Considering giving up breastfeeding due to sleep issues - need honest input

[tinierclanger]

DD is 4 months old now and has never really slept well. Until a few weeks ago she occasionally slept 4 hours at the beginning of the night, but now the best she does is 3. She will then wake every 1 or 2 hours and want feeding back to sleep. We spend some of the night cosleeping but not all.

I have no problems feeding her, she is fed entirely on demand in the day and feeds about every 2 hours, sometimes longer, sometimes shorter. I don't want to stop but I am so drawn to the prospect of getting more sleep - some days I cope ok but others I am shattered and a horrible person to be around, affecting my relationship with DH and DS

My fear though is that if I start FF she will wake just as often and then I will have bottles to deal with. In all honesty is this likely or is she more likely to sleep in proper stretches, rather than waking to nibble on me? Obviously the main incentive is that I could get DH to do one night a week and I could just sleep...

Incidentally I am no stranger to poorly sleeping babies as DS was similar. I thought I was owed an easier sleep ride this time but it would seem not!

Anecdotally all the FF babies I know have been better sleepers but I am trying to not be too much influenced by that. I'm going to go with my plan as above for now and possibly consider a single late evening FF as a first step if I'm still struggling in a couple of weeks.

All the sympathy is helping anyway

If it helps OP, dd is a dream sleeper now. She was down to about 1 feed in the early morning by about 11 months and tbh if I'd worked harder at it I probably could have nightweaned her before, I was just too lazy.

She's slept through every single night since she was 13months. And I kind of think that the night feeds helped in a weird way...because she was used to waking and going back to sleep quickly (quick feed, lie back down in cot with waves music from her mobile playing), it was really easy to transition her out of needing a feed at all it if that makes any sense.

That reminds me. WHITE NOISE! If you don't have any yet white noise is your friend. We got the Precious Planet Fisher Price mobile when DD was 4 months and it's the only sleep-aid gimmick we ever bought that was beneficial...

P.S. Get a cleaner if you can afford it at all. do it do it!

Well you have convinced me Flat, ds has sleep apnoea and keeps stopping in the night - I wake when I can't hear him breathing and give him a shake and he still doesn't wake up, I have to blow in his face to make him start breathing again.

If FF makes them sleep deeper then I shan't even consider it! already a nervous wreck

It does help, it does!

We used white noise from the beginning. Really didn't seem to make any difference so I gave up on it a couple of weeks ago but I could try again...

OP i really feel for you and know exactly where youre coming from. I have been completely exhausted and emotional at times from the exhaustion of ebf and the broken sleep it brings. My DS is a terrible napper and sleeper at night. He did gradually improve though so that around 4 months he was just waking for a feed at 4 or sometimes between 12 and 2 as well, although he is not predictable and does have some awful nights still of wanting to feed a lot more. He has just at 7 months started to get a bit better at napping though and has started to have a morning nap.

If im honest, i think it is the bf which makes him like he is/was, because when i have left him a few times with expressed bottles, he ALWAYS sleeps better and longer. I think it is the volume which sees him through. Also, we have this week introduced a bottle of formula during the day ahead of me returning to work and both times he fell asleep straight away into a deep sleep and didnt wake up for at least an hour. I was even scared at first because i had never seen him sleep that deeply.

Every single ff baby i know bar the odd couple, sleep through from around 8 weeks or earlier, take naps, and are generally sleepier. They have sleep patterns i can only dream of. People try to tell me that its not to do with bf or ff, but this is not my experience.

The only thing i can say is that i decided a while back just to accept that i am always going to be tired, and when i accepted this and as time has gone on and ive realised how quickly the months pass over, ive become less frustrated. Also though i think that gradually their sleep does start to improve, although in my experience it takes a fair few months, and probably way longer than any ff babies you might know.

A few people tell me tranquil turtles work.

Ds1 was ff and DS2 breast fed. DS1 was a better sleeper, but not by a huge margin. I find BFing at night and in the early morning so much easier than having to get up though that it almost balances out.

Based on my own personal experiences and all the other stuff I have heard anecdotally and through friends etc, I have come to the conclusion that the vast majority of FF babies sleep through the night better and quicker than the vast majority of BF babies.

I know it's not what anti-FF women want to hear, but there it is.

