Will supplementing with F help my 5mo sleep better?

[ennistonemother]

Have been EBF so far, no probs - but am going spare with lack of sleep. Worried that the cumulative effect (she's still waking up 5 times a night) of so little sleep over 5.5 months is gradually making me a worse and worse parent.

I don't seem to be doing anything different from friends whose babies are sleeping for 5-7 hours at a time, sleepwise - but I notice that noone I know who FF seems to have any sleep problems at all.

I'd be v interested to hear people's experiences.

[Cosmosis]

It might, it might not. My friend?s baby is ff and he has been just as bad a sleeper as my ebf one was. At that ages, lots of wakings are much more likely to be developmental than hunger tbh.

[reikizen]

Not in my experience. Some babies sleep better at night (and some parents fib about how well their babies sleep at night ). Both my two were formula fed and dd1 woke up with startling frequency through the night. dd2 not so bad.

[Yesmynameis]

Hi ennistonemother. So sorry you have having lack of sleep, it really is such a killer :)

What is the longest amount of time that your baby sleeps in one stretch? Does she feed this regularly over the whole 24 hour period?

I do honestly think it is a bit of a myth when people say that ff babies always sleep better. I know bf babies who are good sleepers and ff babies who are bad sleepers and vice versa.

As I'm sure you may know, formula isn't as easily digested as bm and therefore can lie on the stomach meaning ff babies can tend to go longer between their feeds from an early age. I think it is also true to say that with ff you can somewhat engineer the daily intake of milk to fall in the daytime. However, less night feeds doesn't always mean more sleep. In my antenatal group the worst sleeper happens to be a ff baby (I promise I'm not just saying that). He was in a routine to the extent that he had his scheduled bottles at night; just didn't sleep much between them...

My bf dd was a nighttime guzzler. She would have happily gone all day without a feed and then fed constantly at night given half a chance. It was up to me to offer regular feeds in the day. At one stage, I used to express extra milk during the course of the day and gave her a bottle of ebm after her last feed so she went to bed fully stocked up, which seemed to have some effect. Maybe this is something you could try?

[Yesmynameis]

Oh no, that was supposed to be a sad face, certainly not a happy face. Didn't mean to be flippant. Sorry

[ennistonemother]

Hi Yesmynameis - don't worry, I saw it as a supportive smile rather than a vindictive grin or anything!

My dd sounds a lot like yours - not very interested in eating in the daytime. Nowadays I have to take her to a darkened room to get her to eat a reasonable amount - if we're out, she'll eat for less than a minute, and it feels like I'm wrestling with her. It's a matter of me offering rather than her asking - the longest she's gone without milk is over 5 hours (only once, when I lost track of time - I try to feed her every 3-4 hours or so during the day - not sure if this is right for her, but she's not a very reliable guide any more.)

Her biggest feeds are last thing in the evening before bed, and first thing in the morning. If she wakes less than an hour after I've last fed her, then I try to shush or cuddle her back to sleep, but if it's been three hours or so then I offer her milk - and she usually has a much better feed at this time than she has during daylight hours.

I'll try her with some expressed milk last thing, and see if this helps - thanks very much for the idea - I'd not thought of that at all, so am very grateful.

[TheBluthCompany]

My ds does this - always very distracted during the day and feeds loads at night. At least every 2 hours (even if I do manage to feed lots during the day). The only way I cope is by going to bed early and co-sleeping. Could you try co-sleeping perhaps? I find it a lifesaver! I know some people who give a bottle at night and find it works but have read conflicting stuff too.

[EveryonesJealousOfWeasleys]

I started doing a formula dream feed and it made not a jot of difference, even when I introduced Hipp night milk which has some kind of cereal in it so is extra thick.

The main benefit of it IME was that I could go to bed early, leaving DH to do the dream feed while I got a few hours of kip in one go, ready for the night waking!

[Kayzr]

DS2 was FF from about 3 months and slept through at 11 and a half months. So made no difference.

[RightUpMyRue]

I recently did a 1 year group health review, six babies, all FF except for one and 4 of the FF babies weren't sleeping through. The BF one was and one FF was.

I've seen 6, 8-and 10wk EBF babies who are sleeping for 6-8 hours or more at night and some FF who are still waking for milk at night when they're 18 months +.

It's the baby not the milk.

[jklikesrowing]

they dont sleep long hours until your body clock is completely knackered then you spend the rest of the time when they get old enough to sleep in dragging them out of bed!!

[MrsTerryPratchett]

It didn't make a blind bit of difference to DD. I started one FF just before six months. She started giving me 5 hours in a row last week (7 months) and then started teething (back to every two hours waking). [is there a sobbing emoticon]