Our bedtime routine thus far has been bath, pjs, bottle, and bed. She usually falls asleep drinking her bottle. It has worked beautifully so far, so we've never considered changing it. She has taken to waking up every night at 11:30 and 4:30 for the past week and a half. She doesn't go back down if I nurse her, and going back in to rock her or soothe her just make her furious. Is it possible to keep our normal routine, but sleep train for night wakings? Do we need to sleep train all together? How do we keep her from going to sleep with the bottle?
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We had the same routine and a similar problem. I changed a couple things during/after the feeding around 6 months: did her feeding with the light on, made sure that she finished the feeding if she was drifting off, and then after the feed, I would lay her down to put the sleep sack on, pick her up, turn the light off, and sing a quick lullabye with her in my arms before putting her down into bed. It wasn't a big change to the routine, but we tried to break up the direct feed->bed link.
She still sometimes conks out during the feeding, but usually rouses a bit when zipping up the sleep sack. We just subscribe to the "we're going to do the same routine every night, and then you're going to bed whether you are still awake or asleep" theory
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When we switched from nursing to the bottle before bed, we just moved the feed earlier in the routine. It's bath, massage/lotion/diaper while taking the bottle, then PJs and sleepsack.
I think if you can eliminate the eat-sleep association then sleep training for nightwakings may be easier.
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When we sleep trained we only did it for night wakings. (She was waking multiple times in the night and wanting her pacifier.) We still feed her a bottle and rock her to sleep at bedtime, although I'm thinking she is ready to drop that part of the routine around now.
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