urgent help for baby sleeping habbit

hi, my daughter is almost 6 and half month now. the day she was born she is bottle feed by formula. she develop habbit of falling sleeping while drinking milk. its been from beginning like this i have to hold her and feed till she fall sleep. now she is growing up habbit is remain same. since she is now 7.8kg and getting heavier and my arm gets really tired holding her till she sleeps and then i put her on bed. is there any suggestion to break this sleeping habbit of falling sleep while feeding. i have tired many times she will not fall sleep without bottle in her mouth. please advise any suggestion.

She WILL fall asleep without the bottle in her mouth. It is just a matter of time (and frayed nerves). At a certain point, as you have noticed, children need to learn to fall asleep by themselves. The transition may be traumatic (mostly for you), but it needs to be done.


Do a search on "cry it out" on this board. There are also other methods but that one worked for us.

dear axptguy thanks for advise cry it out doesn't work. any other suggestions pls

At six months, it will probably take about a week to teach her a new habit -- so gird your loins, it will be a rough ride, not a matter of trying something for a day.


Try feeding her early -- before she is getting sleepy, which should let her finish up her milk, have a nice burp, and then lay her down in her bed and then stroke her forehead from her eyebrows to her hairline, pulling her eyes open just a little bit. Introduce her to a safe stuffed animal that is her cot-buddy [and if she takes to it, buy a second one and rotate them].


You are right now at the tail end of the time that it is easiest to teach babies how to fall asleep on their own [there is a window from about 4-6mo], so get on it right away, as it will only get more difficult.


There is a spectrum of ways to get kids to sleep, you will need to pick the one that is right for you and stick to it. If you can't deal with crying at all, try a search for Elizabeth Pantly and No Cry Sleep Solution; Traci Hogg [Baby Whisperer] has what I think of as an "intermediate" method of pick up, put down.


Whichever method you choose, don't screw up her schedule too much in the process. If you really want this to work, you need to make not taking a nap have consequences -- no other chance to sleep until the next appropriate time is approaching.


One thing that wierdly helps both of my kids when they get into that place where they think that they can't fall asleep on their own is to take them out for a long walk in the pram right around naptime for a couple of days. Neither of them can resist the rocking motion, and it seems to click something over in their brains to say "oh yeah! I can do this!"


The caveat is this: when I was a baby, my parents used to take me for a ride in the car to put me to sleep every night. Unfortunately, when I started to drive myself, it took me years to undo that training [I get incredibly sleepy after 20 minutes].

Try this website lots of sleep advice. The book/manual is amazing and can be bought from the site and I have followed it with my daughter and had a very settled and calm baby at bed time. It is a easy, straight forwatd approach to putting your baby into a sleep routine.

http://www.sleepandsettle.com.au/