To stop BFing at 8 weeks?

[wanderingwillows]

Persisted for 8 long weeks but DS’s sleep is terrible. Not seeming to have full feeds but snacking constantly. Most nights I’m up every hour. DH gives a bottle of expressed milk late evening but it doesn’t seem to make much difference. I assume things will be better if we gave formula. I’m also sick of being touched all the time, my boobs ache, I feel self-conscious in public, I never know what to wear.
AIBU to give up now at 8 weeks? Would this be premature? Part of me feels like I’ve worked so hard this whole time in the hope of it getting easier in the long run, so wondering whether I’d be giving up right when it’s about to get better

You’ve done well to get to two months 💐
Moving to a bottle doesn’t mean your baby will sleep any better though
have you had the latch checked ? Feeding frequently is usual and can feel endless
Can you co sleep so you don’t have to get up - being able to feed laying down in bed is a game changer
take it one feed at a time if you’re feeling touched out - they do go through growth spurts and need more
of course, you can stop at any time though

It's baby getting enough milk? Have they been checked for a tongue tie.
I bf'd during the day and dh would give ds a bottle of formula before bed which was when I'd express to build a freezer supply, this worked well for us. But our relatives found no difference when they tried formula with theirs to his sleep.
It can massively affect your mental health to continue to feed if you're struggling with it too. Do what's best for you and your baby, a full fed baby is a happy baby.

You can give up and give no reason. You don’t have to justify it to anyone.
Happy baby is a fed baby.

Bottle feeding wouldn’t necessarily solve the sleep issue but would definitely result in a lot of faff washing up bottles, sterilising, preparing everything to go out etc

Is he gaining weight ok? Some babies are just very wakeful.

There is no need to carry on if its this hard! Well done for getting to 8 weeks.
I stopped at 10 weeks with dd ....she was happy but not gaining weight, I felt like a failure but it was best for dd.
With ds I only managed a couple of weeks, he wanted to feed constantly and I couldn't cope with 2 under 2 on no sleep.
In an ideal world I would have breastfed both as long as they needed it.......but we don't live in an ideal world!!!

Just do it. Don't listen to anyone trying to guilt you into breastfeeding xx

Hey @wanderingwillows congratulations on your little one!

Do whatever you feel is best - swapping to formula won't necessarily mean your baby will sleep any better, but if you're feeling done with breastfeeding, that's really all the reason you need. X

Have you tried a lactation consultant, ie La Leche League? I had a doula, post-partum mid-wife and lactation consultant advise me and check baby's feeding. It was really difficult with my first dc - I did combo-feeding until 11 months. It was, and has been, a world of difference with my 2nd dc. Do what's best for you, though, because the "right way" is what you can manage. 🩷

Well done for doing 8 weeks! It’s a difficult decision, but my advice would be that you should never quit on a bad day or you might risk regretting your decision.

I wouldn’t bank on your baby’s sleep being any better if you move to formula, though lots of people like to tell you that breastfeeding is the cause of all sleep problems, it isn’t. All babies are different and some are just snackier than others! For me things improved around the two month mark, he started to be much quicker with his feeds (they went from like 30-45 mins to a quick 5 minutes or so) and started going longer between feeds.

Have you had much IRL support? Breastfeeding groups, LLL, lactation consultant? The breastfeeding network have a support line where you can chat things through with someone who’s trained in breastfeeding support: www.breastfeedingnetwork.org.uk/contact-us/helplines/

Your baby will be totally fine if you move to formula so please dont feel guilty. It is worth noting though, at 8 weeks your baby is still cluster feeding to establish your supply and tell your body they are growing! This all sounds completely normal (but of course that dosent mean its not tough.) For me breastfeeding felt constant until about 5 months?! Then it became the easiest thing ever. Also formula feeding wont make your baby sleep better- its biologically normal for them to wake and their stomachs are so tiny regardless of what you feed them.

Do whatever you want op

but formula won’t make a difference to sleep and you’ll be up making bottles instead

I personally found it easier to not have to get out of bed and just pull the baby out and feed and back to bed

You are not being unreasonable at all and you need to do what feels best and ignore those who are against formula feeding. You don’t need to justify your decision to anyone.
I stopped breastfeeding my son at 5 weeks as I’d had enough. Moving on to formula meant that my husband could do his share of feeds. Ultimately you need to do what works for you and the baby.

With both of mine I would say it was around the 12 week mark before I felt I'd 'cracked it' with breastfeeding (and was finally able to appreciate the ease if not bringing formula /bottles around with me) so depending on your feelings it might be worth pushing through another few weeks to see if things improve. However, 8 weeks is brilliant regardless and if you don't feel you can carry on, that's absolutely fine! It might be worth considering combi-feeding though? In hindsight I wish I'd done this (e.g. allocated time in morning and evening where DH would bottle feed formula if baby was hungry). I think I was put off by a lot of healthcare professionals saying it was really one or the other (breastfeeding or formula) when it really doesn't have to be!

You don't need permission to change to formula. If you persevere it may get easier as mine improved after 3 months. BUT there are no guarantees. You could try dropping breastfeeding at night and giving formula after 6pm to see if that helps, but as you don't seem to feel comfortable anyway moving to formula may be best for all of you. You've done well to keep going this long if you aren't relaxed when feeding so give yourself a pat on the back and just move on so you can enjoy feeding in the way that suits you both best.

It doesn’t have to be all or nothing! You could stick to the breastfeeding (which I found got much easier at 3-4 months ish) and add in some formula too. I read somewhere the majority of families end up combination feeding, it’s just bizarrely presented as a binary choice between BF and FF

You don't need anyone's permission to stop breastfeeding, or never start. It's your body and you know what's best for you and your baby :) it's not just about the nutritional content of breast or formula milk, it's also about what works best as a family and for you. Maternal wellbeing (including a well rested parent!) is much more important for your baby than one milk over another.

