Going to give DD first formula feed tonight and being unnecessarily hard on myself.

[Crazybaglady]

I know I'm being stupid, but I just need to get it out there.

DD is 28 week and a terrible sleeper. Since we moved her into her own room 10 days ago she has at least stopped having periods of being wide awake between 2-5am.

She is however, up at 22:00, 12:00, 02:00, 4:00 and awake for the day from 6. Each time she wakes she now has a 10 minute breast feed and dozes back off.

I'm just at my wits end with exhaustion, especially as I'm now working again (a few hours a day from home around her sleeping).

I've decided to give her a breast feed for bed time a 7oz formula dream feed when I go up and any wake up calls in the night will be met with a bottle. I want to teach her that night time waking doesn't mean snuggling up to the breast.

I'm being stupidly hard on myself about it. I wanted to only give her breast milk until she was a year so I'm (unnecessarily) feeling like I've failed in doing so.

I've tried just giving her her dummy, but she's not falling for it. Sleeping in our room/bed is out of the question as that seemed to have caused her early hours wakefulness. I offer her the breast plenty during the day and always before a meal (BLW) and I'm pretty certain she's not overfilling on empty calories. I can't pump enough milk for a decent size bottle as I can only seem to express 1oz in a 45 min session using both breasts.

My partner is just useless and lazy where it involves him sacrificing any sleep or having to get out of bed. I've not had a single lay in the whole time she has been born and during his paternity leave he would stay in bed until 10/11 everyday (just to give an example of his chronic lazyitis cuntyness leaving me to contend with getting two children ready and leaving for the school run every day. So now I'm doing all night, all child care, all housework, all cooking and working.

I feel so stupid that I feel like this. There is nothing wrong with formula and I am in no way bashing it. I'm just upset that I set a personal goal and am failing half way through.

There is nothing wrong with formula (though it may not change anything ).

Quite a lot wrong with the partner though! !

Oh please, please, please don't feel bad.

I was going to feed by babies but gave up by day 3 so you have done brilliantly. Does she have teeth? Ouch.

You are a wonderful Mummy and there are millions of babies who have had nothing but formula and grown up to be wonderful human beings (I am one of them).

Just get on and love your baby. When she is collecting her degree in 20 years time it won't matter that she had formula.

Be kind to yourself. xxxxx

libraries 100% agree

greebos I know, I know! I'm being so stupid. It's the sleep deprivation and I think insecurity about the longlivity of my relationship which I think is making me feel this way

4 month sleep regression springs to mind..... So formula might not work.

Don't feel guilty, you're making the best decision for you.

Of course, once she has formula you can tell your 'D'P that he is doing a night feed.

Sorry you are unhappy. Try not to let the arse-ish partner get you down. Do you think it is fixable? Can he change? (And if worst comes to worst, it sounds like you are doing it by yourself anyway)

You've done great and are not a failure.

However, do you think giving multiple bottles will help if you think it's habit not hunger? I used to give a supper of something like porridge if I thought DC was hungry, then eventually went cold turkey on the night bf.

Also, your oh wants a good kick up the arse. I reckon it would be easier for him to solve this than you given that he doesn't smell of milk.

I ff DS from 3 weeks. At our NCT reunion, when the babies were about 2 months old, the NCT course leader said to my "there are many ways to nurture a baby, feeding is just one of them". A happy and healthy mother is another. You've done brilliantly.

Believe her baby is 6.5 months.

OP I did the exact same thing with my son for the exact same reason as you, except I did it at 16 weeks, but had only planned to feed until 6 months anyway.

Just to let you know it did work!! He didn't sleep through 12 hours straight off, but he was getting up just once in the night - having a bottle, burp and back to bed till morning. Totally manageable compared to the hellish hourly-2 hourly feeding prior to that!

The problem for us was that he was so sleepy and comforted by the breast in the night that he wouldn't take a proper feed. Just a few sucks then back off to sleep then obviously woke up hungry again just a short time later and repeat! Sounds like that's your trouble too. At least with a bottle you know you've got a full 7oz down her, so if she wakes it's not down to hunger.

I was the same as you, not able to express enough for the two bottles a day I wanted him to have. That's not a failure. There's nothing you can do about that.

You've done AMAZINGLY well!! So few people make it as far as you have so you should be congratulating yourself not beating yourself up! AND you've done it all with NO support so frankly I'm quite blown away by you!

This is not a failure. Like anything with bringing up children you have to be changeable and do what's right for you and them based upon whatever situations you find yourself in! All kids are different and what's right for one's not always right for another!

You sound like an incredible Mum . . . your partner needs to shape up or ship out xxx

Sorry I meant to delete that but as realised I was wrong!

Mine were awful sleepers until past 18 months. Hope it gets better for your OP.

