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Infant feeding

Get advice and support with infant feeding from other users here.

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Original poster

Which formula?

11 replies

Tiny1 · 26/02/2007 14:58

DS aged 19 weeks has started waking lots at night. A friend suggested I give a formula feed at 7pm to see if this will help him to sleep longer. Which formula though? Are they all pretty similar? They all seem to promise the same thing! Does anyone know if some are meant to be better than others? Any advice would be much appreciated! Many thanks.

OP posts:

hunkerdave · 26/02/2007 14:59

Formula won't help him sleep - feeding and sleep are different issues.

Could he be teething?

MrsBadger · 26/02/2007 15:02

or just having a growth spurt and wanting to bf more?

Hulababy · 26/02/2007 15:05

I agree. Formula milk won't help baby sleep better.

GreatGooglyMoogly · 26/02/2007 15:07

SMA Gold is recommended by some hospitals. HTH.

DebitheScot · 26/02/2007 15:14

Do you feel he isn't getting enough from you in the evening? You could try expressing during the day maybe then your body will make more milk and you'll have extra to give him in the bottle. Then you wouldn't have to choose which formula.

From about 8 weeks I gave my ds 4 or 5oz milk (expressed to start with then SMA when expressing stopped working at about 12 weeks) at his late (10.30pm ish) feed followed by about 10mins breast feed. I did this because I could tell I didn't have enough milk left in me to give him enough to keep him going as long as he had been previously. It did make him sleep better but this won't necessarily mean your ds will sleep any better if you do the same.

I liked doing that as it meant dh could help too. And introducing him (ds not dh) to a bottle early helped when I wanted to give him a couple more bottle feeds as he got older as he was used to the bottle.

hunkerdave · 26/02/2007 15:16

Not sure what you mean by you could "tell" you didn't have enough milk, Deb - breasts often start feeling less "full" as your baby gets older, but it doesn't mean there's not as much milk there, just that your body's getting used to making it.

missboo · 26/02/2007 15:18

all babies are diff i started on sma gold because recomended by hospitals but soon went over to aptilmil been very happy with that one.I never BF my DS {my choice}and he would still wake up at night i think they wont sleep through until there good and ready.i was told to wake him up at about 11ish and give him a top up, so as a first time mum i followed this advice what a nightmare dont do it. i decided to leave him and the gaps got wider and wider until he started to sleep through.

And as said before could be teething.

DebitheScot · 26/02/2007 15:26

He was sucking lots but wasn't getting much milk and I couldn't squeeze much out either.

I woke ds up at 10.30 until he was about 6 months old (I think) and from about 10 weeks he didn't need fed again till 6.30 at the earliest.

hunkerdave · 26/02/2007 15:30

What you can squeeze out isn't a sign of how much is there though. And babies often do like sucking. Not criticising - obv what you did worked for you and that's great

joolsandoliver · 26/02/2007 21:38

Yup, know how you feel. Mine's about the same age and I long for a good night's sleep !

Anecdotally it seems that some babies do sleep longer on formula, although there is not much evidence to support this. Could be worth a try if your desperate! However I went to an interesting talk by a breastfeeding counsellor who works for UNICEF and she pointed out that the gut mucosal immunity that BF provides gets striped away by formula. Not to put a guilt trip on because you've done a fab job BF for so long anyway but if you could continue exclusively BF it would be better for your LO IMHO.

It might be that your LO is on a growth spurt and is just trying to boost up your milk supply again. If you supplement your milk supply will of course drop, meaning that if you change your mind you've got even more sleepless nights to come trying to get the milk back up.

However if you did want to give formula then they are all much the same but your LO might prefer the taste of one over another. All infant milks are tightly regulated by the FSA but it's interesting that Aptimil was (don't know if this info is still up-to-date) the market leader because they had priced it as the most expensive. Parents thought that as it was the dearest it must be the best!

I have to say that I do find it useful to wake my DS up at about 10.30pm. I give him one side, then change his nappy to wake him up a bit before giving him the other. Then I usually get into bed knowing that I've got about 4 hours kip to come. Guess this wouldn't work for everyone but works for me.

Best of luck

amijee · 26/02/2007 22:45

I would say it's volume rather than formula that helps. So it would work with EBM as well.

WHat I do sometimes is give ds as much milk in a bottle as he can take ( EBM or formula) and then offer him the breast afterwards because he always takes it for another 5 mins as even if he's not that hungry he'll take it.

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