Mixed Feeding

[Kodit]

Hi,

I am a husband and father who would like some advice from the legions of Mumsnet-ers please?!

Basically, my wife is exclusively breastfeeding our son who is 4 weeks old. She is absolutely exhausted, and I have mentioned the possibility of taking a nightfeed with formula to take some of the strain off her and allow her to catch some valuable z's. I might as well have suggested we bathe him in acid the scald I was greeted with! Now I realise that mixed feeding can effect her supply, but surely substituting 1 feed in a 24 hour period with formula will have little, and probably no effect?

Ideally, I would like him to continue to be exclusively breastfed. But in order to preserve my wife's and my sanity, I feel we need to do something.

Any advice you could offer would be appreciated.

Thanks.

hi i'm no expert but exclusively bf my dd for 4.5 months and am now bf my ds 11 weeks, have introduced a bottle of formula for him at tea time to get him used to having a bottle if i want to go out/catch up on sleep etc.

tbh i do think it's affected my supply as he's v unsettled with his daytime feeds the last 2 days but saying that i don't believe in exclusive bf if it's affecting the mothers mental and physical well being.

it might be that the odd bottle at night may help her catch up but as a routine thing ie evrynight it may reduce supply.

the 1st 6 weeks are the toughest, it will get better though i promise you! 4 weeks is a difficult time, ican understand both pov to be honest.

good luck! xx

also no expert here, but I was in the same boat with my DS (11 weeks old) - he just fed constantly (18-20 hrs a day - I counted a couple of times!) for 8 weeks, it was draining. I was also dead against formula for no obvious reason (hormones maybe?!)

I ended up expressing a 'top-up' feed every day for a week or two. plus which, we co-sleep, so I can feed lying down - is that an option for you? finally, my DP took DS out in a sling for 2 hour on saturdays and sundays to let me sleep - we're past it now, but for those few weeks, it was bliss!

Thanks for the replies.

We are co-sleeping at the moment which is a way she can get a little sleep, but really, I think she is just dosing and not getting proper sleep as she is aware of our son in bed.

We have a machine for expressing but tbh the first week or so we had all sorts of problems establishing bf and when we tried to express, she got a very small amount of milk and it kind of knocked her confidence. I have mentioned expressing again lately, but she is wondering where she is going to find the time to express when he is feeding so often, I also think she may be worried about not being able to express much again and that having a negtive impact on her.

It's all such a mine-field really. I know there is no 'Magic Bullet' to get a 4 week old to sleep on a consistent basis, I just want to be able t take some of the strain from my wife so she can get some sleep!

Hello!

God, that early stage can feel dark, can't it? My daughter is now 3 months old and everything you've described rings a horribly familiar bell. My partner likened the first six weeks of new parent-hood to that of being a Vietcong prisoner - you feel like you're on drugs and being tortured with sleep deprivation!

Anyhoo - I really feel for you and your lady. By week six, to give me a break, bloke started doing a night feed with (gasp of horror) formula milk. TBH, I didn't notice any change in my supply and by that stage I really didn't care as I was a walking, slurring zombie.

At six weeks, I started expressing too (don't do it before then as the milk supply isn't 'stabilised' until six weeks) and he's been using that for night feeds. And if I haven't had time to express, he uses formula.

I know people will definitely disagree with me here, but if my milk supply HAS been affected by the odd formula/EBM feed, for me it has been worth the few hours of precious sleep it's given me. My child certainly isn't suffering, and my milk supply appears to be just fine.

Good luck and congratulations on your new wee one.

As for co-'sleeping' - I never sleep either. It's a doze if I'm lucky. Still, nice to be able to lie down.

it's normal to not get much when starting to express - 10 mls or so is not unusual!
I only got decent amounts on the days DS decided to sleep for an hour in the morning, giving me time for a nice long bath

do you have any peer support groups near you? NCT/La leche league/breastfeeding clinics? I found these all very very useful confidence boosters in the early days, and now just use them for socialising

oh, and regarding co-sleeping - i now sleep really well, but for the first few weeks i didn't - it takes getting used to!

Yeah, we were getting about 10mls regularly when trying to express. In that case, I might suggest we wait until 6 weeks then.

Yeah, we have NCT friends, we also got breastfeeding counsellors out in the early days as we had all sorts of problems establishing breastfeeding.

According to out NCT friends, most of their bundles are sleeping in 3 or 4 hour bursts, which, the general consensus on here was that they were strething the truth somewhat!

*Our NCT friends and stretching! Damn my keyboard!

if it helps, my NCT friends had 'good sleepers' until 8 weeks, then theirs all regressed and mine started sleeping well
if you can take the baby out for a couple of hours over the weekend to give your wife a break, i'm sure she'll appreciate that!

Arolf's idea about taking the baby out of the house for a couple of hours is a really good one. You can't seem to stop being on constant alert if they're there in the house with you. If she's by herself she'll sleep more deeply.

If it helps - at some point in the next three weeks it will start getting easier. You're both exhausted, and now's probably not the time to be having a row debate about the benefits of formula - especially if your wife feels that strongly about it. If she did "give in" she'd probably feel worse afterwards. There's nothing wrong with formula in my opinion (I haven't used it but am not anti- it at all) but I really wanted to exclusively breastfeed and if my DH had started mentioning formula I'd have taken it (in my sleep deprived state) as though he was saying I couldn't cope.

It will pass. And you are nearly through the worst of it...

I agree with the nearly through the worst of it comment - six weeks seems to be the stage at which things get a lot better. They start smiling and becoming more 'human' iykwim. It's the pay-off!

Roll on 6 weeks then!! Thanks for the advice guys. My folks are visiting this weekend so I am going to make sure we leave my wife at some for an afternoon either tomorrow or Sunday to sleep!