Does formula at bedtime help?

[blueskiesbrighteyes]

I have a four month old who won't sleep. He was great for the first two months but has been awful since. He's cranky and miserable during the day and won't nap, and I think a lot is because he sleeps so badly at night.

He's EBF but I'm really tempted to do a bottle of formula before bed. Grateful for and experiences of whether this actually helps them sleep? Thank you

It helped hugely with both my boys. Plus if you can get the baby used to bottles, it does give you that option if you need to leave them for a few hours etc.

My DD is mostly BF but has 1/2 bottles of formula a day if I'm busy and DP feeds her.

She has formula before bed (we make a 7oz bottle - she has somewhere between 4 & 7 each night) and has slept all the way through since we started it.

Before that she'd wake every 3/4 hours.

Thanks both that's so helpful. I express so DP can help our so LO is already good with a bottle luckily. Can I ask what brands you use?

We use Cow and Gate.
It's the only one I've tried and LO has had no problems at all with it

We used aptamil with DS1 and Aldi Mamia with DS2 (apparently just as good but much cheaper).

Well mine was FF and was still up all hours! It's common for sleep patterns to change throughout that first year. Sadly you often just have to ride them out. < my face after the four month sleep regression!

No, it in my experience. My little boy was ebf and never slept for the first 7 months. I cracked and started giving him formula at night... didn’t make a jot of difference!

Have bought a little bottle of Aptamil. Can't hurt to try. If this was just the 4 month regression I wouldn't mind so much but it's been going for 2 months already and it's just so shit ☹️

In my NCT group (babies 4-6 months old)...one who is FF sleeps through. Another who is FF doesn’t. My BF baby sleeps through (for now...touch wood). Most of the other BF babies don’t. Babies are all different, I’m not sure how they’re fed makes much difference. 🤷‍♀️

Good luck tonight, do let us know if it works!

Made no difference to us, but she is a good sleeper anyway. Of the four babies in our antenatal group who are breastfed, two are great sleepers, one is mediocre and one is up and down. I think it's more about the baby than feeding method. The formula-fed baby was actually the worst sleeper for the first few
months.

Another one for whom formula before bed has never made a blind bit of difference.. I've got 3 DC and have tried this with all of them. They all still woke up wanting a feed every 2-3 hours through the night.

We EBF but my friend switched to formula in attempt to improve sleep and it made absolutely no difference. She actually had to hire a sort of Super Nanny when her DC was 3 years old as he was still a horrible sleeper.

My two were EBF, 1 was an amazing sleeper and 1 was terrible.

Logically - giving more food before bedtime will help babies who were waking for hunger but won't do anything for babies waking for comfort, inability to self soothe, or any other reason.

Made no difference here either. Introduced a bottle before bed at 4 months as dd was waking between 4-8 times for a breastfeed and was an incredibly light sleeper. She went into a deeper sleep initially at bedtime but still woke the same amount of times. Weaning onto food made no difference either. At 8 months I weaned from the breast completely in desperation and she slept through for about a week and then went back to waking up again,although admittedly only once or twice but now instead of giving her boob and her going straight back off we are sometimes awake for ages as I don’t have a quick fix to get her straight off to sleep!

It’s worth a try but don’t expect miracles from it is all I can say.

Made no difference whatsoever ☹️ oh well, we can but try

Nope, didn't work for my FF baby who didn't sleep through the night consitantly until well over 3

My 7 month old wakes up around 10 times a night. Would love to be able to try formula but he will not take a bottle. Good job you have your ma taking a bottle of expressed milk. I'd definitely be putting formula in if I were you!

For everyone with older babies who are still horrid at night, have you tried controlled crying and they're resistant to that as well?! That's all that's keeping me going, waiting until he's old enough to do it!

My 6mo wakes every 1-2 hours in the night (every hour last night). This has happened since the 4 month regression. For him it is that he can't self soothe. No success yet in teaching him to. It's exhausting. Hoping for some magical answers!

Oh and DD didn't do this, she was able to self soothe and woke twice a night for feeds.

I think mines to young for controlled crying and tbh I don’t think it would work as when I’ve tried very gentle ‘pick up put down’ she screams even more and wakes herself up completely. I honestly don’t know what the answer is,mines on 3 good meals a day now,can definitely self soothe as goes to sleep awake for naps and at night. She was awake 3 hours last night and has just got up and is screaming already because she’s tired 😤 I wish I’d stuck to breastfeeding I think I actually got more sleep as I’d stick her on the breast and doze! I honestly don’t know what the answer is just hoping they eventually learn to sleep through as they get older!

The only thing that helped with my oldest was stopping breastfeeding. He was still waking 2-3 times a night for a feed at over a year old. When I went back to work DH started settling him instead and he let him cry for a bit longer than I would but DS never cried for long - just past my comfort point - and he now sleeps quite well for a 2yo. Some early starts but he just plays in his room now.

Currently 2 months in with my 2nd and we do a bottle before bed but this is more for me so I can go to bed early and DH can do a late feed. The formula didn't help DS sleep longer and it doesn't seem to do the job for DD either but it does help me get a bit of a break from ebf.

Good luck. It does get better

Never helped for me. I was pretty desperate and spent 2 hours trying to get him to drink 3oz of formula and he still woke up 90mins later same as usual but I had all the stress and faff of the bottle rather than just sticking him on the boob.

Keep in mind though that 4 months is a HUGE leap though and their sleep goes to pot. I tried cc when he was a bit older and it was just torture for him and me. All this talk of 3 nights then problem solved was bollocks. Once I accepted we all got more sleep if I just carried on co sleeping and breastfed him laying down at night and made my peace with it we were much happier. Plus I seemed immune to the broken sleep by 6 months. He didn't sleep through the night until he was 2 years old and still climbs in with us at 4 years old but hey ho, millions of children do it!

I used this: www.ahaparenting.com/Ages-stages/babies/teaching-your-baby-to-put-himself-to-sleep

But I was just doing it until he was old enough the use CC, but it worked before then and we never needed to! I put him into bed awake, he goes to sleep himself and about 50% of the time he sleeps through (he's 10 months old).