Breaking the feed–sleep link gently
You want your baby to stop needing a feed to fall asleep, and you do not want to do it by leaving them to cry. That is entirely possible. The method is to move the feed in time rather than take it away.
4 min read
The association is between falling asleep and feeding, not between sleeping and being fed. So the work is not to remove the feed - it is to put a gap between the end of the feed and the moment of falling asleep, and then widen that gap.
Done gradually, the gap grows from a few seconds to several minutes over a couple of weeks, and at some point your baby is falling asleep in the cot with a full stomach rather than a mouth full of milk. Nothing dramatic happens on any single night.
The steps
Start at bedtime. Highest sleep pressure, easiest to change. Leave the night wakes completely alone until bedtime is working.
Move the feed up the running order. Feed, then bath, then pyjamas, then a book, then bed. Reordering is easier than shortening and does most of the work by itself.
Break the feed while they are awake. Even if it is only just. Rouse them gently - a stroke on the cheek, sitting them up - before putting them down.
Stay while they fall asleep. A hand on the chest, quiet words, the same each night. You are removing one thing and adding another, not simply subtracting.
Then work on the night wakes. Once bedtime is settled, take one wake at a time, and start with the one closest to morning.
What it will look like
The first few nights are usually the hardest, and protest at a changed routine is expected. What you are watching for is not silence - it is a shortening trend. Fifteen minutes of grumbling on night three, eight on night six, three on night ten.
If it gets worse rather than better over a week, the most common reason is that bedtime is at the wrong time. Fix the wake window before persisting with the method.
You are not taking the feed away. You are putting a few minutes between it and sleep, and then a few more.
How long
Two to four weeks for bedtime, and often another two or three for the night wakes, which frequently improve on their own once bedtime changes. Expect setbacks during teeth, illness and travel - going back to feeding to sleep for a few nights does not undo the work.
If you can, have the other parent do bedtime for the first week. For a breastfed baby, the presence of the person who smells of milk makes this considerably harder than it needs to be.
When it stalls
Two things stall it, and they look identical from the outside. The first is timing: if bedtime is at the wrong point in the wake window, no amount of gradual change will produce a baby who settles in the cot, and the method takes the blame. Check the window before concluding anything.
The second is going too fast. If the gap between the feed and the cot has jumped from thirty seconds to five minutes in a week, go back to two minutes and hold there for a fortnight. Stalling is almost never a reason to abandon the approach; it is usually a reason to make the steps smaller.
Who should do bedtime
If there are two of you, the non-feeding parent should take bedtime for the first week or two. For a breastfed baby this makes a considerable difference - being held by someone who smells of milk and not being fed is a much harder proposition than being held by someone who does not.
It also removes the temptation. A parent who could end the protest in thirty seconds by offering a feed will, at some point, offer the feed. Taking that option out of the room for a fortnight is often what makes the difference between a plan that works and one that stalls on night three.
When to stop troubleshooting
Pause during illness or teething and resume afterwards. Poor weight gain, feeding refusal or a baby who becomes distressed in a way that does not settle across several nights are reasons to stop and speak to your health visitor.
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