thinking of switching to fomula?

[holsnovell]

hi i'm thinking of switching! my dd is ten weeks and have bf her since birth trouble free! however i'm starting to want my body back! does this sound selfish? i'm finding nights a struggle at moment and she feeds every three hours sometimes less sometimes more if she had a big nap. her weight gain is excellent she weighed in at 11lb 2 weeks ago. i'm considering maybe mixed feeding?

No, it doesn't sound selfish. Have you thought of maybe expressing and letting someone else take over the night feeds? Maybe rotating a night w/your partner?

yeah i find that i can express easily however my partner sleeps through anything and i would end up waking up to wake him, if this makes sense! is it a myth do you thimk that a ff baby sleeps longer in the night? it seems to be the case with some people i know?

Well,you must do what you want to do (and well done for b/feeding so far!) but there have been many threads on this (have a look in archives) and it seems to be a myth.

10weeks is really young and all babies of this age seem to require round the clock care.
Have you b/fed before?
If not,it might be worth you knowing that the intensity and frequency of feeds will tail off soon as the baby's tummy expands.

Best of luck,whatever you decide.

Almost certainly you'll have to wake your dp to get him to do the feed (blokes are programmed to ignore anything which might disturb their precious sleep, obviously because nature wanted them fresh as daisies to go out hunting wooly mammoths or something?!). However, I find it much easier to get back to sleep if I don't have to get up and do the feed, it might still be worth a try to get a bit more kip in. At that age my ds (ff from just after birth) was still waking several times in the night.

Holsnovell,
If you are unhappy about it, than is not selfish.
Happy mummy = happy baby !

However, I though I would just mention in case it helps you make a decision one way or the other...

Plenty of people here still formula feed their babies every 3 hours at night. Unless you have someone else preparing the bottle for you, it may actually be easier to just shove baby in the boob...

Also, as moondog pointed out it should start getting better soon. There are also plenty of breastfed babies that sleep through. My DD did, and DS is now (after a bit of baby boot camp...)

Anyother issues beside night feeding can tip the balance one way or the other. and those only you know about it...

Best of luck!

holsnovell - well done for feeding till 10 weeks. Sometimes it helps to read over the benfits of breastfeeding to give you the will to carry on. Certainly agree though that if it making you miserable then probably be best to stop. Do not fall into the trap of thinking formula makes babies sleep longer though. Some do, most don't.

I would echo what others have said about getting your dp to help. If he doesn't help by giving EBM at night, there is no way he will help with formula feeds. Definitely easier to pop in a boob than start making feeds etc.
You have noticed she feeds more at night when she has had a long sleep during the day.

I would recommend you wake her during the day to get more milk in. She may well then sleep better at night. B/F babies can sleep all night too.
You might just be at the stge all mums feel they want a life back never mind body

Well done for 10 weeks of bfing! I would say that you have probably got through the most difficult part and things should get easier as dd grows and can start to go longer between feeds etc.
With regard to sleep, I can understand where you are coming from. Dh never gets up in the night for dd2 (nor did he for dd1!). I can remember a phase of being obsessed with sleep as I never got more then a couple of hours sleep in a stretch... But then, at 10 weeks, dd started sleeping through (approx 8.30 pm until 7.00 am) - and she is fully breastfed. And if you ever look at the sleep board, you will see that there are bf babies, ff babies, mixed fed babies... all with sleep problems. I really think it's a myth that formula will help with sleeping.
It's not for everyone, I know, but have you tried to establish any sort of routine with dd? I used the EASY routine from the Baby Whisperer book by Tracy Hogg and dd started sleeping through within days (quite unexpectedly - I just wanted her to manage 4 or 5 hours at a stretch but she went for 10 - 11 hours at night and has done so for about 3 weeks now). It's a very loose routine, but the main idea is to feed round about every three hours during the day, and not to allow any one nap to last longer than 3 hours in the daytime. Some people do a dreamfeed, but I have never bothered with it. Anyway, maybe a routine of some sort might help you feel you have a bit of your life (and your body) back.
That said, don't feel you need anyone to give you "permission", as it were, to stop bfing if it is making you unhappy. I was just trying to say that I don't think ff is necessarily an answer if the main problem is a lack of sleep. Hope this makes sense and good luck to you, whatever you decide.

