Should I give formula at night?

[missingsleep]

Hello Mums,

My dd is 18 weeks and has been waking every 1-2 hours at night (after an 8-11pm stretch to start off with)for the last month. I'm exhausted! In fact tired to the point I've had illness after illness through being so run down and now finding it hard to cope.

She wakes up and I breastfeed her for 5-10 mins, she sometimes goes back to sleep after, or cries until I settle her with her dummy. My Mum says I should either wean her (I'm not going to) or give her a bottle of formula at night to make her sleep better.

I know there's no real problem with formula but it just doesn't sit right with me. I feel proud I've managed to breastfeed her this long and wanted to carry on exlusively breastfeeding til 6 months. On the other hand though I'm just so tired. Dp is v keen for me to try the formula thing (I think a big part is that she sleeps in our room and so wakes him up too) and says dd would benefit from a more awake, well Mum in the day times.

Does anyone have any experience of this, or ideas?

Two things I should mention are that she can go 3 hours without a feed in the day (usually half that at night). Also she has been red cheeked, drooling and chewing her fist for about a month but I can't see any teeth. Could all this be teething and does it go on this long, or do you think she's just hungry and formula would help?

Any ideas would be appreciated. Thankyou.

I experienced a lot of pressure to do this with my dc, who were all hard to settle in the early evening.
I think that it has got to be your decision and a bottle of formula is not the end of the world BUT
What if you give the formula, and it doesn't make any difference? Quite possible, because no one really knows that it will settle her. Once given, if you believe in the virgin gut theory, then one bottle of formula spoils that
If your instincts are to not do it, then I am sure you should follow your instincts on something as important as this

What did you do mycuprunsover? Did you buckle to the pressure and if so did it make any difference with yours?

I didn't with ds1, and did end up giving a bottle of ff to dt1 for a few months when he was nearly 5 months. I just struggled with the early evening feed, and tried every thing to avoid it.
It didn't really make much difference tbh He reverted back to being bf completely fairly soon afterwards, and hasn't looked back.
If she is 18 weeks, you could try not bfing her at every feed, and see if has just got into a habbit with some of the feeds.If she doesn't need all the bf sessions, she certainly doesn't need ff
Thats what I would do.
My dc were sleeping pretty well at night, it was that awful time between 4.30 and 6.30. I had a ds1 who was 20 months old when dts arrived and I think I just didn't have enough at that time of day at that point.

Re the teething, as I understand it, teeth can shift around in their gums for months before they actually appear and that can be pretty painful, so it could be part of the problem.

I think if I were you I would try to encourage her to take more milk in the day (will she eat if you offer her milk more frequently?) - say every 2.5 hours - and try to get her to go back to sleep at night without feeding her each time. Depends on the child, of course, but with my DD once she was taking 6 good feeds in the day I started thinking she couldn't be that hungry at night and seeing if she would drop back to sleep without feeding.

I hope you crack this soon - you must be getting very tired.

It's common.
She will ride through it.
Try feeding really well just before going to bed.
If you are proud of breastfeeding (as you should be!!!!) then the formula is not going to make you feel great.Breastmilk is of course best for a baby.

Your mum's weaning theory is crap (althopugh common).There are more calories in milk than gloopy baby food.All this does is sit in the stomach like wallpaper paste.

Thanks everyone. Will try more feeds in the day and hold off formula. I think the problem is dp makes me feel like I'm being silly to carry on doing this when there is (what he sees as) a simple solution that will let me get more sleep. But it doesn't feel right and I can carry on for now. Just wanted someone to tell me it's right to do that I suppose.

I think you need to try something else before then resorting to formula.
First of all I'd be inclined to put her in her own room. It'll make nights much easier for your dp for a start and then he'll (hopefully) be easier on you in turn.)You won't hear her every cry/snuffle/move and you can develop a strategy for how quickly you respond to her waking. (I always give my ds a chance to settle himself before going in and checking him, giving him a dummy and putting on his lightshow. Over time I gradually extended that amount of time.) The two of you may also be disturbing her (as well as her you).

