Switching to formula to help sleep?

[Sl33pdeprivedmum]

Currently combi feeling my almost 4 month old as he wasn’t following his curve as I’d like him to.

Naps are OK during the day (typical of a 4 month old, some days several short naps, sometimes a couple of short naps with one longer nap).

Night time sleep however is not great. He goes down at about 7/7.30pm and will sleep nicely until about 10/11pm. From then he’ll wake every half an hour, sometimes for his dummy, sometimes for milk. It has been going on for weeks, so I don’t think it’s the sleep regression.

The lack of sleep is really affecting both my mental and physical health now so I need him to just sleep for a couple of hours at a time.

Is switching to formula completely likely to help his sleep, or will it not make any difference?

I tried cosleeping last night which did help him to sleep a bit longer - but I got no sleep so that didn’t really help..

FYI: I know night wakes are normal at this age, I just need him to not wake quite as much so I can get longer than 20 minutes sleep at a time before it kills me.

Just realised I’ve posted this in the wrong forum - not sure how to change, sorry!

I would definitely try it and see if it helps, every baby is different so whats to lose!

For your sake I’d give it a go.

My completely BF baby was a much better sleeper than my combi/FF fed baby.

I think it is down to personality rather than feeding method.

I don't know anyone that it made any difference for.

Have you got any support with nights, though?

It can't hurt to try, but if you're close to breaking point, I'd try some other things too. My son had this same phase - he's been out of it for ages, but I still vividly remember that feeling.

You can try but neither of mine slept well even on formula

I've recently started combi feeding and just give my son (2 months) a bottle of formula at night. 7/7 nights he's slept for 7 hours straight through from 9pm, and goes down easily a few minutes after his bottle. Bedtimes were taking up to two hours prior and then he'd only sleep for a few hours at a time. HV said it's a coincidence, I beg to differ. It has revolutionised my life!

Whatever works for you and your family is what's best. It can't hurt to try :)

11 dc.all bf. . A mix of great sleepers and not great ones... No connection ime of how they were fed...
2 of my ds's slept through at a few weeks old. I lay there with huge leaky boobs!!
Consider the pita of making /warming milk at stupid o'clock..
No thanks.

Thanks everyone, my first was formula fed and was a much better sleeper, but you’re right it could just be personality.

At the moment my husband will help settle him a couple of times, but he obviously can’t breastfeed him & he works full time so can’t be up all night.

@Sunshineafterthehail i would take making a bottle a couple of times a night over being woken every half an hour 😂.

My worry is I’ll give up breastfeeding and he’ll somehow end up worse

My daughter has had equally bad sleep on breastmilk, formula, oat milk and nothing. Her reason for waking is often due to reflux and actually more milk makes this worse. The reflux flare she had not long after switching to formula was so much worse than her flare on breastfeeding as she comfort fed so much more and went to guzzling 20oz overnight at 14 months.
Waking every 40 minutes is still a sign that my daughter reflux is flaring up again and she is 4y! I would have a look to see if silent reflux matches what you are experiencing

@Sl33pdeprivedmum you're also working full time keeping a small human alive, you need your sleep. When I got to the stage you're at, we started doing shifts in the bedroom with the baby so my partner slept in there until 3am and did the wake-ups with a bottle of formula or expressed breast milk if available. Then after 3am I moved into the bedroom and he moved out to get some sleep. Then he went to work all day and I also worked all day looking after the baby.

I can't say we noticed much of a difference depending on whether BB had formulation or breast milk before bed, tbh. There was a big improvement around the time BB went fully off breast milk, but that was around 8 months...

It may or may not work. What will definitely work is leaving your DH to care for him from 8pm-midnight and you getting some sleep during that time. He may well have work in the day but you also need to be able to function.

Baby will sleep when baby is ready. It doesn't matter how they are fed.

What made a huge difference for me was DH doing one of the night feeds with a bottle of expressed breast milk.

Why not try that with either expressed milk or a bottle of formula. No need to give up breastfeeding unless you want to.

In our family (my two, plus 4 nieces and 2 nephews) they slept through from 6 weeks to 12 months and through to 2 years old and 4 years old. All breastfed apart from the 2 year old and 4 year old.