Sick of breastfeeding

[Whyisthishappening87]

I’ve been breastfeeding my 2 week old since birth and I’ve had enough. I formula fed my first as he had an undiagnosed liptie and we struggled to latch.

He is currently feeding every 2 hours round the clock. At night he wakes to feed for 15-20 mins and when I put him back to bed, he is straight back up for more. We are up for 1-1.5 hours each time. I’m exhausted.

My first was formula fed and it wasn’t like this, though he wouldn’t even be put down in his crib so we co slept from this age.

When does ebf become less demanding and exhausting?
I have been pumping the occasional few oz so DS can give a bottle when I just can’t face it.

If you're comfortable with co-sleeping, do it again I think. I have found it a lifesaver with two breastfed babies. The durations you describe sound fairly normal to me

@sleepymama3 It wouldn’t be safe as DS3 still cosleeps.

I am ebf my 4 week old and if it helps I'm noticing he is just starting to go a bit longer between feeds, the most has been 4h so far but it's generally 3 on average, although sometimes less and also still has a period of cluster feeding most days. He was quite a big baby though so not sure if that makes a difference. Solidarity and sympathy though as it can be relentless.

Ah, shoot. That's a tricky one. Any way you could sleep with the baby in a separate room and let your older child co-sleep with your partner?
Our 5 month old definitely goes for longer stretches now, from about 12 weeks is when gradual improvements started.
I also see better sleep at night when a good cluster feed happens around 4 or 5pm.

You can switch if you like, he’ll be fed and you can at least share the load. It is an option.

if you want to carry on, i think it’s easier to lower your expectations if you can, just accept that you’ll spend a lot of the first 3 months breastfeeding. After then they should at least know the difference between night and day.

doing the last feed of the day at 9pm and then handing over to dad to do one bottle feed and settle so you can get some uninterrupted sleep can help massively too. Also quite good for dad to have some one on one time - it doesn’t have to be all or nothing.

it’ll get better!!

Would combi feeding give you the space you need without adding something to your to-do like like expressing does?

I ebf and exclusive formula fed my daughter in the middle we tried combi feeding but it didn't work for us. It was the feeding method I was most disappointed that we couldn't get to work. It would have allowed my daughter the benefits of breastfeeding but benefited me by not making me solely responsible for her being fed.

You can switch. But I think once bf gets easy it's a million times easier than ff. Maybe stick it out a little longer? Or not. It's fine if you don't!

I found around the two week mark it got a lot easier. There's nothing wrong with switching to formula if that's what you want - or even combi feeding - but I would really recommend you give it another couple of weeks before you make a decision.

Whatever you decide, it won't always be like this.

You can get those little pre mixed formula bottles could your partner do this for a few hours at night while you sleep elsewhere?