Hi

well done for keeping it up so far!

Thinkit is a myth regarding sleeping better - didn't work for DD.

Nothing wrong with the odd bottle or two of formula and can keep bf the rest of the time if you want. Maybe formula last thing at night. Certainly worked for me.

Agree with increasing her intake during the day and hoping she sleeps more at night.

Bear in mind that she may take a while to take a bottle if you haven't expressed so might not be an instant changeover.

By the way my dh was also crap and never woke up!!

hi, mixed feeding has good points and bad. its a good way of still giving your baby the benefits of your milk rather than giving up bf completely.it does'nt make any difference to night time waking.your supply might drop down quite a bit, to the point of drying up completely once you introduce formula. however it can give you a nice break from bfeeding for a few hours and then you can carry on, if its all driving you mad!i think its a good idea to try and stick to the same time each day that you give formula,and then your body will still make milk for the other feeds.i know what you mean about wanting your body back,personally i could'nt stand co-sleeping with baby,rooting at my boob all night, i could'nt sleep a wink! although i really do like to bf in the day time and understand the benefit of bmilk, so mixed feeding is the best of both worlds.

It will get easier, honestly.

Hi Hols
Am in the same place as you. DS is 11wks and I've been agonising over whether or not to go mixed, after a particularly difficult growth spurt, where he went mental for milk and had about 10 feeds a day. That coupled with colds and mastitis has helped me decide that I probably will introduce a bottle of formula once a day at some point over the next month. I spent a long time feeling really bad about this, but finally realised that there was no time spending the remainder of my maternity leave feeling under the weather.

If - for whatever reason - you feel the need to introduce some formula, it's hard not to beat yourself up about it. But at the end of the day, you have given your baby a really good start, and by using formula as a complement to your breastmilk, you'll still be giving your baby lots of the benefits of BF.

Just make sure that you introduce F feeds very gradually - for the sake of your boobs. My HV said that by this stage, it was probably OK to introduce 2 feeds per day and still maintain milk production. HTH.

I can only tell you my experience.... and I know that there are a lot of people out there who will not agree (possibly most vehemently) but here goes... I gradually switched to mixed feeding with my ds at around 6 weeks as I was finding b/f incredibly stressful and just way too much with trying to look after my disabled dh. I can only say that I have never looked back. It suits us as a family perfectly. I b/f once or twice a day, first thing in the morning, as this is the only 'moveable feast of the day' i.e. he could wake anywhere from 5 to 7.30 ish, and so it would be difficult to know how much formula to give him so he lasts until his next feed iyswim. He is in a really excellent routine now, and sleeps very well, both in the day and at night. I know this could change any day now with teething etc, so I'm not gloating, just trying to tell you how things are atm. I personally was only able to start establishing a routine, and good sleeping, once he was predominantly f/f and as I say, it was the best thing I ever did. Having said that, I think I only feel that way because I still b/f him at least once a day and so I still have that special feeling that only b/f can give... and I only started to feel like that about b/f once I was doing it on my own terms iykwim. If that makes me selfish, then so be it, but i am totally convinced that it has made me a happier and more contented mum. If you feel that it's what you need to do, then go for it, and try not to feel guilty. Good luck.

p.s my ds is 16 weeks old and slept really well ever since I introduced a dream feed at about 8 weeks. i.e. he sleeps from 7 when I put him down until around 10 when I dream feed him, until anything from 5 to about 7 ish. It isn't always the case with f/f babies though, and the daytime sleeping improved radically when I did a small bout of c/c with him at about 12 weeks (something else i know a lot of people will disapprove of at such a young age), but I can only say he is an extremely happy, content, placid baby since we got the sleeping sorted, everyone comments on it, and before he used to be quite fractious most of the time and howl for the last couple of hours of the day most days. Hey ho....

hi i would just like to say a big thanks for all your advice. i have decided to give dd a ff at night at about 1030-1100 and that seems to help me get an extra hour! i'm still bf the rest of time and i enjoy doing so. i think at the time i posted she was having a growth spurt and it caught me out! thanks again