Scared I'll regret stopping breastfeeding but getting no rest!

[August21yellowbaby]

My nearly 6 month old hit what I can only assume is the 4 month sleep regression beginning of December
This was obviously nearly 2 months ago when he hit 4 months old
The last 2 weeks has got EVEN worse and he is now waking up every 50-60 minutes and the only thing that stops him crying is breastfeeding him
I try feed him as much as I can in the say but he only takes short feeds
It's really taking its toll on my mental health now
My partner can't even help at night even when I'm in tears with how tired I am, because my baby won't settle for him as all he wants is feeding
Some of the time he's just suckling so it's just for comfort
I think part of the problem is that he's feeding that much at night he's not wanting much in the day, which is then making him want more at night

I think I've had enough of breastfeeding now, because even though that might not be the root of the problem, I am blaming it, and so is everyone else around me, which is making me resent it

I'm just so scared I'll regret stopping and would love someone to just tell me what I can do

I'm so so tired and have absolutely no life 😞

Any help is welcome

You need to realise how absolutely brilliant you have been to keep breastfeeding for as long as 6 months. Well done!

You've been bombarded by so much info telling you to breastfeed exclusively to 6 months that you have internalised the idea that anything less than this is unacceptable, but the reality is that the vast vast majority of babies get way less than this and they turn out fine.

You have certainly done a brilliant thing for your baby by getting this far, but your own mental and physical health is also important and if balancing everything out means that switching some of the baby's feeds to bottle will help your wellbeing then that's ok. All the breastmilk in the world isn't going to be better for your baby if it's at the cost of having a mum who has gone beyond the end of her tether and can't cope any more. Your baby needs you to be ok, so you need to look after yourself too.

It's not all-or-nothing, you won't dry up right away. It's ok to take it at whatever pace works for the two of you.

So sorry to read this, we went through almost exactly the same thing.

At 6 months we sleep trained and night weaned at the same time. Basically, at that age a baby can go overnight without a feed. So I’d feed her at 10pm for a dream feed then again at 2am as a dream feed, then otherwise we did controlled crying. The advantage of a dream feed is that because they’re asleep, you’re not giving them mixed messages by feeding them when they wake up sometimes but not others.

It took a few days for her to sleep through, I cut down the 2am dream feed by 1 minute each day then dropped it entirely after about 8/9 days, then kept the 10pm dream feed until she was about 10 months old.

You could also try a bottle but mine just wouldn’t take it!

Good luck, it’s horrible