't feed to sleep for the first 3 months of his life. So I had to find other ways to settle him (sling and dummy combo mainly), and it was a total nightmare and traumatic for both of us. He got so much milk so quickly that the hormones didn't have a chance to work their magic, and he was still awake once he was full, 3 minutes after starting to feed!
Thankfully, as my supply settled and he dealt with the flow better, he finally started feeding to sleep consistently at around 4 months. I have never been so happy! Just when many people seem to think they should stop this association, my baby had finally started doing it! What a relief!
So why on earth would you want to intentionally put yourself through that? The theory is to prevent babies from getting reliant on feeding to sleep. Our society is so scared of attachment. But attachment is healthy and necessary. Feeding to sleep is the biological norm, what we are meant to do. Eventually, they will stop relying on it naturally when they are ready. This could be 4 mths, 8 mths, 2 yrs, 4 yrs... You don't see many teenagers needing to feed to sleep! They will stop
And if it does become a problem later on, you can work on it when they are older and when they will find it easier to manage the change
Lastly, the method of settling that most closely replicates feeding to sleep is cuddling. So if you have to be out for nap time or bedtime and your baby usually feeds to sleep, a combination of cuddling and movement often does the trick. And you can leave some expressed milk if you wish
Experiences?
