Formula in the evening for a breastfed baby?

[HannahB264]

I have a 2 week old. He is breastfed (breast and expressed as I get a little sore). For the first few days, he was mixed fed as my supply was still coming through, but he has been on breast milk only now my supply is in. I've read that formula can help a baby sleep longer as it can fill them up. Is this true? If so, would it be OK to give a bottle of formula before bed?

I don’t think it’s true!

but we did give a bottle of formula around midnight in the early days so my husband could feed him and I could get some extra sleep before the night wakings!

No not recommended as overnight feeds help with increasing supply of breast milk so unless you express you are risking your supply dropping. You could express and store the milk to be given overnight.

Baby will sleep when baby is ready. Formula or breast milk makes no difference. But it's easy to believe that when you are desperate for some sleep yourself.

I combination fed dd, so her late evening feed was a bottle but she was usually awake and breast feeding again early hours of the morning. I did it because I knew she would be going to nursery at 6 months and I wanted to her to take a bottle and so that my ex got some bonding time. It worked well and didn’t affect my supply. I breast fed until she was over a year old.

i don’t really think it’s true but it would allow you to get some sleep if you had your partner do the feed. I know people that gone 1 formula bottle at night without issue, I did it for a bit.

I’ve heard it’s true. I think it’s much quicker to digest breast milk rather than formula. Which is why it happens.

I fed my now 31 year old a bottle at night and my husband gave her it. She did sleep quite well but maybe would have done so without it.

I had heard the same thing and gave my daughter a bottle. She puked all night long. Never tried that again.

Formula is harder to digest and the baby needs to consume a much larger quantity of formula compared to breast milk. That's why they sometimes sleep better after being fed formula.

Formula increases the risk of SIDS. Babies are supposed to wake up frequently and personally, I wouldn't take that risk.

Often babies don't have to work as hard to get milk out of the bottle as out of the boob. If they are tired they may give up with the boob and go to sleep, sooner than they would give up with the bottle. Therefore they aren't as full and wake more in the night. However it will only work if he is really going to get more full on the bottle, if you are making plenty of milk and he is taking all he wants it would make no difference.

Nooooooooo

it‘s a myth started by the multibillion formula industry to get tired parents to buy their wares.
I’d not do it at all as it’ll destroy your baby’s virgin gut and there's literally no reason to other than spend money and line the pockets of the companies.

Formula doesn't make a baby sleep better!

Please don’t believe it, this poster is correct. Breast milk at night is best as it has melatonin. Babies waking up at night is POSITIVE. It means their development is better.

I understand the feeling, I’m now 13wpp and now baby can regulate day / night and sleeps better. Not through like some babies but I promise you it’s important to prioritise breast milk if you can. You would HAVE to still wake up at night and pump or your supply will drop, then baby will end up moving more and more to formula. I’ve agonised personally over this for the past few months!

Some people do find that their baby sleeps better after formula. I don't think it makes a massive difference though.

There are other benefits of mixed feeding. It means someone else can feed your baby and this can be helpful for sleep, getting a bit of alone time, being able to leave the baby for slightly longer and, down the line, going back to work.

I would probably wait a little longer before introducing mixed feeding though so you know your supply is well established.

Breast is best, but what's even better than that for all babies is having a Mum who is in good physical and mental health. If it ever gets to the point where you're not feeling well mixed feed or bottle feed. Ignore the bf morality police.

If it worked everyone would do it… at night your breastmilk has hormones in it that will help your baby sleep - formula doesn’t have this. However a formula feed may help you to get more sleep if you breastfeed then immediately go to sleep when the baby is settled and your partner does a formula feed. It didn’t work for me as I just ended up with engorged boobs…

Newborn babies do need a lot of help with sleep, if you can tough it out then do - it won’t last for ever. Best of luck.

I did this although he other way round in that my baby was fully formula fed during a stay in NICU, and I "weaned" her back on the breast, but kept the bedtime formula feed. It just worked for me as I was finding bf all day gruelling, and it meant my partner could do bedtime from the beginning. My baby did sleep reasonably well overnight (woke every 4 hours or so) but I wouldn't like to say that was because of the formula. It was the other benefits that made it worthwhile for me.

I wouldn't worry about supply, mine was never affected at all, and no one ever suggested to me that it might be.

The sids risk is so miniscule if you follow other safe sleep guidelines, I wouldn't factor that in personally.

As a general point I'm a big advocate of mixed feeding generally, I think it's an under-recommended option, I ended up doing it by accident but would do the same again.

I don't think how your baby is fed makes a difference to how well he sleeps.

But what I will say is, don't worry about it doing any harm to "your breastfeeding journey" either. I've mixed fed for years now (only stopped during 2nd pregnancy). If you give formula around the same time everyday, your body learns to reduce supply just at that time of day, but keep it up the rest of the day. And your baby will still prefer the breast because, it's Mummy, right?

We give ds a bottle some evenings so I can read dd her bedtime story, and have done since birth. No issues with supply. Ds still a breastfeeding monster.

And it's handy for your baby to be willing to take a bottle, in case you need to be apart occasionally

Certainly anecdotally, all the babies I knew who slept well, were formula fed, and BF ones were far more likely to be all night terrors like mine were. With exceptions either side of course.

But I think 2wks old is a bit early to be worrying about how long they sleep - well of course you want more sleep but their tummies are tiny at this stage so you can’t expect much. Although I think a bit mad for pp above to say waking at night ‘means their development is better’. Very random claim! There is the risk of a reduction in supply as pps have mentioned but many women have mix fed successfully, I think go for it if you want to try one bottle. Plus, introducing a bottle early doesn’t hurt with a BF baby. People will tell you about nipple confusion but I’ve never encountered anyone who actually experienced this and have known many women who’ve breastfed, but I’ve known loads who didn’t try a bottle til later and baby totally refused a bottle.

Give a bottle of formula if you want a break. I combination feed and the last feed of the night is formula, and then I do the night feeds to keep my supply up. But I don't express so there's no other way for me to have a break from feeding :)

I am also going back to work before 12m and knew from the beginning that I wanted/needed the baby to be able to take a bottle of formula, and building that in early worked for us. Only YOU know best about what will work for your family.

The hormones in breastmilk indicate to your baby whether it's night or day. If you're going to introduce formula do it in the daytime! laleche.org.uk/breastfeeding-at-night/

I used to give my ds and dd one of the little aptamil bottles in the evening and they’d always sleep a couple of hours longer once we started that. Also meant I could get dh to feed them and have a bath and a rest !!

Look up virgin gut.

Don’t forget. Fed is best.

breast feeding is not always achievable and no one should ever make any mother feel bad because of how they feed their child

bottle feeding doesn’t mean you’re a failure or that you’re child won’t thrive developmentally etc. please always remember that however you feed your baby. You’re doing the best you can and no one who feeds bottle or breast should make other mothers feel bad

wr all do the very best for our babies ♥️

To add to the anecdotes, both mine have been mixed fed but my dd was on about 4 bottles of formula a day as a baby whereas my ds only had one.

Dd was the absolute nightmare sleeper. Just terrible, barely got 9h in total as a newborn including naps. Ds is a bad napper but OK at night.

But dd isn't a bad sleeper because she had more formula, it's just her personality. She had separation anxiety, FOMO, and stranger danger from the day she was born. Whereas ds is nothing like that, and sleeps a lot better.

Baby sleeping badly is nothing to do with feeding choices and it's sadly not really in your control at all