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We sleep trained my son which meant removing that association. But I think I've decided I'm ok with nursing my little girl to sleep. My ideas about that have sort of changed. Nursing to sleep is so natural. I think there is probably a reason for that.

We've pretty much always nursed to sleep. At 7.5 months P decided that she didn't want to nurse to sleep & started putting herself to sleep for both naps & bedtime, but she has since picked nursing back up. I don't see nursing to sleep as an infant/toddler as a problem though & feel that's the whole purposed design of the nursing relationship so I don't feel any need to stop it. We also don't sleep train so that's not an interference... During times of WW, teething, or sickness I just assume there will be sleep disturbances & just roll with it. I guess after seeing G, who is almost 9, grow I realize that many of these things will naturally fall into place in the coming years. *shrugs shoulders*

@runsyellowlites: I'm really glad I read your post. Part of what makes me afraid of nursing #2 is that I attribute some of dd's good sleep habits to not nursing, but it helps to hear I put into perspective.

I nursed LO to sleep for almost 2 years. Every nap, every night! That would have sounded like a looooong time to me at the 6-month mark, but as LO heads toward 3 years old, it really doesn't seem long at all. LO self-weaned at just shy of 2.5 years. It was a gradual process, but he dropped nursing sessions on his own. We replaced the ones before sleep with back-rubs. First he wanted to nurse and then have a back rub, and later he just wanted a back rub. It was shockingly simple. We never sleep-trained/CIO, but we do have a regular routine before nap time and bed.

And I fully agree with@runsyellowlites: Things will fall into place naturally with time! The rough patches are almost certainly just that--patches.

I think it depends on how the baby does with it...I am getting a little frustrated with nursing to sleep bc she gets so comfortable on the boob and loves it so much, that she KNOWS the instant I'm trying to get her off of it. Last night it took almost an hour to get her down, then she kept waking herself up and crying bc she rolled over and was mad she was on her tummy so I had to go in like 6 or 7x and nurse her back to sleep. This makes me fantasize about weaning. And tonight we are doing a bottle at bedtime so we can see if we can speed things up. DH can give her a bottle and she falls asleep in 10 mins. But on me, she doesn't want to leave the boob and it can get exhausting when my entire night is spent nursing her in the hopes of getting her down for the night!

@PrincessBaby: DH started giving a bottle for bedtime when LO was a few months old. Not only does it speed up the bedtime routine, but it's their own special bonding time. DH LOVES it, and LO definitely prefers her daddy at bedtime. It's pretty sweet

We stopped nursing to bed a while back (my son is 7 months), because I was worried about the association. So now we nurse, then bath, then jammies, and my husband reads to him. His "bad" sleep habit is being cuddled to sleep

However, for all night wakings (and man, are there night wakings!) he's nursed until he falls asleep. It's not a problem for us now (i.e. I don't mind it), so we're going with it.

We nurse to sleep and on demand through the night. We had the same things happen as you around the 6 month mark and nursing to sleep became a really great way to end our evenings. Its calm, comfy and we both really love it. We have a rock solid bedtime routine that ends with a long lazy nursing session. LO will take a bottle at bedtime for Dad/Grandma so I am not worried about it.

ETA: On weekends we nurse to sleep for naps too

LO is 3.5 months and we kind of nurse to sleep. When she was super tiny she kept falling asleep while nursing and swaddling made it happen faster. Now it's bath, lotion, story (if she can handle it), nurse, swaddle, rock a bit and then bed. She usually falls asleep while nursing and stirs a little when I swaddle her. I rock her for a minute or two and off she goes. I like the idea of a bottle before bed, but I already miss the morning feed - she wakes up after I leave for work, so DH gives her a bottle. I don't want to miss nighttime too.

So I debated not saying anything because I didn't want to scare you, but it's also a positive story, so here goes. Ellie nursed to sleep until she was five. Yep. Five. We never tried to do it any differently. Now she is a wonderful sleeper and falls asleep on her own every night. I don't think it hurt her in the least, and when she was ready to wean she seemed to also be ready to make an easy transition into putting herself to sleep without the nursing. I guess I feel like you can have success even if you never actively push. I never formally night weaned her, so she was nursing in the night pretty much until she weaned (if she would wake for any reason, which she often did), and I never actively weaned her, and I never tried to "teach" her to self-soothe or fall asleep on her own. As she grew up and matured, she figured all of that out. So you might not want to do things that way, but if you choose to, just know that you are not setting your child up for failure or depriving them of some crucial skill they will never have any other opportunity to learn. Children learn and grow so much with all sorts of levels of guidance and help, and whatever you choose to do you are not making a choice that cannot be re-visited or re-evaluated or changed. This parenting gig is all about evolution. You'll evolve together and figure out what works!