8 month old dropping feeds in day but waking 3x in night - Help!

[Noodleboo]

My DS has been exclusively breastfed but since starting solids, he has been waking every night and will feed at least twice in the night. He seems to have dropped his day feeds and will not take more than a sip or two of formula, certainly not from a bottle.

The health visitors seem to think this is OK but surely he can't be getting enough milk for an 8month old. Is this reverse cycling and will I have to do controlled crying to get some sleep? Pretty exhausted. Any comments gratefully received.

Have you discussed with your hv the times and order in which you are feeding him throughout the day?
And did you do a gradual transference from bf to formula? Could he be missing the cuddles?

Does he get 4 opportunities a day for milk? Either bf or formula.
Milk first thing - breakfast an hour later - milk mid morning(before or after nap) - lunch - milk mid afternoon to fit nap - then dinner - milk last thing before bed time.

Sure that's what your already doing.
Give it till he's 9mths before doing the controlled crying. Things can fall in to place very quickly with very little crying required.

I resorted to controlled crying at 9mths with my DC2 and there was very little crying envolved! She settled in less than a minute on the 2 occasions that she woke in the first 2 nights and then started sleeping through.

Yes it does sound like reverse cycling but why do controlled crying (disclaimer: I don't like CC) when you could just attempt to fix the problems causing the RC?

You said he was exclusively breastfed but then mention formula - is there a reason you're offering formula instead of the breast?

Are you offering the breast frequently in the day or waiting for him to prompt? (Not offering is actually a weaning technique.)

I personally wouldn't do CC (disclaimer: I don't like it either, unless you have a baby who needs to release tension by crying). The frequent waking could be due to the very common 8/9 month sleep regression. More info here, here and here.

Are you offering milk before meals (e.g. right beforehand)? Sometimes if you offer solids first, babies can fill up too much to want very much milk.

Thanks all, have been so exhausted I have not had time to go online. I have tried breastfeeding him during the day but sometimes it seems to be a couple of sucks and that's all he wants. I am trying to stop breastfeeding because I want to be able to leave him a little and when I have tried to express milk, I get very little. I suppose I should have offered a bottle/formula earlier but bfing seem to go really well so there was no point.

Maybe I am going too quickly over to formula... will have a look at the link sent.
Many thanks again/.

You don't need to introduce formula to be able to leave an 8 month old baby - I know of several mums who work all day and their babies are fine with small amounts of solids in the mean time :)

Have you tried co-sleeping to ease tiredness? It's the only thing that gets me through some nights.