Why am I so conflicted about introducing a bottle of formula at 5mo?

[evertonmint]

DS is 5mo next week. His sleep is hideous and completely unpredictable (he has been surviving on 8-10 hours in 24 the past fortnight or so - woefully underslept). He is waking 3 (good but rare) to 5 (more normal) times between midnight and 6.30am and will only be fed back to sleep. I have been co-sleeping since birth, which I have never been overly enamoured with, and I am now no longer getting the rest it afforded me in the early days. I have 2 older children,one at school and one at nursery a couple of days but home the rest. My husband is out for 12 hours a day. I am chronically sleep-deprived and feel awful. My reserves are at rock bottom. I can only express 1-2oz at a time, if I can find time to fit it in.

So the obvious answer to me now is to try a bottle of formula at 11pmish and see if I can either get my head down earlier with DH doing this feed or if we're lucky get longer at night. At the very least I could leave DH to deal with him for one night so I can sleep.

Sleep is more important than how he is fed at this stage. I just cannot see that one formula feed will outweigh the benefit of the hundreds of breastfeeds he has had by now, regardless of the Just One Bottle gut flora stuff. And solids are only a few weeks away at most. My older DS was mixed fed from 3 weeks to 12 months and is a healthy, bright boy so I know it isn't in any way evil. And my DD was ebf until 24 weeks when we started solids and never had formula (weaned her to cows milk after her birthday) so it's not like I feel like I need an ebf badge as I have one.

So why am I so reluctant to try a bottle of formula?

I don't really know why I'm posting, I'm just trying to work it out and wondered if anyone has any insights. I'm trying to make myself feel better about this as it feels logically right but I'm emotionally not there at all (but I am sleep-deprived so my emotions are not a good guide at the moment)

BTW I do not need anyone to give me permission to give my baby formula. That is not what I'm asking for. I'm just trying to understand why my head is telling me to do it and my heart is telling me not to.

Sigh...

Rootypig - no not condescending, don't worry :) I was aware he might hate it. The screaming/grumpiness actually started on and off before I left him so it was probably in hindsight not even worth trying.

We tried again yesterday. I walked miles to get a 3 hour nap out of him and then another later and got him to bed quickly. Wouldn't take bottle at 10.30 or 3 when he woke so DH brought him to me, but he fed well from me and back to sleep easily until 6. I slept until 7! Only 2 feeds from me and no awake periods - this is a miracle! And I have had enough rest to get me through a few more bad nights

I've done the same today with naps so fingers crossed for tonight. Once DH is back at work tomorrow fitting long walks and getting timings right is much harder but I'm going to give it a go and see if routine really helps him.

We've also concluded the introduction of a bottle needs to be a daytime thing too :) He used to take one of expressed milk at 10pm so we thought he might again but it's clearly been too long since we did that properly (he had treatment for hip dysplasia for 12 weeks and expressing largely went out of the window!)