Does anyone else wish they weren't BF?

[Writerwannabe83]

DS is just over 5 months and EBF.

I'm absolutely shattered from night after night after night of broken sleep with last night being the shittest one I have ever had.

I know giving formula wouldn't mean he'd slept better but at least it would mean I could send him away for the night so I could get some sleep. I can't remember the lady time I got more than a 3 hour stretch of sleep.

I look back on when he was born and ask myself why did I have to be so bloody martyr-ish, so stubborn, so determined to be the 'perfect mother' and EBF and never give a bottle??! God I wish I'd done things differently.

Instead I'm darling with a baby who will only be soothed by me, will usually only stop screaming if I put him to the breast and refuses to take bottles.

I'm in a really crap place and things are getting worse, not better.

Does anyone else feel like this? I can't tell if I'm just having a bad day because of exhausted I am or whether I really have reached the end of my tether with it all.

Thank you for all your advice.

One of the main problems I have is that if he falls to sleep I just can't wind him - and without a doubt he then wakes up a few hours later screaming in pain because of trapped wind. I'm reluctant to take him off the breast whilst he's still awake in order to wind him for all the reasons you stated about the importance of letting them finish their feed.

Is there a trick to winding a sleeping baby?

i'm fairly sure 10-12 feeds in 24 hours is spot on for an exclusively breastfed baby! you could try offering feeds more frequently during the day to see if that helps reduce the night time fussing - but i think there is also a growth spurt at six months isn't there? so thats probably not helping either atm. its te sugar in teething powders that acts a pain relief for babies so you dont have to fret about overdosing them on paracetamol which i know is a worry when they're teething for ages. (bag of caster sugar probably equally effective and significantly cheaper...)

just sit him up and do it. Then pop him on again. It doesn't often take much after that for Lucy to go back to sleep.
or alternatively, ease him up to your shoulder and gently pat/rub whilst he's out?
If he's getting a lot of wind, is his latch okay? how fast is the flow? is he gulping? different positions might well help.

He used to suffer badly with wind as I had a lot of latch issues in the first few months but things are much better now. If he's awake when I sit him up after a feed he does a great big burp without me really having to pat or rub his back. On the occasions where I do pat and rub I only have to do it for 30-60 seconds to get a result. I think my letdown is quite fast as he really gulps it down at the start of the feed but then he slows to a much more steady and slower rate.

I will try burping him and then putting him to the breast again tonight and hopefully that will work.

He's still asleep on my lap now and bar the 5 minutes of his short waking he's been asleep for about 1.5 hours.

I'm glad 10-12 feeds in 24 hours is deemed normal - it's just hard when you read/hear other stories about EBF babies having less than that and also sleeping through. I know I shouldn't compare DS to other babies but it's so disheartening when other mothers seem to have cracked it whereas I just seem to be failing at it all

I suggest the following:

• try not to feed him to sleep!
• however feed him on demand from morning until bedtime, with a dreamfed. So still 10-12 feeds in 24hrs.
• literally try feeding him every hour in the day for a few days so he learns he doesn't need to cry to be fed as his demands met beforehand

-11pm-6am no night feeds. Dreamfed at 11pm, then settle without milk during wakings. Water if hot

• In the day try and feed so it's not as he naps. So say 6am wakes and play peekaboo 3 mins so he doesn't instantly associate waking with feed, then feed. 7am feed, 8am feed, play, 8.30am settle for nap without feeding.

I should have mentioned that I have also found feeding more often during the day does seem to help mine sleep better at night (though still wakes at least once).

Artandco, I'd respectfully disagree about the no night feeds and offering water instead - five months is waaaaaaaaaaay too young to fully night wean an EBF baby, unless they sleep through themselves, and especially if they're teething/going through some kind of growth spurt. Even if you feed them literally non stop during waking hours, it's not like you can just tank them up so much during the day that they won't/"shouldn't" wake up - that's a Gina Fordism (or similar) that in my own experience just doesn't work for most babies. Setting a block for refusing night feeds is something that I'd do (and have done) with a much older baby.

Do agree that the No Cry Sleep Solution has some good tips for reducing night wakings, and some techniques for not feeding to sleep if you think that's part of the waking issue (though frankly I found feeding to sleep massively useful and it's not an association I'd break without good reason, scare tales of "rods for backs" notwithstanding). And yes, 10-12 feeds in 24 hours is normal, normal, normal. It'll cut down soon enough.

