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 used to do it in shifts. So I would feed at 7pm/8pm ish then go to bed leaving the baby downstairs with my husband. He would stay with the baby downstairs until she next needed a feed when my husband would bring her upstairs and go to bed himself. I would then do the night feeds but then when she woke up at 5am my husband would go downstairs with her and I would go back to sleep for another 2 or 3 solid hours- bliss!

I did the bedtime for older kids at 7/7.30 and a feed (breast) then. Then DH had breastfed baby while I put kids to sleep and went to bed too- that way I often got a decent 3/4 hours then took over the night feeds as DH was up for work… this worked for me and avoided the mixed feed top-up trap. BF for years.

I expressed each evening and my DH gave a bottle of ebm each night for one of the night feeds.

To add I did this from 6 weeks with guest child and from birth with second child.

I slept topless. DH would latch the baby onto a barely awake me and watch over us while I snoozed and fed. He would then change and settle DS.

My friend ebf but the deal for overnight was she would feed, dad would change and settle while she got some sleep and dad and baby had some extra bonding time.

When DS (3rd) was born, DH put the Moses basket on his side of the bed. When I queried this as I was ebf, DH simply said, I'll get him when he wakes, check his nappy and stuff while you get ready to feed him. I'd sit up and get ready to nurse, then feed him and DH would sleep while I did so, then he'd quickly wake to wind DS and put him back down. DS was much happier to get back to sleep if daddy did it. So yeah we both got disturbed sleep but it was for a much shorter time and we both got equal rest.
I guess if I'd had bottles of expressed milk it would have been us taking turns. If you can pump then why not try?

Have you thought about co-sleeping? I found it really useful when trying to get some much needed sleep. I could doze off much quicker. Lullaby Trust has advice on how to make co-sleeping as safe as possible

We did one bottle a night too of formula. I would feed around 7/8pm, then go to bed and DH would do the 10/11pm feed so I'd get a really good chunk of sleep before the next feed early morning.

Do it! It will save your sanity