Is it possible to bf and share the night feeds?

[Lizbiz89]

My ds will be 6 weeks tomorrow and I've ebf since birth. My two older dc were both mixed and formula fed so my dh would share the night time feeds with me. However I'm slowly going mad with exhaustion. Just when I think I'm at rock bottom it gets worse. My ds is waking twice a night which in theory sounds good apart from it takes me a while to get him back to sleep so I'm averaging about 3 hours of broken sleep a night currently. I'm now getting to the point where a need some relief at night. I'm wondering if i should get some formula and get dh to give just one bottle at night so I can get more than an hour sleep at a time. I've tried expressing but last time it was on the wrong pump setting and caused breast trauma so I'm now a bit afraid to use it again. Any suggestions would be welcome? I'm just so tired and exhausted now.

I never bothered expressing, seemed a faf, so mine had one bottle a night. Go for it, and get some sleep.

Express and then your partner can take over. Expressing is really not a faff. I love it

You can try a hand pump, the Madela one was great for me.

If you need the help overnight there's no reason not to try formula/expressed BM in a bottle.

An easier way of expressing is to use a hakaa and feed from one side (especially in the morning) there is no motor or anything and they are about £10 or usually someone has one kicking about they didn't end up using.

Would try that as a first just because at this point your milk supply is still building so needs 1 overnight feed and sometimes if not used to formula going straight to 1 bottle at night can cause issues with tummy/constipation etc so can cause the opposite outcome

@DustyLee123 when did you introduce a bottle at night? Was it right from birth?

Unfortunately for me pumping is just not working. I've also got a haaka but again seems to be a bit of nightmare when feeding as ds kicks it off when he moves.

At 6 weeks I left my first for the first time (went to the pictures) and he had a bottle while I was out. That was the first, then I decided to give one a night, so I could get a bit more sleep.

@DustyLee123 thanks. Did your lo's stomach handle it well? Think I'm going to bite the bullet and get some kendamil. I don't want to give up bf as we've done so well to get this far but I can't keep going like this. It's also not fair on my other dc as I'm a snappy zombie at the moment.

@Lizbiz89 I breastfed then woke Dh and handed Ds to him, he then did the whole nappy change and putting him back to sleep whilst I went back to sleep. The only thing Dh couldn't do at that point was physically feed him but he can do everything else. We started this routine from when he was born mainly because Dh could fall asleep standing up so is easily able to fall back asleep again. Could you share this way?

I did a feed at 6-7am and then baby went to dad and I went back to sleep until 10am. Every weekend. Sometimes he did have to bring her back but it gave me a chunk of better sleep.
I'm a night owl and struggle with mornings.

If you are a morning person you could do the opposite and do an evening feed.

If you were to do a formula feed I would pick the first or the last feed as the feeds in the middle of the night are important for supply. Ideally you could express at the same time as giving a bottle of formula otherwise it can cause your supply to drop so that's a consideration unless that formula bottle is a permanent feature at that time.

I breast and formula fed my daughter and hands down it was so much easier to breastfed over night compared to when we were formula feeding her. Late at night or early morning they were about the same in terms of balancing convince and ability for dad to help.

We coslept which helped with exhaustion during breastfeeding especially as she fed 3-5+ times a night. She's still up twice+ a night and 3 and I wish I could say I was used to it!

Absolutely no harm with a bottle of formula in the night! Try it and see if it works. If it doesn’t and you just continue with the breastfeeding instead, I promise there is light at the end of the tunnel. 6 weeks is such a tough growth spurt stage and I remember thinking “i can’t do this any longer” around the 6/7 week mark. 8 weeks was a bit of a turning point for us and the nights were more manageable, although I know every baby is different.

Well done for managing 6 weeks ebf! It sounds like it's very important to you. There's absolutely nothing wrong with combi feeding, especially if you need the support at night.

I found expressing really hard so I wouldn't do that OP. You could do a bottle of formula, or alternatively what DH and I did is that I would give the feed and then go straight back to bed and DH would be responsible for settling the baby to sleep.

You can try either option, we tried me BF and then he changed nappy, settled, etc
but by time feeding was done I was pretty much awake - so we introduced a bottle at night so DH could do a night feed and all the rest

I would breastfeed in bed laying down by 6 weeks. Much easier and you stay more in a mental space to fall back asleep.

DH was the one who got up did nappy changes.

Thanks for the replies. My dh changing the nappies wouldn't really affect much as like pp said I'm awake once I'm feeding anyway. Plus he has a stressful job so constant waking in the night would definitely affect his ability to work. However he gets up for work at 5-6 anyway so doing that feed wouldn't affect his sleep so much. I'm going to see how the next few nights go but I think I will more likely go down the formula route. I need to do what's best for the family at this point as I feel like I'm not being the best mum to my older dc right now.

All of mine had a bottle at night, no tummy problems.

Sounds a good plan.

I always say everyone only cares about how you fed your baby until they are 6 months.
After that they only care whether you are doing "baby led" or spoon feeding
After that it's whether you give your toddler organic chicken with quinoa or chicken dippers and smiley faces!

90% breastfeeding or 80% or 50% or 20% it's brilliant you have done a great job.

Oh i so remember the absolute relief of DH starting to give a bottle at about 11pm, i could go to bed early and get a good few hours before the next breast feed. Go for it and get some rest.

I loathed expressing and found it a monumental faff. All of the gear needed, the sterilising etc etc. Hated it and didn't bother at all with DC2.

We still shared nights though. I would feed DC1 and then if he was being a pickle DH would walk him up and down a bit till he went back to sleep while I went back to sleep. And he'd always try to give as long as possible sleeping in till he had to go to work.

DC2 was much better at feeding then resettling but DC1 was then waking loads so DH was still with him.

i think that’s fine. You’ll wake up with bursting boobs though. I used to leak and breasts would tingle if babies crying in night and DP was feeding them. I ended up having to express so it was pointless but depends on milk production, some women are fine not expressing in night etc. Sure you’ll only have 5/6 hrs anyway so that’s perfectly fine to go between feeds. Milk production will drop to compensate, but if only 1 bottle should be fine

It can be a faff. Why guilt trip other mums? I tried and tried to pump, and nothing came out. It was a total faff, and completely unproductive.

OP, you’re at rock bottom, look after yourself. A bottle is a great solution

DH used to give a bottle of formula about 11pm and all the other feeds were bf. Worked well for us. Meant I could get a block of sleep from 9-2ish and he wasn’t having a broken night for work. We were the opposite though in that I can go back to sleep pretty quickly and DH would take forever to wake up (ie I’d be awake anyway) and then be awake for hours, so him doing middle of the night didn’t really suit us.

I did try to express, but never got much, so I just stopped bothering. Didn’t seem to make any difference to baby. Also it was handy because if for any reason I wasn’t there occasionally, she would happily take a bottle of formula.

I used to only to the feeding. DH would do any nappy changes plus the actual getting back to sleep. I'd stay in bed and he'd bring her to me, and take her away again.

This was mainly because I personally really really struggle with getting back to sleep once woken. I always have and I assumed it would improve when I had children, as I'd have practice and would just have to do it. But it hasn't, and if the children wake after about 1am that's me up for the night. Me not actually having to get out of bed for the night feeds helped me a bit with getting back to sleep. DH is asleep the second his head hits the pillow so it doesn't matter as much for him.

It didn't for us but we started bed sharing from 4 months and my life changed for the better

Personally I would want to do it all from the boob and power through

But realistically, you need to do whatever you can to facilitate breastfeeding for as long as possible and if that means one bottle of formula so you get a few more hours sleep but you bf for longer... then you should.