Bedtime feed help!

[Coffeeorgin]

Really struggling with pre-bed feed with my EBF 11 week old DS.
Every night for last week he is getting so frustrated at bedtime. I feed him on both sides (normally only has one side per feed due to over supply and crazily over active let down) but he tends to mess around coming off and on, then cries as if still hungry because the milk flow slows down and refuses to latch any further. I think he’s so used to it being like a fire hydrant (!!) during let down that anything slower make him angry, combined with tiredness if just causing us both a lot of stress. It’s making bedtimes about 2hrs long and he only sleeps because he’s exhausted himself from upset! I’ve struggle with latching and really starting to get upset with the whole breastfeeding situation but so reluctant to introduce formula unnecessarily.
Any advice would be amazing, even if it is to use formula at night if that is what worked for you!

If he’s only 11 weeks, I’d give one of the Bfing Helplines a call as they are trained and may have sone suggestions for you.

There also a helpful Infant Feeding section on MN where you may get some more replies.

Also, being a bit unsettled in the evening is perfectly normal at this age and isn’t necessarily an indication there is anything wrong

It’s really normal for babies to be massively fussy at this time of night. Including with feeding. Why are you doing a bedtime at this age? Babies this age tend to feed and nap and then wake and feed until about 11pm. It’s easier just to keep them with you than trying to impose some bedtime. Just watch the telly, feed, let him nap on you.. repeat until you go to bed.
I’ve had three kids and they’ve all done this. They tend to set their own bedtime for 8pm ish when they are older.. like 5/6 months

Omg, you’ve just described my DS!!!

The bedtime feed has just got longer and longer and it got to a point where, no matter how long I fed him for, no matter how much I tried to cluster feed in the evening, he still cried in hunger when I took him off and put him to bed. He was then too worked up to latch and stimulate another let down. Frustrating for both of us.

Recently (at around 4.5-5 months), I got so fed up that I’ve started introducing a bottle at bedtime. I fed him both sides before he goes in the bath, then a bottle of formula before bed. I agonised over it for ages as, while he always had the very occasional formula top up, it was never a regular thing. I didn’t feel comfortable accepting that he would have one bottle every night.

However he was hungry and got too worked up to latch to feed further and the last feed was taking up to an hour - and I still ended up having to top him up anyway.

The bottle is working well for us and I’m now happy with our decision. I feed both sides before the bath to help keep my supply up (although I know that any supplementary feed will affect supply to some extent) and now he goes down to sleep happily, with a full belly.

Now, I’m not offering this as advice or a recommendation. I just wanted to share my experience and how we handled it.

You have my sympathies, even at 5 months, I still struggle with breastfeeding. It’s hard work! You sound like you’re doing brilliantly. The advice given to me was to just feed, feed, feed, to get your supply up, which I understand in theory. But when baby won’t latch again and is crying hungry, it’s hard to follow the advice even if you know it’s correct!

Can you express at all? Perhaps try to express after he’s just gone to sleep, then you could offer that extra breastmilk the next day as a bottle before bed? Just trying to think of a compromise which might help.