When I see routines written out about what I should be doing at certain times it makes me feel so overwhelmed and almost like I have absolutely no clue what I'm doing. It's quite upsetting really.

DS doesn't really have any routine as I just feed him when he wants it and he naps when he wants to. I genuinely don't understand how babies can have set routines - but maybe that's because I'm just rubbish at doing it. I really feel like I must be doing something wrong

My friend leant me her Gina Ford book and as I read about perfectly structured days and babies behaving perfectly in accordance with the routine it just made me doubt myself even more.

It feels like I'm trying to do the best I can but everyone else can and are doing it better.

It's not at all a routine. Just an example of how a few hours in day might look if not feeding baby to sleep. Can be any times but I would just not feed for say 10 mins after he wakes in day and at least 15-30 mins before sleeps/ naps so he learns not to associate sleep with milk

I am the complete opposite of gina ford routines.

This has worked well for both mine, plus x3 nephews we cared for 10 months full time ( singleton and then twins, who I also bf on sil request - she was fighting cancer when twins born). I really don't believe a 5 month old is too young to go 7 ish hours at night (11pm dreamfed- 6am). Especially if they have been fed plenty of times throughout the day.

I agree. no water. its just filling their tummy with nothing.
I don't have a preference as to feeding to sleep or not. I'm very lucky to have a self soother, but I AM against leaving them to cry just for the sake of a routine. just think how tired you get as an adult after a good sob!

Saggy - I wouldn't usually recommend water regularly but would give if hot weather. I also never leave to cry. They are rocked/ cuddled/ soothed/ sung too/ patted as needed, just not fed 11pm-6am.

He used to be a self soother

When he was about 3 months old he would gave his last feed at about 9pm and then I would put him in his crib awake. He would gurgle and play around for a bit but he had always settled himself off to sleep by 10pm. More often than not he would then sleep through until 5-6am so regularly going 8-9 hours between overnight feeds.

Then he had his 2nd lot of jabs, then he had the 4 month regression, then he went through a period of having reflux and now he's teething and I'm lucky if he sleeps for more than 3.5 hours in one go.

He's like a completely different baby now regarding his sleep and I don't know how to get my old one back.

Writer you're doing just fine.
My one piece of advice to any new mum, is to not stress about anyone else. just listen to what everyone has to say and then pick and choose exactly what you need.
And mainly, go with your gut instincts, they're rarely wrong.
We're all feeding you conflicting information here, it's not helping. take what you want from it and do what you need to.
The thing about rearing babies is that there is NO wrong or right. Every baby is reared a slightly different way and the vast majority grow up to be normal happy children.
take no notice of Gina Ford, or anyone else who says that their baby lives to an exact routine. I'd lay money on it being a total load of old guff!
How about closing the shutters and having a belated babymoon. forget about everything else until you work this through. x

Sounds like he's had a pretty crap time and he just needs his mum.

5 mo really hard for me. It will honestly improve once you start solids and he gets more physically independent.

Ff babies are often also only settled by mothers, its not necessarily down to being ebf.

What about a sippy cup for ebm?

Sorry only just read other responses. Op, you are doing great. In the nicest possible way, you need to develop a thicker skin. Ignore other peoples bs! You.were lucky that he slept through so early, but his needs have changed. Not forever i promise!

Thanks everyone - I'm actually feeling a little bit more positive now I've read your replies. I guess I have to stop searching for the 'old him', accept how he is now, understand that it won't last forever and take one day at a time.

Ah writer I sympathise, my DD is nearly 10mo now but I remember that stage being really really difficult. I felt like you do about routines... Every other baby I know was in one at that time so I felt like I must be such a disorganised/rubbish mum because I couldn't seem to implement one. Then I realised that she just wasn't a baby who responded to routine, and if im honest I'm not the sort of adult who lives by routine either! I still predominantly take her lead now so naps and feeds are often at different times each day, however starting solids has made a big difference as she no longer feeds constantly. I always fed to sleep and never left her to cry but she has gradually learnt to self settle. She still wakes properly twice in the night, but at the first one I just give her a quick cuddle then feed at the second. It is so much more manageable now. Hang on in there, you're doing a great job, but don't beat yourself up if you offer formula! DD was a bottle refuser but we persevered until about 6 months (with formula) and now she'll take a bottle happily.

