Introducing a bottle of formula before bed

[ASN68]

My baby is just about to turn 6 months old and exclusively breastfed. His sleep is soo terrible, awake every hour to feed. Last night I gave him a bottle of formula for his bedtime feed and he woke up 3 hours later for another feed (from me) and kept up the 3 hour routine with my milk.

Would it be ok to do one formula bottle a night or would this mess up my milk supply for all the other feeds?

Is he on solids at all? Was tradition here to have a weetabix and milk before bed!!

At 6 months feeds will be starting to drop in favour of food anyway so I don’t see why there would be a problem. Also it’s quite handy to have them taking a bottle at bedtime should you ever want an evening out.

Could you try this...

Do it! It won't hurt your baby at all. Solids made zero difference to my child's sleep. So many people said he'd sleep through at 6 months...utter codswallop in my case. Do what you need to in order for sleep and sanity!

I couldn’t get mine to take a bottle ever unfortunately - but by 7months I made sure to offer her milk through the day (first thing in the morning and after both naps) then one finial feed before bed at 6.45

She wouldn’t look for milk at all if I don’t offer during the day and then she was waking loads at night wanting it then🙈

Mine refused bottles but started a cup of formula at bedtime at 10months and finally slept through!

It won’t mess up your supply, your body will adjust, just like when they finally sleep through the night without a feed. You might want to express after you’ve given the bottle to maintain your supply for the first few nights just incase she doesn’t consistently take it at first, and you could express a bit less each night fir a few nights to help your body adjust so you don’t get engorged x

At 6 months it won't mess up your supply, but it's likely a fluke that it helped the sleep. Don't be tempted by any 'bed time milks' though - it's just advertising