Sleep Training: How to stop nursing baby to sleep

#sleeptraining #babysleeptraining #babysleepmadesimple
2024 Update: Want to Get Your Newborn to Accept Sleeping in the Bassinet (Rather than your Arms?)
How to Stop Co-Sleeping Guide Here:

Sleep Training: How to stop nursing baby to sleep
Getting your baby to sleep through the night requires that your baby or toddler learn to fall asleep on their own. Weaning off nursing to sleep teaches your baby to fall asleep independently. The reason why this is so important is it enables your baby to sleep long stretches and eventually sleep through the night.

In this video I walk you through each step of stopping nursing to sleep and getting baby to go down drowsy but awake. Most moms are convinced their baby can't learn another way of falling asleep, but I promise you, they ALL can!

I talk about the Shush/Pat method in this video, but you can use any method like Ferber sleep training, the Chair Method, Sleep Lady Shuffle, Pick Up Put Down and no cry sleep training.

CONNECT WITH JILLY:

Transcription:
The first thing I would recommend is that you change around the order of your Peaceful Nightly Ritual, or your bedtime routine. Because if we feed or if we nurse our babies too close to bedtime, often what we find is that your baby is going to associate feeding with falling asleep. Your baby is going to need feeding to fall back asleep.

Ideally, you have more than 10 minutes between your baby feeding and falling asleep. In our Peaceful Nightly Ritual, we put books in the middle. You go through all of the bedtime routine. You have a bath, then you give your baby a little massage. You put on pyjamas and a sleepsack. Next, we feed with the lights on. And then, we read baby a book. Then baby goes into his bed. The white noise is playing, the lights go off. So you’re really separating feeding and falling asleep, which is different than nursing your baby to drowsy and then immediately putting him in the crib.

What you want to always keep in mind is, every night I want to remove myself more and more from helping baby fall asleep. So if you’re currently doing Shush Pat for 10 minutes while he falls asleep, then tonight, try to shorten it to 7 minutes. Then sit in your chair. You can sing, or you can shush while you’re sitting in your chair, but it’s less hands on. On Night 2, try to do it for 4-5 minutes of the Shush Pat, and then sit in your chair and do more verbal reassurance, and your physical presence is reassuring him. Once he’s got used to having no more Shush Pat and you’re only sitting in the chair as he falls asleep, then every night or two, work on just moving your chair a little farther from his bed.

What’s most important, no matter what method you choose, is that you take note of how much hands-on assistance you’re doing tonight to help your little one fall asleep, and you do less tomorrow, and less the next night. And you physically move yourself more and more toward the door.

We want your baby ending up falling asleep completely on his own and without you in the room, so that he’s 100% able to fall asleep independently. This will help him resettle during the night. Once your baby can do this, you’re going to see the sleep stretches automatically double or even triple.

It can be really hard to keep track of it when we’re tired, busy moms! So tonight and each following night, write down on a little Post-it note how long you were in the room helping him. Always make sure you’re moving towards helping him less and less. Take your phone in there if you need to, so you can watch the clock, because it can be hard to keep track of time when you’re in the baby’s bedroom.

If he wakes in the middle of the night and you think he’s genuinely hungry, that’s okay. Go ahead and feed him if he’s hungry.But make sure that he stays awake during his feed. And even if he falls asleep during his feed, then you want to sit him up, you want to burp him - do whatever you can to wake him up a little bit, to get him going back into his crib as awake as possible.

There are many ways to teach babies to fall asleep on their own, and to sleep through the night. In my program, 21 Days to Peace and Quiet, I have several step-by-step video guides for you to follow. I walk you through how to pick the right method for your baby.

[courtshaw]

First of all, thank you for getting to the point! So many of these videos are way longer than they need to be!

Couple of questions...
1. Do you do anything different for naps?
2. What if we share a room with our baby?

Thanks!

[Esra.oztrk]

How peaceful is your voice. I wish the topic that you are talking would be that peaceful though

[bethanstilgoeart]

Finally a video with really clear useful information! Thank you

[Beanz]

Unrelated but you are the 2nd Jill I’ve ever seen with brown hair besides myself and my husbands cousin. Anyone-great video! Desperate to get my 1 yo sleeping w/o baba before my 3rd arrives

[trishespi]

Hi! Thank you for your super insightful and helpful videos :)

My recently turned 5 month old baby is EBF and has been sleeping in her own room/crib since about 3 months (previously we co-slept). She naps pretty adequately throughout the day and is quite active during her awake times. She also, for most part sleeps through the night and occasionally (quite rarely though) wakes up in the middle of the night to feed.

My situation is, I’d like to wean off nursing her to fall asleep so that she can really learn how to soothe herself back asleep and to start her bedtime routine earlier. Currently we give her a bath at ~8:30 and then I nurse her from 8:45/9-10. 10 is when she’s fast asleep and I put her down in her crib and she sleeps in till about 6:30-7am.

