Nursing to sleep

DD is 3 1/2 months old and I nurse/rock her to sleep every night. It takes anywhere from 1/2 to 2 hours for her to fall asleep. Now that I am back at work, it's rather frustrating to spend so much time trying to get her to fall asleep. I've been told that I am developing bad habits by rocking her to sleep because she will not "learn" how to fall asleep by herself. I've been told to put her in her crib once she has been nursed and let her fall asleep on her own or cry it out.... I don't know how I feel about the CIO method.

What are your thoughts and experiences on putting a 3 month old to bed?

Re: Nursing to sleep

i'm still nursing him to "almost" sleep at 9 months. and i tried CIO a little and had to stop. i tried it believing it was best for him, but it didn't feel right after a while. so i still rock, nurse & sing my baby to sleep. the only time i don't is when he's sleeping in the car.

the point where it was taking me a long while to get him to sleep and stay asleep is when his doc rec. a little CIO, which to be frank did actually help. but it's hard :(

Re: Nursing to sleep

I used to nurse DD to sleep. Now I pump a bottle to give her at bedtime. I find the feeding to go much faster this way and she is groggy enough after the bottle that I can put her down awake and she'll suck her thumb until she falls asleep. I found she was comfort nursing at bedtime more than actually eating and it was taking a long time. The bottle works great!

Re: Nursing to sleep

2 hours of nursing/rocking to sleep seems a bit long... what is your routine before that? When is the last time she ate/napped before bedtime?

I nursed and rocked DD to sleep every single night for 9 months and never thought of any bad habits. I loved that time. Wouldn't do CIO, but really never needed to either... she would nurse for about 10 mins and i'd rock her for another 10 and she'd be out for the night.

DD is 15 months now and I still (try to) rock her to sleep every night. When she stopped nursing at 9 months she also stopped wanting to be rocked as much... I still try to every night though. Now I give her a bottle in the dark in her room on the glider and if she lets me rock her for a little I will. I figure I can never get this time back so I want to cuddle her as much as I can esp b/c i'm a FTWM.

Re: Nursing to sleep

i think its fine to nurse and rock her as long as its ok with YOU. this is what i did for DD until it started to take its toll on me. what used to take 5 minutes started to take 20, then 30. then eventually, she squirmed when being rocked and it just became harder and harder to put her down. at that point, she was 3.5 mos and i started to let her cry a bit when i put her down. she wouldnt cry long and just started to go to sleep on her own. so right now, for naps, she goes down on her own. but at night, i still nurse her to sleep. 95% of the time, she falls asleep nursing and i put her in bed and shes fine.