Introducing a night bottle feed to a breast fed baby

[Loubyloulou88]

I would like a bit of advise.

My 5 week old lb has do far been exclusively breast fed. I'm considering giving him 1 bottle of formula during the night to try and help him sleep a little longer as he is waking every 1-2 hours. I'm hoping it will help the both of us to get more sleep! Does anyone else do this, and if so how does it work for you? Has it affected your normal breast feeding through the day?

I also have a BF 5 week old - he has one bottle of formula in the early evening (generally given around 7/7:30pm) and is breastfed for all other feeds. The formula feed hasn't affected those breastfeeds at all, although I suspect this is because my milk supply is generally low at this time (I have two older DCs as well as baby DS and my days are fairly hectic) so the formula just enables us to settle him in the evenings rather than spending hours with him cluster feeding at the breast. And as DH can give the bottle it means I can then do bedtime stories with the other two without the baby in tow...it works well for us.

There are no guarantees of course that a formula feed will help your baby sleep a longer stint (DS doesn't sleep any longer after his formula feed than he does after a breastfeed in the night) but if nothing else it will enable someone else to do the feed so that you can get to bed early which will make a difference in itself.

Thank for that, would feel a bit more confident giving him a bottle of formula if need be. I've now realised that he's not staying awake long enough during his night feeds to fill up which is why I think he's probably not sleeping for as long as he does when i first put him to bed. Any ideas as to how I can keep him awake? I don't want to wake him properly as he might be hard to get back to sleep, but need him to feed a bit longer.

Babies tend to be able to do one long

Sorry pressed send..

They tend to do one longer stretch then wake regularly after that, as they are not capable of sleeping longer. so it's not necessarily what you are doing. There is a growth spurt around this time too that can make them wake and feed more. Ill look for links

Thanks . I also find that he falls asleep about 5 minutes after I put him to my breast and is impossible to wake up to carry on feeding. I think this is probably why he doest sleep for as long as he's not full. Any tips?

My mw has told me to strip (then cover with blanket), try a nappy change& try walking your fingers up&down their spine ( this last one works a treat). Good luck.

I would change DS mid feed to keep him awake at enough. It's tricky as like you say you don't want them to fully wake. Boobs always sent him back off though

The wonder weeks info on sleep has been really useful easing my anxieties, especially in the early months.

I found this info on introducing a bottle really useful when we thought about a dreamfeed.

Congrats on your LO, enjoy the newborn snuggles!

Aww thank you. It's such a tricky time in the early days, especially as its my first. It's difficult to know what's 'normal'! I'll try to make his nappy change nice and quick with little interaction, hopefully he won't wake up fully but will be alert enough to feed for longer than 5 mins

Here at 4am, I can confidently say, that there is no such thing as a subtle nappy change! Wide awake and doesn't want to go back to sleep

We introduced a bottle feed at 9 weeks. It doesn't really make a difference to length of sleep but does mean I can get a headstart on sleep as DH does the bottle. He now goes down between 6.30-7.30 and wakes for bottle between 9-11.

I'd be tempted to wait a few more weeks if I was you so that your supply is more established and less likely to affect his latch.