I'm not touting it as a reason not a reason not to BF - I think BFing is wonderful if it works for you. But your baby won't be as good a sleeper as most FF babies. It just won't. In all likelihood. You pays your money you takes your choice.

Have to confess that the ff babies I know are better than my bf dd. am convinced this wouldn't work for her though as it's gas that wakes her so I think ff would be worse.

OP have you tried changing other things? Try and get your DD to nap more during the day, move the last nap earlier or later, move bedtime earlier or later, that kind of thing. Unless you have the perfect daytime routine (in which case ) I'd be trying different things there to see if there's a difference. Try taking her swimming, 10 mins in a pool gets my DD her longest stretch of sleep!

have you ruled out tongue tie yet?

how is her weight gain?

also if that helps mine always preferred to sleep on their sides and as soon as they could roll or crawl they would sleep on their tummies or in the hedgehog position.

I know the guidelines say put babies on their backs, but the recovery position is nearer to the fetal position and they were less likely to wake themselves up.

I also used to bf in bed, lying down on my side so baby had to be lying on his/her side - we'd fell asleep and they were safe.

I ebf both of my children and in different ways they were poor sleepers.

My friend mixed fed from early on and hers both slept for longer periods and more regularly than mine.

She seemed a lot happier than me that's for sure. Esp second time around.

Both mine have been good sleepers. DS1 had a dream feed of EBM from very early on. DS2 had a dream feed of formula from 3 weeks and now his pre-bedtime feed is formula (6 months old, sleeps 7.30 - 7). He is otherwise breastfed. However, both of mine fed lots in the day. DS2 currently feeds anywhere from 7-9 times, and just a couple of weeks ago was feeding around 10 times in the day. DS1 was the same.

Why not try a dream feed and see how it goes? It's one bottle a day so not lots of work. And your supply should be well established so if it doesn't help you can go back to BF exclusively quite easily.

"Although ff babies on average sleep better than bf babies, I thought the most recent research shows that bf mothers sleep better than ff mothers"

Huh? How are mums supposed to sleep better when babies sleep worse?

I haven't read any posts so may be repeating things but both DD and DS were exclusively bf - DD slept through from around 13/14 weeks, DS was about 13/14 MONTHS!
Everything that 'is supposed to make them sleep better' - weaning, crawling, 1 meal a day, 2 meals a day, 3 meals a day, walking (he did that at 10 mths), dropping naps, etc DID NOT WORK - he slept through when he was ready!

If it is any consolation he is now 7, is a brilliant sleeper and has been for years.

We also added a bottle of formula at night at about 8 mths - bugger all effect

I'm trying to work this out.

Say ds (bf) wakes twice in the night for a feed, (between about 9-10pm and 7am) and I feed him without getting up, or even properly waking up, I'm getting an awful lot of sleep.

If a ff baby sleeps right through from 10pm till 7am, their mum is getting more! However if it wakes once, maybe twice like mine, and they are obliged to get up properly and go to the kitchen for a bottle, warm it up, etc (while holding the baby) I think if that was me I'd probably be rocking in a corner within a week.

Keeping bottles by the bed - not so bad, you could still roll over and feed without getting upright.

I faced this issue really recently. I can tell you my experience, hope it will be encouraging....

DS went from sleeping blocks of 4 hours (consistently 2 or 3 night wakings) to 4, 5 or 6 night wakings just as he reached 15 weeks. He had always fed to sleep. He would go to sleep okay most of the time, but on the transfer to cot he would wake up often and would not resettle, this meant a lot of re- feeding back to sleep and trying to transfer to cot once again, could take about 15/ 20 mins to do this and I could be doing this 3 or 4 times on the worst nights each and every waking. Feeding to sleep was the only thing that worked. I wasn't getting much sleep!

We co slept for a little while but I never slept well with him in the bed and my DH had to sleep in the spare room, which wasn't great - felt more like DH and I were flat mates than husband and wife! I much prefer DS in the cot at the end of our bed.