Personally I'd also only feed her after the third attempt or so at settling her hasn't worked. My approach would very much be to try and stretch the time between feeds as much as possible in the night in the hope that this discourages her to wake so often.

If you then reach a point where the situation stops improving I would then turn to formula though there are those who say it makes no difference.
I used it because I felt ds was quite a lazy feeder at night who enjoyed his cuddle and I felt it would encourage him to take a "proper" feed.
Ds2 is 8 weeks today. I swapped his 10:30 feed to a bottle of formula at 6 weeks. The first night he lasted an extra 1.5 hours, waking at 5:30 instead of 4. After that when he woke at 4 I'd leave him to settle himself if at all possible. 5 days later he had stopped waking in the night for a feed. That said last night I dropped the 10:30 feed (because we were struggling to get him to take anything - and he slept through) and I intend to "suck-it-and-see" again tonight so he'll be back to exclusively bf for a while.

Missingsleep - tell your DP that there are a number of things that people think will make a baby start to sleep longer:

1. Give them formula last thing at night
2. Starting to wean them
3. Give them 2 meals a day
4. Give them 3 meals a day
5. Give them 3 meals a day plus snacks
6. They start to crawl and therefore use up more energy
7. They start to walk and therefore use up more energy

We went through the whole list with DS and nothing worked (DD on the otherhand slept through from 3 months inspite of being solely bf). He did eventually decide that sleep was a good thing but he was 14 months before he slept through. Babies are all different and although a ff might work there is no guarantee.

Sounds like you are doing a great job BTW, as others have said, stick with your instincts, they are there for a reason.
HTH

No. Dont give formula at night.

Stick with breastmilk, it's natural and best for baby and this situation won't last for ever! make sure you're eating/ drinking enough

All the best!

missingsleep, I've got three DSs and none of them was a "naturally" good sleeper, so I have enormous amounts of sympathy.

When DS1 was a baby I did try this "evening bottle of formula" malarkey but all that happened was that he developed eczema, which was a bit of a bugger - he certainly didn't sleep any better.

I would certainly support your decision to stick with just breastfeeding at the moment. Do you bring her into bed with you to feed her - I did that with both DS2 and DS3 and it was a real life-saver - I used to find that I could actually doze quite a lot even with a DS latched on!

I do bring her to bed with me but don't let myself drop off with her cause I'm scared she'll roll out the bed or burrow under the duvet.

Feel very grateful for all these ideas though, definitely going to try some of them. Also I at least feel more positive and able to resist dp's "give that baby some formula" at 4am this morning (and 2, and 5, and 6...)

You could get a bedguard (sort of thing you use for toddler beds) and put it on your bed.

I am sure I should have worried more about the duvet thing but it was just a case of needs must with me - I just physically could not keep awake!

Aaarggh feeds at 11, 1, 3, 5, 6.15 then up at 7.30. I tried not to feed her but she screamed and seemed genuinely hungry then fed for at least 15 minutes each time. I think I'm just going to feed her as much as I can today and see if that helps - in between fantasising about sleep that is..

OH poor you It is really difficult to cut out nightfeeds, as some one else said, maybe she is just that type of baby, and she will grow out of it eventually.
Try and do as much feeding as you can today, and give her plenty of fresh air from 12 -4, I have read some where that exposure to daylight during these hours can help with sleeping.
Thats why children were wrapped up really warm and left in the garden in their prams even in winter

Right off to continue my breastfeeding marathon in the park. All worth a try!

Missingsleep I too have a bf baby that has always liked to munch at night (she is 14 weeks).

Things improved about 2 weeks ago when we moved her into her own room. I was dreading it but it has worked out really well and she is only waking twice a night now [reaches out and touches wood emoticon]. I think before I was reacting too quickly and feeding her at every snuffle and now she has a chance to settle herself back to sleep.

I also express during the day for her bedtime feed around 8pm to really tank her up. It's a real faff to do but helps. I don't do it as a dream feed as I don't believe in waking a sleeping baby but some people swear by it.

Also when she first wakes at night I do everything I can to keep her awake and take a proper feed (tickle feet, ears etc) rather than doze off after 5 mins.

Also a couple of nights a week I make sure I go to bed at the same time as her to catch up on sleep