Bloody well done!

Kick yourself in the arse, stop thinking about what you wanted to do and be proud of all you have done.

I think you need to start a new thread about your DP though, because that's not going to work forever.

I think it's hard because what you want is entirely normal and realistic. You want to breastfeed your baby and you want to enjoy them. The trouble is that you're having to do so much other stuff that something has to give and there's a real sadness there because you shouldn't have to compromise what probably feels like another bloody thing just because the person who is supposed to be an equal in your relationship is contributing a grand total of fuck all.

Objectively, I totally agree with everybody else. Breastfeeding is a relationship which works differently for different people and formula is a useful and realistic option. However, I think the absolute core, fundamental issue here is that you don't want to do things this way. It's not even really about the formula, it's about what it represents. You're having to sacrifice one of your personal goals because of a situation you shouldn't be in.

You aren't failing, you're adapting and you're doing so, so, so brilliantly. Give the formula if that is what is going to work for you right now and I give you permission not to feel an ounce of guilt about it. However, if you don't want to and you'd like advice, suggestions or support to do things another way, I'm sure people would be willing to help on here.

Do you have friends or family in real life who you can lean on?

Do you want or need to talk about your relationship right now or is that a conversation for another day?

We used formula in porridge from 6mo (ds refused bottles otherwise I'd have used it in bottles too) and we still be happily to 13mo.
Using formula doesn't mean stopping bf if you don't want to. And they are eating food so there's no issue with the "virgin gut" thing (though I'm not sure I even believe in that but I know many people do).
We achieved sleeping through at ten mo by giving a cup of formula during stories then only bf if he asked.

My goodness thank you everyone.

query my train of thought was that maybe she's after the comfort of the breast, but if she realised she wasn't getting that, but her tummy would be be getting full then she'd just give up on the night feeds!

bike that's so true, and my DD is so happy in general, she's just a terrible sleeper.

notime I'm glad it worked out for you, fingers crossed for me tonight! And thank you for the kind words!

mistress thank you, I know

show I think you've got it in one. I think the night time waking wouldn't be such a big deal if I had more help rather than effectively raise two children single handedly and have an adult to clean up after as well. Even if he just got up with her once a week and let me have a nice lay in, I would probably feel better. You're right, giving her the bottle represents that I'm not getting enough background help from the one person who is supposed to support me enough to be able to reach my goals. The lazy shit couldn't even be bothered to chick a chicken carcass out the roasting tray and clear the kitchen slightly after I cooked the other night, was trying to get ready to get DS to school and DD ready to make a 9:30 meeting and couldn't even get started on breakfast until I cleared the kitchen. He's a fucking disgrace. That thread is for another time though, I know nothing is going to change with him so right now I just need to get a decent stretch of sleep so I can manage everything else effectively. Thank you so much for your response though.

museum I might have to try the porridge before bed, my only worry was filling her up on food rather than milk?

YOu need to get someone to mind the kids for an evening whilst you give this partner of yours a good talking to and thrash out what you expect of him.

Oh, and don't feel guilty about the formula feeding - I formula fed from Day 5 as soon as I left hospital. 28 weeks is very good going.

itsme I have thrashed it out with him before but the problem is that he immediately jumps on the defensive which completely destroys any chance of us having a reasonable or even remotely intellectual thrashing out. He just comes back with 'well so are you' and when I tell him that we need to talk he gets all shitty and huffy and 'what have I done now? Come on out with it' which just completely belittles anything I'm about to say. Sigh.

Please don't feel guilty! You have done great

Just out of interest . . . WHY are you with this guy?

notime i have a DC from a previous relationship, who he is incredible with. We didnt live together until baby became due and in in all honesty had no idea he would be this bad. We have been together a very long time and at no point was there any alarm bells about it. Baby being born showed me his true colours.

Just an update everyone- she wouldnt take a single sip from the bottle so was up at 22, 00, 03, 04, 7:30 'D'P wasnt up until 9

Does he work shifts? Why was he up so late on a weekday anyway?

libraries yes but they start between 8am-12pm and finish between 5-9pm so not like he is out all night grafting!

So just a recreational lie in.

I never found formula made any difference when I tried it to help my bfeed baby's sleep. It did give me a bit of a break. But for that to work you need a partner willing to help out. Does he ever get up at night to help with the baby?

Your partner issue is a separate one. Try the bottle, see how it goes, you know perfectly well that kids have their own personalities and likes and dislikes so pretty much everything is up for renegotiation once they arrive. If it doesn't work out, you can go back, if it does and works for you then great.

Can you see a breastfeeding councillor for some advice OP? Mine was amazing. I have heard though that if you don't introduce a teet early enough often they won't take one :/

Try the bottle again tonight. Which bottle are you using?