Breast to bottle at 5 months, in desperate need of help!

[Honeybee0928]

Hi, my DD is 5 months old and I have become completely disenchanted with breastfeeding. I've just had enough, I feel so down at the moment for feeling like this but I just need some freedom and sleep! We have a 3.5yo too and I just feel guilty and sad that I can't spend as much time with her too as my 5 mo seems to be constantly attached to me, the longest she can go during the day is 2.5 hours a and maybe 5 hours max at night. I tried her on a bottle 3 days ago with Aptamil stage one milk, she wolfed down 3oz had a little nap and then proceeded to throw up all afternoon, even throwing up breast milk which she never does! I think it really upset her stomach, so now I'm scared to try her with formula again.....any suggestions as I really want to stop breastfeeding soon as I'm going back to work in around 2.5 months. Thanks for reading.

Can you possibly start expressing and using a bottle? It sounds like you are having such a tough time. Have you spoken to your gp about possible milk intolerance?

Have you tried expressing and feeding her breastmilk from a bottle? It might help to gradually ease her in. You could also try a few different brands of formula, buy the single use ready made cartons. I'm not sure whether you can mix breastmilk with formula but that might help to ease her in. Did you warm the formula up to body temperature?

You have time, so try not to worry. You could continue the breastfeeds in the morning and evening and formula feed during the daytime too.

I am reading with interest as also starting to wean breast to bottle (soy formula). If baby refuses bottle at feed time, should you offer breast? Worried this May condition her to just wAit it out until she gets breast, on other hand I don't want to 'starve' her by missing a feed. What have you all done??

Sorry honeybee, my post wasn't much help to you was it?! I wonder if the sickness may have been down to baby drinking the formula fast (as it does come out faster from bottle than breast)? If so you may want to try a different bottle - we found with first baby that tomy tippee closer to nature bottles were good as they had a slow milk release. Or as has been mentioned baby may have intolerance to cows milk. Our 5 month old has it so I've been breast feeding on a dairy free diet myself. Baby's symptoms when I ate dairy were vomiting+++, bloating & wind, apparent pain, explosive runny nappies & a type of facial eczema. Worth keeping an eye out for any of these in yours. How was she with breast milk when you ate dairy?

Hi everyone, thanks for the replies. I have tried her with a bottle twice today and she is not interested at all, I did offer her the breast straight after which she took so she was hungry, it's like she knows the bottle makes her sick?! I hate her being sick so I have been reluctant to try her again, I'm wondering if she senses my un ease with it? I'm going to try again tomorrow but let my husband feed her. The first try on the bottle I used a Dr Brown bottle then today I used a tommee tippee bottle but like I said, she was not at all interested and looked kind of disgusted! She is very very rarely sick from breast feeding, there's the occasional burp and tiny amount of sick but nothing like when I gave her the bottle, it was only 3oz but she was sick about eight times throughout the afternoon. It was so disheartening as she took the bottle so well but it just didn't agree with her. I'm at my wits end, I'm going to let my husband try her with a small amount of formula in the morning, then if she's sick again, I will try another formula maybe sma gold. After that I don't know.. I did try expressing a small amount yesterday and trying that but she definitely knows it's not the breast! Cheeky little monkey! I appreciate your feedback as it's nice to know I'm not alone, I'm feeling very alone at the moment as my husband just doesn't understand the stress and guilt I'm feeling.