I did some reading up and discovered the 4 month sleep regression, which I think was part of the issue DS had. I gritted my teeth and got through that (took 2 weeks, we co slept with DH in the spare room, fed to sleep. Then DS returned to waking 3 times a night). After that, I decided it was time to try to break the association between feeding and sleep, so we used the pick up/ put down method with DH being the picker upper/ putter downer so there was no milk in the room(!). We already had a consistent bedtime routine in place (nothing elaborate, just calm change of nappy, into sleep suit, upstairs to darkened room, no noise, no talking, calming atmosphere, etc.). We also make sure that bedtime is between 6 and 7 pm, any later and DS is overtired and its awful. Also, no napping after 5pm and try to make sure DS has 3 naps throughout the day. Not long ones, just 45 mins (ish) around 10am, 1pm, 4pm. We have the jokey saying here that 'sleep breeds sleep' which is totally counterintuitive but true IMHO.

It's still early days for us with pick up put down, and there has been a little crying, but DH is there cuddling DS, so I'm confident he never feels abandoned and we are teaching him how to settle himself, which is an important lifeskill. I now feed DS, put him in his cot, he then wakes up and cries and DH takes over with pick up put down. It went from 1 hour to fully settle the first night to 15 mins last night - we're on our 5th day of pick up put down. Since we started doing this he has woken once each night, so sleeping from 7pm to around 6am with only 1 waking. Nighttime settling for the last 2 nights has been immediate! He's put down awake, gurgles to himself for a few mins then drifts off, incredible. So I am feeling a lot, lot more rested. It could just be a fluke, but it feels like pick up put down has been a positive experience and unlinking feeding from sleeping was definitely the right thing to do for us.

Hope that's helpful and give you some hope. It does sound like 4 month sleep regression to me (even though it was never that great to start with for you!). Hope you can get some sleep, maybe your DH could take the DCs out for a few hours this weekend both days so you can rest. Agree that it's not possible to just sleep in the time that DC is not feeding - at 4 months babies don't just feed and sleep, they are awake, active and exploring the world for good 2 hour blocks throughout the day and naps are less than 1 hour in my experience (both children did this, maybe starlight had a more sleepy baby?).

I rather believe it is the co sleeping in fact that makes people sleep better.

As an aside I have found our cot is pretty useless. I put him in it while I got ready for bed last night, he was asleep. Great I thought. (it is beside my bed and has never been slept in least of all at night)

He woke up shortly after and I couldn't reach him, he was so far down!! It was hard work to get him out, I had to almost stand up to do it.

It is on the low setting as he is trying to fall out on the high setting and we use it as a containing device in the day.

Anyone want a Blooming Urban Crib?

Cosleeping all night was the only thing that helped here. Yes I was waking every 2 hours to feed DS but at least I didn't have to get up!
He is nearly 2 an unfortunately still a crappy sleeper - introducing solids made sod all difference, and trying a bedtime bottle jut made him even more redluxy than ever. Sorry, I don't mean to sound all doom and gloom but I believe you are either blessed with a good sleeper or not, and since me and DH are both rubbish it stands to reason that DS is too.

'we are teaching him how to settle himself, which is an important lifeskill.'

I hope you don't mind my saying that I find babies usually learn to settle to sleep all by themselves when they are ready. I'm an advocate of going with what the child is ready for at any given time (unless it's urgent/important that they fit in with us, for instance medical needs of parent etc) so I would say that

I don't think children need an awful lot of training as such, and find it easier to fit around them tbh. #babyledsleeping

"Quality of sleep"

Where is the quality of sleep when your baby keeps waking up every hour and wails for another 30 mins before going back to sleep? Or when the mum can't go back to sleep easily once she wakes up?

"They don't rouse fully"? You can't generalise sleep patterns over billions of women! Everyone sleeps differently and wakes up differently. When I wake up, I'm awake and can't go back to sleep. There is no "rousing" for me but "fully". Congratulations if you can BF half awake and then drop off to sleep in a second but many of us are not like you.

You have my sympathy, my DS is a rubbish sleeper. You don't need to be all or nothing about breastfeeding. It wont hurt for your baby to have a bottle or two one or two nights a week. Whilst you sleep in a different room of course! Bottles are great if someone else is doing them for you! Even just one bottle feed in the night could get you a decent sleep. From about three or four months i think DS had a couple of cartons a week and a couple of bottles of expressed milk. I would have suffered badly with depression otherwise as i don't do well with extreme sleep deprivation. Still managed to breastfeed fir 14 months and i don't think the odd formula feed will harm your supply once bf is established well