Fully BF 18 week old, no routine at all, just wants to feed all night. I want my evenings back!

[purpleflower]

How do I get her into some sort of routine and get her to go longer than an hour or 2 between feeds at night. She feeds most of the day but thats not too bad, it's just the evenings I'm struggling with.

DS was formula fed and by this time had found his own routine, his naps were at the same time each day and he would go to bed nicely around 7 and sleep through almost everynight.

DD on the other hand is just a complete boob monster. All she ever wants is feeding. She powernaps randomly during the day and is only really happy when attached to my boob. The evenings are the worst, she won't go down for the night until around 11pm, generally she has been attached to me for most of the night by then and still wakes hourly for a feed. She does go straight back to sleep after a feed.

I'm serously debating giving her a bottle of formula in the evenings around 8pm and seeing if that helps her go down better but will this mean the end of breastfeeding? She did have a bottle of EBM a few weeks ago just before bed and slept much longer than normal.

I'm just really tired and missing me time. If anyone has any advice at how I can get my evenings back with or prefably without the formula then it would be very much appreciated.

Ok so after I posted last night it all went down hill, she woke at midnight then fed every 2 hours again. Better than some nights but not exactly great.

Today has been a strange one so far and I'm really not sure what to do. I fed her just before 11 and played with her, gave her some nappy off time etc. At about 12.30/1 she started whinging for a feed but I gave her a dummy instead and she took it. At about 1.30she started falling asleep on her changing mat so I put her in the pushchair (out of DS's way) and she fell asleep and is still asleep now That means she has done a complete switch around on almost everything and has now gone over 4 hours without a feed. Should I wake her?

It's a 4-5 mth thing I'm afraid!! It will pass if you give it a week or two. Better to give ebm than formula if poss because it's better for their digestion.

purpleflower - how did you get on this afternoon?

Hiya
My DS was the same. We never had a routine, he BF when he was hungry, which at times was everyn hour!! I afraid to say it, but he just feel into a routine. Have you tried solids? That got us in a better routine. he's now nearly 8 months and we have a great routine, during the day. But i had to sleep train him to go longer at night. I wouldn't feed him unless he slept for 4 hours or more. When he woke i gave him his dummy and soothed him untill he fell asleep again. This could take between 20 mins and a couple of hours!! But after a couple of nights hw went longer.

Hope this helps.

Good luck

DD slept until 4pm in the end when I woke her up and fed her. I managed to get her down for the night at 7pm which is incredible, the earliest ever She then slept until 7am waking around 6 times, so every 2 hours which is definitely an improvement.

I ust wish DS had let me sleep, I think they take it turns. He has been jumping on me since 3am