Ideas on how to get EBF baby to take more than 50ml of formula?

[cosmicdancer89]

Hello,

I am looking for advice from anyone that has experienced something similar. I want to start giving my 6.5 month old a bottle before bed or at least for a dream feed around 10pm, however the most he'll take is 50ml! He's been EBF and I guess is used to frequent feeds where he takes little bits of milk at a time. This means he wakes about 5/6 times a night to snack! I've managed to get him to sleep in his cot after 6 months of co-sleeping, and I put him down drowsy so he doesn't fall asleep on breast or whilst being rocked anymore. However, despite me managing to teach him to seemingly be able to self settle, he still wakes loads at night and I'm shattered. Sometimes he will grumble and fall back asleep, however, him being breastfed I never know whether he wakes from hunger or for another reason so I feel cruel depriving him of a feed.

Giving him a bottle would make me confident he isn't actually hungry and will make me feel more comfortable leaving him to grumble and whine at his night wakings. However he just won't take much! He hated Aptamil and will only take Hipp, but in tiny amounts. Any ideas? Thanks!

It might be the bottle. You may need to try a few before you find one he likes? Could you express milk instead of using formula as they'll taste different and he'll be use to breast milk?

Ouch, 5/6 wakes is hell. I doubt it's hunger, more likely to be habit (even though he can self settle, he may prefer not to iyswim!)

How often does he feed in the day, ie does he have frequent small feeds or a few big ones? If he snack feeds in the day I would suggest your first step should be to try to move him onto fewer bigger feeds - distract him when hungry for 5, then 10, then 20 mins etc. That might well help him have fewer bigger feeds at bedtime & night.

Presume you have started weaning - is he having much solid food? When you get to the point where he is having a reasonable amount of solids, plus some decent size daytime feeds, I think you can feel very confident it's habit not hunger and can leave him to grumble himself back to sleep... hopefully after a week or so of that he would get the message (but you have to be consistent)

I think the bottle is a bit of a red herring tbh, if he is used to many small feeds at night he will keep wanting that even if you switch to bottle - better to get him used to the idea of going longer between feeds.

Faster flow teat and a sleepy baby (middle of the night) works for me, although she still won't readily take formula during the day. It's almost like I have to trick her into drinking it, and the fast flow teat is the quickest way to get it into her before she realises- she will glug a fair amount down before she stops and rejects the rest.

Also, she took a full formula feed from a nurse in hospital not long ago, but rejects it when me or my husband tries. Maybe get someone else to try and feed it to her?

Thanks for all the feedback!

I finally found a bottle he won't downright refuse (it's actually an NUK beaker) so it's not a bottle problem..

Manipie, I never kept track of feeds (mostly because I found that stressful) as I bfed on demand... But I would say he took small feeds every 3 hours. Someone told me its to do with my smaller breasts and their more limited capacity as they aren't able to store large amounts of milk but refill as normal = small frequent feeds ? Don't know if that's BS. Either way that's how it's been.

DS is very good with his solids and eats a sufficient amount (I do purées as well as some finger foods).

I just don't know what breastfeeds I should keep... Pre bed 6.30 pm and dream feed 11pm and nothing until 7am wake up?

I am no expert and someone with better advice will be along but I would say if he is presently feeding 5-6 times per night to suddenly expect him to go from 11-7 with no feeds seems too much!!
Plenty of babies still wake through the night at this age.

Yes, fewer but bigger feeds are the way to go. Small breasts not yielding enough is bs as you suspect. Going from 5-6 to no wakings will take time, try to achieve 4-5 then 3-4 wakes rather than beating yourself up he won't take such a leap.

It may well be normal for breastfed babies to wake 5/6x a night but I'm dysfunctional as a result and have growing resentment at my poor darling DS because I'm so goddamn tired. He more or less has milk every 4 hours in the day, if this was the case at night I wouldn't complain as I haven't had a 4 hour stretch of sleep in 3 months....

He doesn't even have much at all, he suckles for 5 min and starts to nod off. Unfortunately he doesn't take a pacifier either..

Have you tried just leaving him to see what happens when he wakes, babies often make noises in the night and if he was really hungry he would let you know.
I plan to do this once my baby weaned and I'm happy she's taking in good amounts in the daytime, but then again I am useless at sticking to these sort of plans in the middle of the night when tired and I do the easiest thing (for now) which is to offer the boob.
I also have a toddler so I get worried crying will wake her up. I can see us having to resort to DH having to deal with night wakes for a while. Is this something you could try?
Sorry if I've missed anything saying that this isn't possible.

Yes size of breast has bugger all to do with amount of mik available.

I would aim for 4 hourly feeds at night to start with ie roughly 7, 11, 3ish, 7.

If and when that seems to be working then try to let him grumble through the 3am feed for a few nights and see what happens.

or you could try dropping the 11 feed first - this is less convenient but may be more successful as he will be more tired and go back to sleep more readily at 11 than at 3.

For comparison my 8mo has lots of solids, 3 Bf in the day (morning, 3pm, 7pm) then has one night feed sometime between 2-5am. If she's not well she sometimes has an extra wake up at 10/11 and may need feeding then too (more about soothing than hunger). Not ideal, but a lot better than 5-6 wakes a night!