I know it’s really not a terrible situation to be in, but I’d really like to get my evenings back if possible.

TL;DR : 5 month old baby EBF. I’d really like to: 1) wean off baby nursing to fall asleep and 2) be able to start her bedtime earlier (which I know is just an adjustment on our part to get back to getting used to having to feed her 1-2 night since we’re putting her down earlier).

Would really appreciate your advice :)

[carlyescotocalmes]

Our 7 month old is great with independent sleep at night but we’ve had a hard time breaking feeding to sleep and contact making during the day. We tried sleep training for naps for 6 weeks before we decided to take a break and try to wean her fully off the feeding and contact mapping before trying again. Any wisdom here?

[kaylacrandall]

Thanks so much! What about nursing to sleep for naps? My baby generally only falls asleep for naps while he's nursing lately.

[valeriecunningham]

Will this work on an 10.5 month old? She only wants to be held for naps and we cosleep. I have a crib next to the bed and a crib in her room but she refuses to sleep away from me. Wants to be rocked to sleep, sleep nurses at night, ect. This is my second kid and my first was like this too. I have to be doing something wrong. Having my kids back to back, I haven't really slept in like 3.5 years peacefully. And honestly I'm just tired and desperate, but I can't do cry it out method. Your reply would be so appreciated.

[mirabizati]

Hey! I have a 4 month baby. He typically sleeps through the night with 1 feeding sometimes 2. During the day he is a cat napper. His naps never last longer then 30 minutes. Which I have been ok with. I feel like we have a good thing going. But recently my son has been resisting eating. So I have been nursing him to sleep and he has now developed a nurse to sleep habit. I’m so nervous about this. Also, I’ve been hearing so much about a 4 month sleep regression and not being able to self settle being a problem. I’m just wondering if there is something I could be doing to get ahead of it and to break the habit of feed to sleep. I would love some advice!! Thank you in advance

[ninak.]

I am Feeding my baby to sleep for bed time and for naps. She is 11 months old and She still cosleeps, Because the minute I put her in the crib, She cries and keeps waking up. I started following your bed time routine, but we do books then Feeding and Sleeping. I would Like to change it Like you suggested - to put the books time after the feed. However, it is hard for me to feed in sitting position, we usually lay down in my bed and that’s how she ends up sleeping too. The problem is she would nurse few minutes then stops, gets distracted and then continues to eat. This goes on for one hour and then she falls asleep. If I take her to her crib awake, she keeps crying and I take her out thinking she did not eat enough.
What do you suggest? Should I not feed her in my bed or should she only have limited time to eat?
This is very exhausting during nap times, because it takes 1 hour to put her to sleep and then she would sleep only 30 min.

[meminchii]

My baby can only fall asleep in stroller outside, but can only KEEP sleeping nursing. So it doesn't have to do with "association" because no matter how he falls asleep he will eventually, in his sleep, search for the breast to keep sleeping. So he wakes me up 8-15 times per night. If he wakes up completely we need to start over and go out in the stroller no matter weather, just so that he can fall asleep in the stroller and 15-40 minutes later wake up searching for the breast and then I move him to my bed... He is 8 months, its not a phase he has always done that, he is also a high need baby. So I don't understand what to do anymore 😔

[alanahernandez]

Would this work with a 14 month old toddler?

[AsakuraWhoa]

Hello. Please help me, I've been so stressed. Everytime I try to stop nursing to sleep, my baby ends up not being able to sleep and losing a nap. She even goes to have less than 7 hours of sleep a day. At 8 months old, I know this is dangerous for my baby. What do I do? I'm doing everything gradually, and find that despite trying again she just immediately gives up sleeping. This is the 3rd day and I'm not sure if I should continue

[jenniferm.bartling]

Thank you so much! will try the books and keeping him more awake feeding
Are pacifiers recommended to replace a night feeding? My 7 month old son wakes up for formula too many times a night hopefully tonight will be different🤣🙏🏻

[JamieR]

Great thoughts! What weeks/ moths does this technique apply to?

[SlaineSlayn]

How can I wean my 7 month old baby from nursing during nap time? I really need to go to work soon so I plan to wean her off during the day and nurse at night. Please help meee

[marianemashkalo]

Sounds reasonable. No cry out, thanks god

[starkissedshadow]

My baby cries if I put her down DBA, probably because of a feeding association so I’ll try to break that first and pat/sway her to sleep and then I’ll introduce simply putting her in the crib?

[esberr]

What is they start to cry during sush pay ?

[ayuleung]

Hello thanks for you information. I do struggle with my one and a half month old baby at the moment. He can sleep better if he can have both side of breastmilk. He does sometimes at night, but lately he will only have one side then fall asleep, couldnt wake him up. But he can only sleep for one hour then need to be fed again. It drives me crazy, can I do something to.improve it? Thanks a lot