EBF Baby giving a 'knock out' formula bottle at night for extra sleep

[gemzitab]

Hey
I've got a 3 week old daughter, as well as a 12 month old son and a 7 year old!!!
My three week old is still sleeping more at day and I'm suffering terrible sleep deprivation from being up every hour or so at night.

I've tried waking her more in the day, not any chance of resting in the day. Tried a 3 oz formula bottle before bed last night rather than breast feed- this gave me a few extra hours sleeping- will this work long term?

Amazing how a little sleep makes u feel better

No idea if it will work long term, but I moved from ebf to formula at 6 weeks old and DD started sleeping through the night (after waking pretty much hourly!)

If breastfeeding is working for you that’s great, but don’t feel worried about giving formula. DD (now 2.5) is thriving and I was a much better, happier mum for having some decent sleep.

Lots of mums swear by it, but it will reduce your supply. I don't know many mums that successfully combination fed long term for this reason.

I know 2 women who breastfed for over a year while giving a bottle of formula at night. If it works for you then go for it.

It won't do any harm as it's only one feed. And it certainly won't affect your supply..........I breastfed my DS until toddler age doing exactly this. With his dad giving the night time bottle.

And in all honesty sleep trumps everything, so long as baby is fed and happy nothing else really matters.

For some it works, some say it doesn’t- worth a try

I also think it's worth a try.

for my second and third I gave a bottle at six ish.... it worked for me as then I could get on with sorting out the older one/ones, dh got to feed the baby (not DS1 though he never took a bottle)

also meant boobs were well full for my bed time, so a brilliant feed as I went to bed and doing final feed about 10/11 meaning lots of sleep all round.

As long as you don't end up doing lots of substitutes then you will keep your supply. Ideally try to express at any feed from a bottle to keep on top of your supply if possible.

I know a lot of people who have combination fed.

Fed is best and a happy rested mum with a full rested baby us more important than feeling the need to be a breastfeeding purist.

My 6 month old was EBF until last week when we gave formula at night for couple of days.

Sleep was worse... Up every hour.

All babies are different so there is no guarantee formula at night will help.

Every baby is different. My combi fed and then ff one was by far the worse sleeper compared to my ebf one.

Do you have a partner around you can cover some of the nights? With both of ours, dh literally held them or walked in circles around the lounge in the evenings to allow me to get some unbroken sleep. I’d do the feed at 8pm ish, go to bed after older ones in bed, he’d wake me 10-11, then I’d go back to sleep til 1am and then dh would go to bed. Even if the rest of the night was hell, I started it with 4 hours of sleep so was manageable. Dh got 5 ish solid hours of sleep and we could both cope on that for a month or two.

I combi fed for 5 months, had no milk supply issues. But my dd is small and still needs a feed in the night but I can roughly get 7hours sleep around it.