Sleep training a 5.5 month old who’s always been fed to sleep & co-slept , preparing for nursery

Hi everyone,

I’m looking for some advice and real experiences with sleep training my sensitive 5.5 month-old.

My baby has been breastfed to sleep since birth and we’ve been co-sleeping for all naps and bedtime. It’s worked well for us so far, but I’ll be returning to work soon and he’ll be starting nursery, so I’m starting to worry about how he’ll adjust.

At the moment:

He feeds to sleep for every nap and bedtime

All naps are contact naps or co-sleeping

He hasn’t really learned to fall asleep independently

I’m feeling a bit anxious about transitioning him to a setup where he can nap and sleep without me, especially in a nursery environment.

For those who were in a similar situation:

How did you approach sleep training (if you did)?

What methods worked (or didn’t)?

How long did it take for your baby to adjust?

Any tips for making the nursery transition smoother?

I’m open to gentle methods but would love to hear advices on what worked for such babies. Also I really enjoy feeding him to sleep, so is it something I can never do if sleep training were to be successful?

Thanks so much!