Weaning from breast to cup - need help!

[sorchaocleirigh]

I started feeding baby rice to my four month old son last week on the advice of the public health nurse - he is 18lbs (more than 8 kilo) and just hungry all the time. The thinking was that the baby rice would fill his tummy.

He is still waking up twice in the night and I am utterly exhausted.

He also won't take a bottle - I've tried Avent, Tommee Tippee Closer to Nature and Nuk. I don't mind breastfeeding him but I would really like to fill his tank enough to get him to sleep 5 hours in a row. He was doing this for a good few weeks but now it's bed at 9.30pm or so (I then go to bed too), and then up at 1.30am, 3am, 5.30am, etc. It's killing me.

I was thinking that formula would fill him up more and that as he likes the taste of baby rice that it's the bottle he doesn't like. Any advice on weaning from breast to cup? I don't want to give up breastfeeding - I breastfed my daughter until she was a year - but I need to sleep.

Should I introduce more solid food feeds as well?

sounds like the infamous 4 month sleep regression - I do feel for you TBH, he needs more milk than solids at the moment - it's way more calorific, and more filling, sadly. Have you tried co-sleeping, or expressing so someone else can give him a bottle so you can get a decent stretch of sleep?
You should repost this on the breast and bottlefeeding topic - there are loads of folk there with experience of this hell! (My DS never slept well enough to have a sleep regression, but I do know what it's like to be feeding a ravenous and huge baby - good luck!)

I should also add that when he wakes up at 1.30am and 3am that he seems to be very hungry and has a full feed from both breasts. Any advice appreciated!

Yes, he's rejected a bottle of either expressed milk or formula from everyone who's tried to give it to him. He sleeps in his cot in our room - I can't sleep at all when I've tried co-sleeping for fear of squishing him!

Will re-post over there - thanks for the advice.