Maybe try a formula/breast milk mix?

I've had to do this with both DC. Both ebb and due to me going back to work (sometimes working overnight) I had to get them night weaned. I tend to the gentle side so I followed the recommendations in the no cry sleep solution for night weaning.

Basically, choose a length of time you're comfortable with, say 3 hours. Feed before bed and then nothing for 3 hours. Cuddle and comfort but no bf for 3 hours. Then feed and settle (if they're awake!). Then nothing for the next 3 hours and so on. Wait for 3 nights at that, then move to 4 hour gaps. Continue until no bf overnight. I didn't offer water or any alternative for those hours, just a cuddle. You have to do this (as with any sleep training) with 100% commitment. He will cry, of course he will. He's had his favourite thing on tap for his whole life, it make him feel good and close to you and helps him back to sleep. You are doing him and you a massive favour by tackling it, just be sure you are committed before you begin.

Encourage a sippy cup in the day with water. Both mine could confidently drain a tommee tippee by 8m and neither ever managed a bottle at all.

Sleep deprivation is rubbish. Hope it gets better soon.

*ebf not ebb, stupid autocorrect!

Thanks for all your suggestions! I guess it's the classic breastfed baby on demand crisis -- snack feeding through the night. Baby doesn't want to break out of that cost comfort habit but mummy can't be up every 1.5 hr cuz she'll lose her marbles !!

Piccalilli~thank you for your suggestion, that sounds like a good plan. How long did it take you to night wean? I will be ok keeping a 10/11 feed and a 3/4am feed its all those in between ones I want to drop! Who would've thought boob addiction WA so difficult to overcome..

Whenever DP goes to him he gets piiiiiiiissed. DP only manages to settle him after I've fed him, otherwise he screams to the point where he's wide awake and takes over an hour to calm and settle..

I managed to get some formula in him for an 11pm feed (120ml) but tonight he again only took 50ml so I gave boob instead. I guess I can try pumping, but I haaaaaaate it so much .. But if it gets him more milk and me more sleep maybe worth it?

Just something else to add to the mix, my bf baby would only drink formula if it was really warm and point blank refused once it cooled down.

Good luck, sleep depv really is horrible.

cosmic - I can so relate to this. My DS was exactly the same. I started with a bottle at night before bed - made no difference. Then bottles all day - no difference. Then I switched to bottles completely at 5/6months and got it down to 2/3 night feeds with a number of dummy calls. The dummy calls still happen at 17mo, but no feeds. He gradually took more formula in one go over time when he realised there was no boob but only from mam bottles. However, I regretted moving to bottles and don't feel I got more sleep as a result, just gradually less feeds. Hope this makes sense, it's so hard though so you have my sympathy.

I haven't much to add to other comments but I will say that my LO is almost 10m and wakes in the night. Until about 9m she would actually have feeds throughout the night but now she whines, I latch her on and she falls straight to sleep! Every time! So I definitely know it's not hunger and now I'm working on it. So perhaps your LO is still hungry.

I've started giving her formula before bed for the past week and I found a slow teat works best because bf babies have to work for milk, it doesn't come easy, and obviously a fast teat is a fast flow so my baby would splutter. I think her having had a good four months of differ net flavours and textures from foods has made her more open to the formula so perhaps your LO will adjust to it much better after another month.

I think persistence is key though.

the ff at night haven't stopped her waking me several times a night though :(

best of luck with it all.

I mix the formula with breastmilk at the moment, increasing the ratio of formula to breastmilk every couple of days, she's drinking way more and did 7oz last night, but woke to feed four times through the night, wouldn't go back down just with rocking. Hope it improves for you.

It took a couple of weeks cosmic. She still woke in the night for a fair bit after that but settled with a cuddle. They can still be hungry in the night but that doesn't mean they need feeding more than every 4 hours at the very most. More than that is snacking/comfort.

Personally I wouldn't bother pumping, but I hated it too! I also wouldn't use a bottle because it's just another thing to wean off.

It's a difficult time for an ebf baby - they go from 24hr snack bar to 3 meals a day. Worth trying an extra something to eat at bedtime (porridge is longer lasting) if he's eating good amounts.

Remember, it's going to be hard. He's not going to be happy about it. Be really sure before you start. But IME it's worth it. Good luck!

ODog, 2/3 night feeds is still better than 5/6! Every little half hour of extra sleep is worth it I think.. But I do understand the bottle isn't going to be some sort of magic fix to sleeping more. There's that comfort sucking reflex that's very hard to break in babies ..what dummies did you end up using? My LO seems to hate them all.

Dixie, how do you go about mixing? What proportions do you use, how do you warm it up etc.?

Piccalilli, exactly, I can accept that DS is still hungry at night but I would think doing an 11pm, 3am and then 7am feed is a reasonable goal. Someone also suggested giving water when they wake at a non-feeding time?

Problem with this is that if I reuse w feed DS will freak out and scream and most of the time he works himself up to a point it takes him forever to fall back asleep.. All this requires much patience which is fine, but handling a hysterical DS every night and missing out on more sleep may just kill me.. I feel this is something I need to try when DP gets a week off work so we can handle him and sleep in shifts or something, otherwise I won't manage on my own...

Mam dummies and mam bottles were the only ones DS would take.