You will get lots of pressuring comments on here I suspect encouraging you to keep going as the breast is best mantra is incredibly strong and new mothers often feel pushed into bf even if it isn't working out for them, so I'm just here to say that whichever way you feed your little one they will absolutely thrive, so if bf isn't a good fit you should feel empowered to make the change and be proud of yourself for doing what's best for you both <3

Formula feeding wont solve the sleeping issues but stopping for the way you feel isn't unreasonable. I managed 6 weeks I think with my first. My mental health took a massive hit. I felt like I was only good for one thing, constant feeding, constantly being touched, sore body etc. I spoke to the midwife and we came to the conclusion stopping breastfeeding would be better for both me and my baby at the time. What good is it having a mum that is sad every times she breastfeeds.

After I stopped I was still up every hour for weeks even with formula feeding. My DS was a awful sleeper though and I didn't get a night though until well over 4 years old. We stayed on hourly wakes for a long time before slowly they stretched out.

You can absolutely stop bfing at any time and for any reason. You don’t need to justify it to anyone.

However, if you wanted to continue, I would look into speaking to a lactation consultant about tongue tie. Health visitors etc often fail to identify it, and it makes a huge difference once it’s been snipped.

Nothing wrong with switching to ff if you decide to but it doesn’t necessarily mean sleep with improve unfortunately. Sometimes it does (often if it was a tongue tie to blame as the way they feed is different) but not always.

I’d wean off over time, you don’t want to get mastitis it’s horrible. I dropped the night feed first, then the late 11pm, 7pm etc etc
whatever you choose it’s your choice, it’s your body.

This is really normal for breastfed babies in the early weeks - the baby will go through periods of cluster feeding - it's their way of telling your body to up the milk supply.

I have friends who's breastfed babies slept through and formula fed babies who woke every hour. My own baby is 13 months now, we are still breastfeeeing but only once or twice a day, I have nightweaned but he still wakes twice a night!

I honestly think that, after the cluster feeding, it's teething that plays a big part in sleep. Some babies can handle it and some can't. Mine is a terrible teether, he cut his first tooth at 4 months and we had four months of terrible sleep whilst the first 8 came though - one tooth every 2 weeks like clockwork.

His sleep improved a lot after that and he started sleeping 8 - 9 hour stretches until the molars started coming through. After that he slept through the night! But now we have the canines and we are back to mutiple wake ups.

Hey! I echo what others have said that feeding got significantly easier at around 3m (I’m now 5m PP and feeding going great). However those first 3m were awful at times, so I feel you! My babe struggled with his latch and we had to use a nipple shield for various reasons which must have reduced the milk he received, so he fed for 45-60mins at a time, every 1.5-2hrs as clearly he was hungry all the time. I was so determined to get to the easy breastfeeding stage everyone talks about, and it all came to head one night when he was screaming so much and I think the nipple shield may have rubbed his gum (his mouth seemed a little sore but at 3m too young for teething), and he managed to latch without it, and we’ve never looked back! Within 2 weeks his feeds reduced to 15 mins every 2.5-4hrs, my boobs felt empty after feeding which they never did before, and he started sleeping longer stretches at night!

So you need to do whatever feels right for you and your baby, and you’ve done AMAZING to get to 8 weeks, but for me knowing what i know now, I was still in the depths of hell with it then, but now it’s amazing, my baby loves it, I love it and it is so easy not needing to worry about bottles etc both at night and when leaving the house!

good luck whatever you decide! Xxx

I know people are saying the baby won't necessarily sleep better on formula, which is true, but it will mean OP can share feeds. So OP, YOU might end up getting better sleep. Which sounds like it's sorely needed at this point.

Also OP, to that sense of 'what if I've done all this work and it's about to get better and I've stopped?'

You could also keep going indefinitely and it never get easier and wish you'd stopped much, much sooner.

I was one of those people. I tried to make it work SO hard for nine long months. Triple fed every 3hr around the clock for nine months. Breast, then pumped milk, topped off with formula, then pumping for an hour, double electric pump. Wash the pump parts, make the next bottle, around and around it went. Even took strong prescribed drugs that can cause Parkinsons symptoms (domperidone) to try and force a supply. And for me it never got any easier. It was a form of madness to keep doing something that wasn't working for anyone involved.

I wish I'd stopped after a couple of weeks and been strong enough to realise it wasn't for us.

Not saying you will be anything like me just wanted to share that counterpoint. You could end up missing out on enjoying your baby's first months due to being so utterly exhausted when you could be sharing night feeds with formula, getting more sleep and then enjoying everything that much more.

Takes a lot of strength and courage to push back against the relentless pressure to bf and choose formula.

Firstly, well done for getting to 8 weeks. Perfectly fine to switch to bottle at least other people can help with the feeding.

You can stop whenever you want. Babies are totally fine on formula, you're not hurting your baby, you've done well to get so far.

BUT

You've done the hardest part, you're really shooting yourself in the foot in my opinion. Moving to bottles is tricky and won't necessarily solve the sleep issues. It will definitely create a whole new heap of chores for you, probably some stomach issues in the short term and some tears over bottle refusals and you will lose the easiest method to settle your baby.

My DS is 19 months and I still breastfeed him to sleep. He sleeps 11 hours a night, uninterrupted. Everyone tells you BF is the problem but the truth is each baby sleeps when they're ready.

8 weeks is prime cluster feeding time. If you can't cope with it, you can't, that's that. Stop and move to formula tomorrow. Just be sure it's what you want, rather than just having a bad day.