Breast to formula - hates it and reacts to it

[JezC]

My ds is 4 months and feeding every 1-2 hours night and day. I am losing a lot of weight and not getting enough sleep so want to cut down on breastfeeding. Initially I couldn't get him to drink from a bottle but tried various teats with EBM and it worked so now I've tried giving him SMA formula from a bottle but he doesn’t seem to like the formula and just refuses to drink it. I tried Aptamil and he drank some but afterwards he turns red and blotchy. My dd had the same reaction to Cow and gate but tried her with SMA a few months later and she was fine. Anyone have any advice?

Eat some more and keep breastfeeding.
Express so that someone can take over for you to havea rest.

whenever you introduce formula, be it now or later, use mostly ebm with a dash of formula. once he is used to this, add a bit more formula and less ebm. keep doing this over a period of days or weeks until the bottle is all formula.
when we reached this stage they would happily switch between breastfeed and formula bottle(we were usind Nannny formula, which, amongst other things, doesnt seem to taste as sweet as regular formula)

You shouldn't need to eat much to make up for calories lost during breastfeeding - it's about 500 a day. Quite manageable I find. :)

No advice about formula but I'm sure someone will come along with some wise words shortly.

Have you discussed this with your GP by the way? Losing a lot of weight could well be due to other problems - your GP might think a blood test is appropriate.

I'd also contact a breastfeeding counsellor through the NCT or La Leche to give you some support and also advise you on diet etc if you're worried about the weight loss

but previous poster is right, the weight loss might not be down to b/f - worth seeing your doc or hv

if your baby was reacting to the formula I'd stay away from it for as long as you can