Routines or non-routine really doesn't matter. People with a defined and specific routine are not "better" at being a parent than people without a routine. It's just different, not better or worse.

I honestly don't really understand this thread.

How does this:

When he was about 3 months old he would gave his last feed at about 9pm and then I would put him in his crib awake. He would gurgle and play around for a bit but he had always settled himself off to sleep by 10pm. More often than not he would then sleep through until 5-6am so regularly going 8-9 hours between overnight feeds.

lead you to this opinion?

I look back on when he was born and ask myself why did I have to be so bloody martyr-ish, so stubborn, so determined to be the 'perfect mother' and EBF and never give a bottle??! God I wish I'd done things differently.

Um, why? What on earth makes you think that bf is the problem here? It seems to have worked really well for you overall. You seem to have identified the problems pretty well here, instead:

Then he had his 2nd lot of jabs, then he had the 4 month regression, then he went through a period of having reflux and now he's teething and I'm lucky if he sleeps for more than 3.5 hours in one go.

-I'm not surprised either, and I fail to see what BF has to do with any of it. YES by all means give formula as a way of meaning you can get some sleep - that's absolutely a sensible 'tactic' to partially deal with the issue of broken sleep in yourself. But why on earth is the jump to blaming breastfeeding and 'martyring'? He'd have had all the above issues if you'd given the odd bottle. You wanted to EBF because you considered it the best way to feed your baby, I assume. That isn't being a martyr.

Anyone would think that there was a cunning anti-BF agenda this week, I don't know, it currently seems de rigeur to slag off BF and the joyless martyrs who do it under a whole range of guises!

OP, I had no set routines. Babies all went with the flow. All ebf. All now good sleepers, consider myself lucky with fairly easy happy children. Probably nothing to do with what I've done or haven't done. I do know though that I'm happy I did what I wanted to do at the time, and the ONLY people in which I see real regret over parenting decisions made are the ones where they feel they were steamrolled or pressured into anything - be it by HCPs, family, partners, whatever. So you HAVEN'T been a martyr, you have very sensibly done what you thought best to do, up to and including now using formula to improve your sleep situation. That's the best parenting anyone could hope for.

Calm down Castle.
The Op is sleep deprived and upset. The tone of your post is a little rabid!

On the plus side there's no getting up in the middle if the night to prepare and cool bottles, no sterilising and you can pretty much do what you want and go where you want without planning during the day

I was only moaning about the fact I didn't introduce bottles because of how tied I am to DS as he's EBF. I know bottles and formula won't solve the problems but at least it would mean he could spend a night at his grandparents and I could have a rest - I just wish I hadn't been so adamant (martyr-ish) about never giving a bottle in the early days because then I wouldn't be in the situation I am now of sheer exhaustion.

I do love breast feeding and I know it was the right choice for me but like I said, it would be nice just to able to have a break from it every now and then.

Point taken, Saggy.

I probably am being a bit unreasonable, I admit to feeling extremely disappointed in the 'other thread', where a whole bunch of apparently caring and informed parents seem to be slagging off and minimising the importance of breastfeeding simply because they chose not to do it. And anyone who has the gall to actually point out that it's better for your baby than formula is a joyless martyring guilt-tripper.

OP I apologise if I seemed to be criticising your approach. I'm not, I'm simply urging you not to frame this as being about breastfeeding. It really REALLY isn't - you talk about giving a bottle in the early days, but you didn't need to then - he was sleeping, eating and developing just fine, yes? So you carried on with EBF, which (let's not be ashamed to say it) has a significant amount of research backing it up as the best way to feed your baby. So all good.

And one of the best things about carrying on with bf is that it's always negotiable. Unlike FF, which once you move to, you're pretty much stuck with it. So now, when you feel you need to, you're negotiating. Still all good.

Incidentally, if you'd 'introduced a bottle' in the early days, who is to say that it wouldn't have compromised your supply etc.? Now, with bf well established, you have the groundwork in to be able to change your emphasis and be pretty much sure that you can carry on feeding as much as you want to.

I think you've made good choices and importantly, the ones which were most right for you at the time.

If it helps, there's nothing to say that he would have taken a bottle in the early days.