AIBU about making up formula at night?

[Chocolateorangegoblin]

A friend of mine told me she boils the kettle, waits 30 minutes for it to cool etc before making a bottle all while her Dd is screaming to be fed during the night.
AIBU to think that's madness?! Surely most people don't do that?!
Obviously a lot of people have perfect prep machines now but that still involves getting out of bed etc.
I make up bottles in advance, cool them and keep them in the fridge and then at bedtime I take one to bed in a cool bag and DS drinks it whenever he wakes up. I am obviously a lazy sod but there's no way I would be standing about waiting for water to cool down at 2am!

Ha ha Tanya and TooMuch - yes I propped mine uprightish (pillows or bouncy chairs) and then used more pillows to wedge their bottles so they pointed downwards into their mouths. I sat beside so could help if they slipped down or one coughed or anything, but it was certainly easy - I read a really long book about Roman history when they were in their first year . And I'm so pleased not to be the only DIL in trouble for feeding room temperature (or cold!) milk - mine are nearly 9 now too, and fit as fiddles!

Most of my night feeds were breast ones. When this wasn't possible I kept a stash of premade formula in cartons which I could then just open.

Another one who made up 24 hour supply and kept them in the fridge.
And congratulations to those who found breastfeeding was as simple as shoving a nipple in. If it really was that easy don't you think everyone would do it? No one says 'I'm going to formula feed because it's so much faff'.
I found formula feeding far easier than breastfeeding.

Wandering I used to read mine The Economist. I realised they really weren't bothered what we read, they'd listen for about 5 minutes and then get bored regardless, so why not read something interesting to me? Maybe when they do history or economics or whatever at school later they'll mysteriously already know everything about the Eurozone crisis and the threat of Grexit

Half boiling, half fridge-cold boiled water.
Perfect temperature!

It didn't take long for the smuggers to come out did it?

I didn't find FF much of a faff at all.

However, D-Mer when BF was horrendous and probably quite dangerous. Never felt so much anger and darkness in my life. That shit was scary. I thought I was going to hurt someone badly.

I'm planning on bottle feeding. I'll be making them up and storing them in the fridge. We have a spare fridge for beside our bed, and a quick bottle heater. It doesn't sound like faff at all, and the best bit is that I don't get to do all the night feeds :-)

Boobs aren't detachable, so even if it's easy, you have to do all the feeding yourself. An exhausted mother isn't going to have the same energy, the same patience as someone that has had sleep.

My daughter had special milk from the hospital for her tube feeds, always made up in advance by the hospitals (once she was home we did it) and kept I. The fridge for up to 24 hours, luckily she didn't notice hunger etc and we knew what times to feed her so no crying. I've never heard of babies becoming ill from milk already made up, which to me means it's that rare it doesn't need thought about. Life's too short to make it harder do what you've been doing and get sleep and a happy baby as much as you can.

Blue sky that's a silly comment, I breastfed with my first and got so much sleep even though it was just me waking, luckily by the time my milk dried up at 5 months old she had already stopped her night feeds.

Borrowed, if this is Blues first baby we can forgive her ignorance. Don't worry we all say cringey stuff with our first Blue

Borrowed, I'm glad you were able to get enough sleep, but clearly thats not the case for everyone, or the sleep board wouldn't exist, and most of my breasfeeding friends wouldn't talk about sleep deprivation.

I have no idea why I'm apparently ignorant just because I've got a plan which means I don't do all the feeds. I know others who do a night shift system (ie dad does feeds until 3am, mum afterwards), so that both get a decent chunk of sleep, so I've seen it work.

I'm not a martyr, the baby has two parents, and we are both going to be doing the feeding. If someone wants to do all the work, then thats up to them, and if people want to breastfeed, again good on them, and I'll support that.

Saying a breastfeeding mum will have less energy and patience is not exactly supportive. Babies can be shit sleepers independent of feeding method.

I'm not a martyr, but the nature of breastfeeding is such that I need to do all the feeds. My DP can do other tasks instead. No big deal.

Doing things other than feeds is great, but it's not going to help with sleep, if the baby is feeding frequently.

