Does feeding to sleep cause more night-waking

Have you ever heard the concept that feeding to sleep or supporting your baby to sleep is the cause of your baby's night-wakings?

There is this idea floating around that how your baby falls asleep directly correlates with INCREASING night-waking, to the point where parents regularly stress about their baby falling asleep any other way than self-settling to sleep in fear that this will be causing night-waking.

So where does this idea come from?

40ish years ago someone looking at baby sleep made an observation that babies who settled to sleep by themselves were less likely to wake overnight, a theory was hypothesised that how a baby falls to sleep dictates if they wake regularly or not. However, we know that correlation doesn't always equal causation...

What we now know about infant sleep is complicated and the above hypothesis doesn't fully encompass that, if it were then by not supporting a baby to sleep everyone's sleep troubles would be solved, but it isn't that simple, there is much more to it.

Relevant segue before we get to the point:

Research done in the 1970's by Dr Thomas Anders identified that most babies are waking overnight and that babies fell into one of two groups, the "self-settling group" who would go back to sleep without parental assistance and not make much fuss. And the "signalling group" who would wake, signal for support and need parental assistance to get back to sleep.

The reality is that some babies signal (cry) when they wake up overnight, and others don't. The take-home message here is that all babies are waking during the night, and whether they need parental assistance to get back to sleep or not is heavily dependent on their temperament and what they have going on in life (development, teething, sickness etc).

Back to the idea that how a baby falls asleep (eg. fed or supported to sleep) will dictate if the wake a lot or not.

When looking at the research as a whole, it is highly likely that the babies that self-settle to sleep initially at the start of the night are more likely to have self-settler tendencies. It is also highly likely that the babies who require a little more support to get to sleep and prefer to feed to sleep, or be held to sleep, are signallers and when they wake, it is known about.

In summary:

The driving factor for whether a baby is waking overnight, or not, is less about how they get to sleep, and more about who they are as a person from a genetic, inbuilt perspective.

If your baby is waking through the night, you are not alone, you aren't doing anything wrong and your baby isn't broken. Provided the waking is sustainable for you, not excessive, and everyone is back to sleep quickly, then keep doing what you are doing. If you are feeling like it is hard, you are not managing (which btw is totally valid because sometimes baby sleep can feel so hard and that really impacts all elements of who you are as a human, I see you), then it might be time to reach out for support with someone that aligns with your values.

In case I am the right fit to support you, here are my current support options:

The Baby Sleep with Ainslee Community - if doors are currently open

1:1 support packages here.

Email hello@babysleepwithainslee.com if you have any further questions.