Trying night formula feed for the first time

[pleasechange]

You may have seen my post the other day that my 4 month old is waking every hour in the night. Everyone (in RL) keeps saying that he must be v hungry (suggesting that bf isn't filling him up) and that I should try formula at night (before bedtime)

I've ignored these comments for a long time but am at the end of my tether with the hourly wake-ups so am going to try it tonight. Sounds silly, but I felt a bit of a failure when I bought the carton today. I don't know whether or not I want it to help. If it does, I'll feel bad that he's been so hungry all this time and that I'm not able to do it myself, but if it doesn't work I'm back where I started!

Oh sweetheart, he is not waking up every hour because your milk is not filling enough for him. 4 months is classic sleep disturbance time, no matter whether your baby is FF or BF.

By all means try the formula if you want to - it doesn't make you a failure in any way - but just be aware that it is very unlikely to do anything. Occasionally they will sleep a bit longer for a night or so because the formula takes longer to digest (not a good thing IMO) but then they get used to it and you are left with a baby that still wakes up and the joy of making up bottles in the night. FWIW the formula we tried made no difference to my DS.

Thanks The ProvincialLady - I think I secretly want it not to work so I can tell them all it's nothing to do with that!

Also I think some of my uncertainty is coming from the fact that I've never been able to express much. I know this is unrelated to how much LO is getting, but it is hard when I express and get under 1oz from both breasts!

at 4 months I found that giving ds a bottle of expressed mik before bed made a big difference. Simply because I was able to encourage him to take a really big feed, whereas he was a snacker at the breast.
200mls (7oz) minimum seemed to do the trick.

allnew, giving formula does not equal extra sleep, and we have the research to show this!

If you google

Breast-feeding Increases Sleep Duration of New Parents.

Feature Article
Journal of Perinatal & Neonatal Nursing. 21(3):200-206, July/September 2007.
Doan, Therese RN, IBCLC; Gardiner, Annelise; Gay, Caryl L.; Lee, Kathryn A. PhD, RN, FAAN

you will be able to read this for yourself.

'Everyone' in RL who is telling you to give formula will not know about that study.

Your baby is behaving normally from what you say

Oops, sorry crossed threads - I see that my solution is not an option.

Thanks tiktok, that's v interesting.

My LO is very restless generally, including in his sleep, so I really think that he would be waking no matter what I feed him

allnew you can tell them that anyway if you think it will shut them up and it is what you want!

Do you co sleep? I did with DS and although it didn't stop him waking as often like I hoped it would, it did make it easier to feed him and get back to sleep with the minimum of fuss.

" I think I secretly want it not to work so I can tell them all it's nothing to do with that"
Please don't do this if it's simply because you're getting pressure from others. By all means try it if you want to.

We always end up co-sleeping each night, even if he starts the night in his cot. I haven't found that he wakes up less, but I agree, feeding is much easier like this. So much so that DH asks in the morning 'did he sleep through?' - Grrr!