Breastfeeding getting me down

[Boobsout]

Not sure if this is the right place to have a moan or not but I have DD who is 17 weeks old and is EBF. Recently she has become a nightmare from 7 onwards at night and I think she must be going through the 4 month sleep regression and has started using me for comfort feeds at night. She will happily do 4hrs between feeds daytime and has now got a better daytime nap routine of a long nap in the morning and afternoon around 2hrs at a time if DS is kept occupied and away from her pram. Then 7ish hits after her bath and even though she is nackered all she does is fight sleep and scream until she gets a boob so literally drinks me dry all night long she never gave in until 10.45 tonight by which point I was exhausted and dying for my bed and has now been up feeding since 1.30. I just feel exhausted all the time as DS doesn't nap at all during the day and to top it off the HV was here today and is concerned over her weight as should be heavier she point blank refuses a bottle (tried 4 different types) so can't get a break that way and starting to feel like a failure and a bit depressed as never get any me time even for 10mins at night to have my boobs to myself. Sorry for the rant but has/is anyone else experienced bottle refusal as really don't want to have to start early weaning like the HV has suggested.

Possibly she's just about to have a growth spurt - so is suckling to create more milk.

Can you try and feed her a bit more during the day? I know this can be hit and miss but worth a try.

Just wanted to say that my 7 week old will sometimes do the same thing. My advice is to do the feed and when your sure that LO has had a full feed hand him/her off to your partner and go take a bath or read a book/watch tv upstairs.
My boy will stay on the breast for hours if he's allowed. If I'm in the room he will grizzle to go back on to the breast. Usually when I leave him with my husband he will settle within a few minutes. If after an hour he's still grizzly I will put him back on the breast but he's normally asleep by then. Obviously if he screams I'll put him on right away.

Feeding more frequently through the day may help. I would offer a feed every 2 to 3 hours through the daytime.

I also feel your baby sounds over tired at bedtime and in addition to more frequent feeds through the day, would maybe benefit from slightly shorter but more frequent sleeps.

I wouldn't expect more than 2 hours awake at any time at this age, probably more like 90 minutes awake ideally. So with a 7pm bedtime then baby should have been napping at 5.00pm or 5.30pm (as an example).

Thanks for your replies she had her jags today at 12 so has been grumpy all day and refused to sleep for any length of time just giving her her night feed now so hoping for at least a few hours kip when she's done!! Hubby isn't the most supportive he seems to have taken offence at the fact she won't accept a bottle and huffs whenever she cries with him so it's more stressful listening to him moaning ontop of her cries so the idea of a bath sounds great but the reality would be him pacing about the other side of the door so I'm aware that she is crying ( his tactic when he has her is to follow me about the house ) fingers crossed the more frequent feeds will help her to settle and bump her weight up just feeling a bit down at the moment with it all!

Growth spurts can be hellish and it's just not easy when you're breast feeding. You just feel constantly hooked up to this feeding machine!

I think it will pass and if anything it's a good thing, especially if Hv is concerned about weight - you want him feeding as much as poss.

Have you considered bed sharing so that you can get some sleep? On vs you'd need to research doing it safely bit this may be a good coping strategy.

It can't help having an unsupportive DH

Sorry I can't be of more help, other than to say you're doing an amazing thing bfing your little man and this too shall pass x

My baby was similar bit more extreme - he would go 10 hours in the day without feeding but feed hourly at night. I tried offering more feeds in the day but he would refuse. In the end I had to feed him
Lying down in the dark in the day and try to reduce the night feeds by cuddling or shush patting rather than feeding. It took two long painful weeks but we got there and shifted his feeding so he feeds more in the day than at night. He still wakes a lot at night but nowhere near as often. Good luck.

And with the bottle, your best chance is to get someone else to give it to her. At 17 weeks getting a baby to accept a bottle can be very difficult. We struggled at 8 weeks and the only way we got our baby to take it was with expressed milk and my partner giving the bottle. Our baby so far has refused formula. To be honest, I understand why as it smells horrible! We tried three different types of formula so far on 6 occasions. The next step for us was to try formula mixed with breastmilk but never got round to it.

my dd was the same. cluster fed from 6ish, sometimes til 11. she refused the bottle but I religiously tried 50ml top up every evening to try and fill her up after an hour on the boob and eventually she took it. we did the blissful baby expert's routine at 4 months as she then became reliant on boob to sleep and woke up every hour. She was ready for it and settled into a much better routine. Best of luck, I remember how draining it was. literally. x