mixing breastfeeding and formula feeding - help?!

[SarahPT]

sorry if this is a noddy question but i need reassurance before i start on the formula route!

DS is 9 weeks old. Am BFing and he has a bottle of Expressed milk most nights so I know he's OK taking a bottle.

I've heard that swapping to a bottle of formula for the last feed of the evening is likely to help him sleep for longer during the night but am a little bit worried about whether it's OK to supplement Bfing like that

Is it?

no evidence at all it makes them sleep longer

and it does run the risk of affecting your supply, esp if the one bottle becomes two, then more over time...

9wks is teeny weeny - the sleep will get better in time! Meanwhile have you tried everything to make night feeds as easy for you as possible? Maybe cosleeping?
Or even getting dh to give the expressed bottle at 3am?

Sarah, there are some good studies on this to help you choose - always good to see what research tells us as it is likely to be more correct than anecdotal stuff.

This study shows that full bf gives parents more sleep.

And this study shows that the use of formula with otherwise breastfed babies ('partial breastfeeding') increases the risk of diarrhoea and respiratory disease - other studies confirm a 'dose related' effect, so that one bottle is not as much of a risk as 2 bottles or 3, and it would be hard to quantify the risk of your proposed plan, as it is likely to be small.

We already know that use of bottles means continued breastfeeding is undermined - can't find a study that shows this in babies of your baby's age, but there is research to show it happens earlier.

So - there are known risks and no known benefits. You can't predict what would happen in your own individual case, though.

Is your baby waking a lot at night?

i wouldn't do it - not yet anyway - i mixed fed dd from about 3m - 11m - by which time milk supply was well established - but i only gave formula in the day - i don't think formula helps with sleep - and 9weeks is still very early days

Sorry guys but I find the opposite, I get a far longer period of sleep by giving a FF at 11PM. My DD is 6 weeks, uses a dummy and a bottle yet BF is still successful. I felt so guilty about using the evil FF but I'm happier and DD is happier which is what I really care about. I realise BF is the ideal but not if it undermines the happiness of the mother to the point she is not enjoying the baby. I realised I wasn't enjoying my baby and felt this was far more damaging than FF. I now enjoy BF but still wouldn't give up the FF.

MollyMonkey, I;m glad you feel it's working for you but I think 6wks in might be a wee bit soon to say that the formula is having no effect at all on bf / your supply etc...

... and in fact I see from your posts on another thread that the single 11pm ffeed has become 11pm and 4am plus possibly two further ffeeds during the day. Not judging or trying to make you feel guilty, but it's important the OP gets the whole picture .

From my little experience it only buys me half an hour extra!

I came down with a nasty bout of mastitis recently and much as I tried to bf off one boob which was sheer hell to the hell from the other I decided to give a top up to help me cope. A week later feel I can drop the top up now as boobs feeling better and DH can give an expressed bottle.. but from what I saw it bought me 30mins extra sleep that's all! (guess it will vary though. My first was a bottle fed baby and yes I got more sleep with him than this LO now, but babies vary, so it's hard to forecast the answer.

Tried it with DS1 - agree with martha200 - gets you about an extra 30 minutes. So we didn't bother and went back to expressed milk for the 10-11pm feed by Daddy.