My 2nd is turning out to be a "baba addict" like my first was. With #1, I let him nurse allllll the time because I was trying to figure out/maximize my supply (I struggle with low supply due to insufficient tissue). I held him while he napped and he literally nursed the whole time. It ended up confining me to the couch and making things hard when I needed to go somewhere, or when I had visitors/was home with family for the holidays. I enjoyed spending the lazy time with him, but it ended up being a requirement for him to sleep to have a boob in his mouth.
So I now have baby #2 who is only 12 days old, but she also is waking up from naps to nurse back to sleep, and then nurse while she's in-and-out of sleep. There's always the fear in me that she's doing that because she is actually hungry, but she even does it when I have made sure she is full (nursed and had a supplement) before she fell asleep. So I think it's more of the comfort thing.
I feel guilty even worrying about this when she's so little...her job is to want to nurse all the time so who can blame her. I just literally don't know how I can take care of #1 with #2 nursing during her naps, and I already feel confined to the house by it. (I am fine nursing in public, but the on-again-off-again thing lasting a whole nap is hard.) And remembering how long #1 did this for...like 2+ years...I want to enjoy this time with her and not feel like I'm trying to get to the point where she doesn't need a boob to nap.
Any tips? I think it's good to nurse her TO sleep (and I really love co-sleeping at night). It's just the nursing her BACK to sleep and DURING sleep that's hard. She's not letting me substitute a paci for a baba, but maybe I need to keep working on that. She will sleep in a Moby, so I am doing that some too.
I refused to keep my breast in during nap times and during the night because they weren't actually nursing. They were using me as a pacifier and not nutrition. Therefore we found other ways to soothe them to sleep and back to sleep, and then self-soothing to get them to sleep on their own.
You might try letter her nap in her swing or bouncy seat or carseat. My boys really responded to that at that age. I think now is the time to just do what works. During the first few months, I wouldn't worry too much about habits. Think about that when she's 6 months or so.
I DID nurse my son to sleep, but honestly, I'm not sure if I'd do so again. I didn't mind him taking longer (compared to other babies) to sleep through the night, and I didn't mind that he took his sweet time about self-weaning. What DID trouble me was that my boob became his one and only source of comfort, and I was afraid he'd carry that over to food in general (though that never wound up happening). However, he did seem to carry the idea that falling asleep was challenge -- one that required parental intervention -- well into toddlerhood.
What I honestly do recommend is trying to get her to sleep with as little intervention as possible. Just rock/cradle her, without a whole lot of movement, maybe with a little lullaby. You can do this in a very gentle, nurturing, attachment-parenting way -- but I do recommend making sleep as simple as she'll allow.
I think you should just wait and see how your baby is, she is only 2 weeks old. All kids are different. My son would nurse and nurse and I was his pacifier and the only way he would go to sleep is if I nursed him. My daughter is completely different. She does like to nurse to sleep sometimes, but many times I just walk her to sleep after nursing her. We cosleep as well and it is completely different with her than with my son. He was an awful sleeper and would wake up constantly at night, she wakes up maybe once and that is it. I am a WAHM and both of my kids are usually here. When I need to put my daughter down for a nap I turn on Curious George and he watches that until I come back out. There is an adjustment period but you will figure it out :)
