Switching from breastfeeding to formula?

[Flowers133]

I'm really just after some opinions here people,
My daughter has been exclusively breast fed up until last night. She's only 5 weeks old so I'm really struggling with what the best thing to do is! She has colic rather bad and she does the lot. The crying and screaming, kicking, wriggling, all of it, and I have tried EVERYTHING! You name it, I've tried it.
We had some better nights this week, and then everything went downhill to the point where she literally didn't sleep at all! Of course that messed up the following day and she didn't feed properly for 24 hours. Anyway, last night was starting off bad again, she was clearly hungry but was getting to worked up to drink (as usual) and so would fall asleep without it and then wake up half an hour later presumably because she still wanted to feed, this pattern has been constant and although I had wondered if she was drinking enough before, I stuck it out for her benefit. Last night was enough though, the only thing I hadn't tried was formula, so I filled up a warm bottle with the emergency formula I had in and she drank soundly, infact we had a great night!!
So this led me to think okay I'll mix feed, breast during the day and bottle at night, I gave her breast this morning and she's back to the on and off and getting frustrated! I wonder if I should just give her bottle completely now! My last one was a hungry baby and she ended up on a bottle because of a tongue tie that wasn't discovered in time, I really want to do what's best for baby but I always thought that would be breast milk! Is it possible that formula would genuinely suit her better? I feel like a bad mummy if I switch over, we feed with shields as well so she has no trouble latching back on to me, but she just seems to get so worked up. Any advice? Xx

[scrumptiouscrumpets]

Are you sure she is getting enough at the breast, has she put on enough weight during the last weeks ? Have you had her checked for tongue tie, and have you had her latch checked? Have you ever tried feeding her without the shield? It's not the milk that will agree with her better, it's the feeding method from the sound of it. She seems to feed better from a bottle. I bet she'd be just as happy with a bottle of expressed breast milk.
Personally I'd get her latch checked by a lactation consultant before definitely switching to the bottle.

[Flowers133]

She had her tongue tie snipped a week after she was born, she uses shields so drinks well with those and doesn't have an issue latching on. She gained lots of weight in her first couple of weeks and I'll get her weighed again next week as HV is coming out on the 8th, a huge part of the issue is that her crying and becoming upset etc stops her from feeding from me. I have had her checked for any other issues relating to how she actually feeds from me though and I have a very good supply x

[Flowers133]

Also we have done without shields but m my nipple becoming tearfully agonising within a day, they're also rather flat so shields is pretty much the only way she can feed directly from me because there's not that shape for a proper latch easily without

[Phoenix76]

You're really going through it and you're doing amazing! I would second a lactation consultant rather than a hv as in my experience, as lovely as they have been, hv don't tend to be experts in bf and are likely to recommend going to formula (that's just my experience although they have all been great in every other way). What I would do, if you can bear it, is to express your milk and store it so you're still sending signals to your body to produce the milk until you decide what's best for you, you don't want to discover you've dried up if you decide you want to continue bf. Whatever happens, the baby being fed is the main thing and your sanity is priority! I found Kellymoms website invaluable, all the best in whatever you decide, take care of yourself.