So tired of breastfeeding

[rosydreams]

Just to state i love breastfeeding, my first although spat up all the time it was fed her once every 4 hours she was good ,next child i tried very hard but poor latch so ended up on bottle but fed 3hr .

This baby latched so can feed well but if he feeds for more than about 10mins he throws up whole feed.But not always the case occasionally will throw a curve ball due to reflux and throw up whole feed anyway .I wouldn't mind this usually baby's are messy but he eats every hour maybe a hour to hour half if i am lucky. Hes 5 weeks now it can be any were 45 mins to a hour to hour half.

I am getting a few hours sleep a night ,my other half sometimes gives him a bottle of expressed milk to help me sleep in morning so i get two hrs maybe.But even bottle fed its still same time between feedings ,i dont know what to do .

Although i love feeding him myself i am just so exhausted ,i dont know what to do. I wanted to breastfeed but this exhausting,not sure about introducing formula as it can make reflux worst.I was planning to switch to formula at 6 months but i dont know.Wondered if at 3-4 months could introduce one bottle a night of hungry baby milk. But again unsure ,just dont know what i should do

My first had severe reflux and I eventually worked out from much reading in to it that they tend to spend a lot more time that other babies feeding as while they are feeding and milk is going down, the reflux can't come back up so it is soothing for them to feed and they do it as much as they can to avoid pain and discomfort.
Mine also had the vomiting, along with increasingly explosive nappies and eventually blood in them too which I worked out, no thanks to several useless visits to the gp, was due to CMPA. the vomiting hugely improved after I cut out dairy from my diet and the nappies went back to normal thankfully too.
The frequent feeding did continue somewhat and underhand there isn't a quick fix that I found apart form they eventually grow out of it.
What I've said may not be a huge amount of help, but others have been there and you will come out the other side, though it feels frustrating and very difficult to cope with at the time.
Best of luck with your little one and I hope you can find some ways to help them and yourself manage better soon

After several difficult sleepless nights and baby crying a lot when I tried to put them down I changed to co sleeping which maximised my sleep even if little one was feeding which helped somewhat

He has no signs of allergy's no rashes,nappy's are fine and reflux for most part just little bits of spit up ,i dont want to cut stuff out.I was told to cut out peanuts for first two years and my first ended up with a allergy.My second i expressed fed and i ate lots of peanuts for exposure my second has no allergy's.I dont want to cut out something out of my diet if there are poor indicators of a issue or without medical advice for it .This also why hesitant with formula as yes i agree reflux can go hand in hand with dairy issues ,his may just be very mild.But if i introduce formula it could cause full blown issues.Thus being very careful already

but i agree reflux could be causing comfort feeding ,i would co sleep but we have cats .I dont like the idea of the cats climbing into bed with the baby ,we would lock them out but they will howl

Definitely - if there are no other signs of allergies then it's not good to start cutting things out of your diet, I was very hesitant to begin with to do this myself and went several times to the gp who were so unhelpful but in my little ones's case there were clear symptoms.
it is definitely the right thing to do to keep up exposure to avoid an allergy unless they start showing severe symptoms.

If you can manage to keep breastfeeding then that sounds the best option if you are happy to do it, though I thoroughly agree it can be so so difficult at points and take up so much time, especially if they are feeding for comfort for some of the time.

That is difficult with sleeping arrangements, I used to have a cat, though it was before I had my little one. I know cats can find it hard to adjust to a new routine and won't let you forget something they don't like very soon. it may be a case of putting your own sanity first to be able to co sleep and get more sleep to function better for yourself, baby and your family, maybe you could try it every other night to begin with and see how you do?

At the end of the day you need to do whatever is best for you and your baby, as if you aren't 100% then you won't be able to do your best to look after everyone else. If you are changing things then I found changing one thing at a time and seeing how it helped (or not) baby and routine etc made it easier to see how a change affected things, than changing a lot of things at once and then not knowing what may have affected something.

Best of luck and try and remember it won't last for ever - ever so frustrating as it is when you are going through it, you can do this!