Breaking feed to sleep? Going crazy

[Wingingitmum11]

Baby is almost 5 months and waking constantly through the night. He just wants to be fed back to sleep (formula not breast)

this is my fault as I fed on demand and didn't realise he would get use to only wanting to sleep on the bottle. Bottles just started falling near nap and bedtime.

I am getting no sleep and it's effecting his day appetite now. He was fussy with day bottles as is but it's just getting worse.
We use to put him down for naps but we went on a trip and now back to feeding/rocking.

just feel like one big tired failure!

This is not your fault. This is normal baby behaviour. They get nosey around this time, and harder to feed in the day so make up for it at night. Keep feeding him to sleep, it's your easiest option to get some rest. Once he's older and eating you'll find it much easier to drop some bottles. Be kind to yourself - responsive feeding is perfect for him, it's just hard on you!

@Springadorable thank you - unfortunately he's always been like this since day 1. A really fussy eater and we have to 'fight' to get the milk into him. But at night he just drinks or when he is tired like a comfort.

I don't know if I can keep doing it as he is not in the regression waking every 1hr 30 - 2 hours and only milk is settling him back. It's destroying me!

Unfortunately both of mine woke 1.5-2 hours as normal and every twenty mins during the regression. It was brutal. But they did get better! Can anyone else split even just a couple of nights a week with you? A block of four hours sleep would make a huge difference to how you're feeling.

The sleep deprivation is so hard and I know exactly how you feel as I was the same, breastfed my daughter on demand and then became the only way she would fall asleep. Every baby and situation is different but by 10 months I felt she was ready to night wean and I just had to be strong and not feed her through the night, a few tough nights comforting her in other ways but eventually she got it and unbelievably to me slept through the night.
Still has the odd wake up for teething and illness but I no longer feed to sleep. All feeds outside of her room and awake.
I will say for her and myself we really weren’t ready until 10 months. Big hugs it’s so bloody hard!

Agree that some babies are just like this. It's perfectly normal for them to feed more at night when you're there and not busy.

If you think it's an issue that's always been there and he's just not keen on the milk, which formula are you using currently and have you tried a comfort type of formula?

I would pay for some support, Lisa Clegg the Blissful baby expert is fantastic and worth her weight in gold. I used her when my daughter was 5.5m old and she had her sleeping through 6pm-10pm feed at 10pm then she would sleep 10:30-7am. She’s 4 now and sleeps 6:30-6:30 every night.

I had (pre-weaning) a really fussy milk drinker. Would graze on her bottle for an hour and I’d persevere just to try and get it in, in the day. I also found bottles fell before naptime. She didn’t wake in the night for it every night, but when she did she completely refused her first bottle of the day for about 2 hours.

Things I found that helped break these cycles:

1. Offered smaller bottles more regularly and gave her half hour to drink what she wanted. Within a couple of weeks the bottle size increased again and no. of bottles reduced. Her overall daily intake increased so less calorie deficit at night
2. Sized up teat size
3. Wherever possible I fed her in a quiet room away from distractions
4. Bottles falling before a nap sometimes was inevitable so I fed these in a different room and made sure I completely woke her up if she fell asleep drinking
5. I kept my 10pm dream feed until I started weaning as I relied on it to top up her daily total milk

Once she was 6 months if she woke in the night it would be for 1oz milk so she didn’t actually want it, and I started offering water only and the night wakes stopped completely.

Now she’s 8mo and has naturally dropped to 3/3.5 bottles at the same times daily and eats 3 meals really well.