Saying that someone who is exhausted is likely to have less energy than someone who is sleeping isn't not being supportive, it's an obvious fact. If the amount of sleep had no relevance on energy levels, then why do we waste so much of our lives sleeping when we could have 3 hours sleep and so much more time to live?

I'm a happier, more patient and more energetic person when I'm not utterly exhausted.

You're right, it won't help with reducing the number of feeds. But partners can take the baby after a feed, in the morning or the evening and the mother can get some more sleep. Partners doing other tasks means you can rest more during the day. Exhaustion is not inevitable.

Bluesky I think those posters were pointing out that your baby may be a very poor sleeper and you still end up exhausted, even if your partner is able to do 50% of the feeds.
Even doing alternate nights (or whatever arrangement you make) isn't necessarily going to work out the way you planned it. Sometimes a baby only wants one parent and won't settle with the other, or cries loud enough to keep both awake.
Meanwhile some (certainly not all) breastfeeding mothers find it comparitively easy and that their babies sleep for hours on end at night. Everyone is different and you don't know until you get there. Hopefully it does work out the way you think it will , but you don't know yet.

I found that breastfeeding at night barely disrupted my sleep at all beyond the first weeks because we co-slept and I could doze through it. There are also hormones produced when feeding which help the mother to get back to sleep very quickly. Bottlefeeding would have required far more attention to do safely, probably light too, you physically can't fall asleep while doing it (it's a choking risk) and hence would have required waking up more.

It obviously depends on your situation, your baby, how breastfeeding goes, your relationship and what you're doing during the day but it is not inevitable that breastfeeding will make you more sleep deprived or that bottlefeeding will get you more sleep. It is just not that clear cut.

If it helps, my baby was a great sleeper both breast and bottle fed. I'm still bloody exhausted. (isn't anymore. I want my sleeping baby back)

Craziness!! I made up bottles as soon as I had 6 empty bottles to sterilise and cooled them and kept them in the fridge! My son is alive and well!! A friend of mine kept them on the kitchen side so baby always had room temperature milk and it did his little one no harm!! Each to their own I guess

greeneyelulu I wouldn't suggest anyone else should follow your friend's lead and leave bottles out on the side all day. That's really taking too much of a risk - it's the right temperature for bacteria to thrive and formula milk is perfect food for bacteria too.

Having breastfed 3 dcs and bottlefed 1dc I can confirm that for me, I got far, far more sleep bf! They slept next to me with a boob right there and I literally could sleep for 10hrs straight! With dc4 he can get through 4 bottles a night. We take up a fresh formula and a bottle of ebm but still have to get up after those are gone to make another (using perfect prep) I can also confirm he does not sleep better for having formula!

I make mine up and store in the fridge, I tend to make some in the morning and then more before bed so they aren't stored for more than 12ish hours (I know the guide is 24 hours). I could never have my baby crying for that long in the night it would break my heart and I would get so stressed. There is a simple solution of either making in advance or using ready made milk.

Definitely don't assume you will get more sleep if sharing feeds. My youngest is 10 months and still has 2 feeds in the night some nights. Some nights DH does the feeds but it only happens if I wake him up to do it. DS is still in our room but DH can sleep right through him crying next to him.

Thanks for all the relevant replies.
Funnily enough I didn't mention breastfeeding at all in my op so thanks for all the smug ",oh breast feeding is so easy why would anyone use formula" crap.

Fwiw, I am very happy FF and don't find it a faff at all. I've been making bottles up for nearly three years in total so it doesn't seem like a faff at all.

In fact as I fed my DS to sleep in his buggy while we were in the queue in a clothes shop earlier I felt sorry for Bfing Mums not having the option of feeding unless it was a convenient place to stop and get your boobs out!

You can breastfeed in a sling, or just standing holding your baby, if necessary.

What a wonderfully irrelevant observation Assassinated.

Having done both of those, I can tell you that feeding a baby heavier than 12lbs by breast whilst standing in a queue far harder on the back than holding a bottle to their mouth as they lie in a stroller.

I'm sure you can but it would probably be a faff.
Also you can bottle feed in a sling too btw.