Getting up in the night to express... i want sleeeeeep!

[MammyShirl]

My dd is 7 months and breastfed, I am slowly (badly) trying to wean her off and onto formula and solids... She has slept through the night from 3 months. Since then I have had to get up and express once a night usualyy round 4am - I AM SICK OF IT!!!!!!! I would actually prefer to feed her, that way I can stay in bed and snooze instead of getting up,going to the kitchen, taking the sterilizer into the living room and squeeze for 10m mins on each boob. The mimutes feel like hours!!! My partner is also getting sick of hearing the alarm go off as he has to turn it off and wake me up! Can anyone tell me when I will be able to sleep through? Or does breast feeding always mean night expressing. I have slept through the night three times by accident and suffered the wrath of mastitus 3 times!!! Ouch! last case was bad, left me with really bad flu and shakes. I dream of a nights sleep...

Why do you express ???
If you stimulate the milk production you will make milk... stop (slowly) expressing and nights will soon be back to "normal"

If you really feel you have to express (presumably because you feel uncomfortably full) why not leave it 10-15 minutes later each night - then in a couple of weeks you'll be going through to 6 or 7am.

Agree with pupuce - wean yourself off the expressing - there is no need for it at all. Either do as Judetheobscure suggests or reduce expression time by a couple of minutes each night. You have got yourself into a vicious circle which you can break by cutting down the expressing.