Any problems with doing a night time bottle of formula?

[marzipananimal]

(assuming he'll take it of course).

Planning to start DS (5 months) on food soonish.
He's currently waking about every 1 1/2 hours at night for feeds and similar during the day (although can go up to about 3 hours during the day if we're out).
I'm really struggling with this (and it's not a recent thing - the very best nights we've had since about 12 weeks have been 3 hourly feeds) but am not expecting food to make much difference to his appetite for milk for quite a while.

I'm thinking about making his 10.30pm dreamfeed a bottle of formula in the hope that he'll sleep longer, and also DH can give it to him and I can go to bed earlier.
If we wait til he's having food anyway then formula is just like another food isn't it? And by now my supply is established and he'll still be getting loads of bm.

Can you see any reason not to do this? My main reason not to want to is I don't want my money to go to fomula companies, but if I'll get more sleep then I think it's a price worth paying

IME formula has no effect on keeping

Can you express so your DH can give a bottle?

Of course, it is up to you - your supply will be established by this point

Sleeping obviously!

if it makes it easier on you, then go for it! it wont do any harm. i give my lo a formula feed now and again.

i feel for you my ds slept a max 2 hours at a time until he was 5 1/2 months!!we did something similar a week before we started him on solids, just to get him into a routine and he now sleeps 6pm-5am at least.
try it, try anything for sleep!!

I do this - he does sleep longer but only because he takes more from a bottle than he would from a breastfeed. Plus I can go to bed at 7pm if I want and DP can feed him.

I never got on with expressing, but I have no problem with formula - as you say once you're giving food you're not exclusively breastfeeding anymore anyway.

I found introducing a dream sleep of breast topped by formula saved me doing cc on my 6 mth old before going to work.

She is now 7 mths and has formula in day when i am at work but the formula dream feed made her stay down until 7ish ( before that she kept waking 4am and 5am but i wouldn't feed her)

I would say definitely give it a go BUT if she has never had a bottle before may be a problem. That said, giving it to her in her sleep is probably the way to go.

Thanks for replies

He has had the occasional bit of expressed milk from a bottle and had formula when new born so hopefully he would take it no probs. I don't get on well with expressing so a bottle of ebm every night wouldn't be workable.

I think if sleep doesn't improve over the next couple of weeks I'll go for it. I'd rather not but I'm so tired I need to find some sort of solution