Trying to decide what's more important: sleep vs ebf?

[Itsychik]

My DS2 is nearly 6 months old. He's mostly ebf except for the occasional bottle of formula (1 - 2 times a week in the past month) when he's at daycare (as I haven't been able to pump enough and have no freezer stash). At 2 months old he started sleeping through the night...until the day he got his first vaccinations, and ever since then bedtimes and nights have been awful. We follow a pattern every night: take the kids up to bed, bedtime routine and feed LO and he falls asleep while nursing...then I lay him in his crib. And he sleeps from 5 - 15 minutes, and then wakes up screaming. So I take him back out, nurse until he falls asleep, put him back in bed. Repeat this for anywhere from 1 - 3 hours, until he eventually stays asleep (putting him in bed awake results in hysteria). Then he generally wakes anywhere from every 1 to 4 hours (usually one long sleep till 2am, then waking every 1 - 3 hours until we have to get out in the morning).

A few nights when I was just desperate to get some things done in the evening, we gave him a bottle to supplement the breast feeding (nursed first on one side, gave a bottle with 4oz, then nursed on the other breast until he sleeps) and then he stays asleep immediately for a good 3 - 5 hours. Last night I was gone for the first time and DH gave LO a bottle with 7 oz, and LO went to sleep at 7:30pm and slept straight through till 4:30am! 8 HOURS OF SLEEP! He hasn't done this literally for 4 months!

So now I'm struggling to decide what's more important to me. Keeping DS more or less ebf, and waiting until bedtime and the night wakings sort themselves out? (my DD was entirely ebf and was 14 months before she STTN, and only because I cut her off of night feedings at that point as she was waking every 2 hours). Or nursing first, and then making it a standard part of our nighttime ritual to give LO a 6+ oz bottle to tide him over a little longer? (and adding a pumping session before I go to bed to compensate).

tbh I'm leaning towards the bedtime bottle but mostly curious as to what others have done or how you're coping with difficult nights?

 

[Natasha2605]

Being in a similar situation but with a 6.5 month old that refuses bottles I'd absolutely go with the bedtime bottle.

I'm envious you have that option

I wish I'd introduced a bottle earlier as it's becoming such a battle in this house and being the only one who can feed her when she's up 6+ times a night is tiring.

 

[babyjan]

I'd probably give the bottle too if mine was keen. He does occasionally take bottle but it's bit of hit and miss. Go with whatever you feel is best xx

 

[noon_child]

We had weight gain issues so I used a bedtime bottle for a few months (it had been a top up after every feed but that was killing me so I combined it in to a bottle so that DH could do it, but she still needed me to fall asleep!). She still went through phases of needing hours and hours of breastfeeding to make her sleepy enough to nod off (especially between 4.5 and 5.5 months when we had sleep regression). The less rested she was the more wakes we had early in her sleep cycle. She was a terrible daytime sleeper and this meant we were in a cycle of over tiredness where it took hours to get her to sleep which made her more tired etc. etc. Moving her bedtime earlier and working on daytime naps helped shorten bedtimes.

However, as you are supplementing a few bottles at daycare, it may be that being away from LO during the day has knocked your supply a little and so LO has gone back to cluster feeding to try to get it back up. Whether you want to go with this or just use formula to make up the shortfall is entirely up to you. Of course, it is still possible to continue breastfeeding only some of the time (once babies eat decent portions of solid food demand for breastmilk decreases but mums still breastfeed way past the age their children are on three solid meals and two snacks). I guess it is just a case of working out how upset you would be if replacing these mammoth cluster feeds knocked your daytime pumping supply even lower.

I'd also say that 7oz is quite a big bottle for an ebf baby. Now as it didn't cause any discomfort it could be fine, but sometimes ebf babies introduced to the volumes of milk recommended on the formula packet can become constipated or get tummy pain (which is yet another thing that can ruin sleep). Maybe take a look at paced bottle feeding, which allows baby a bit more time and space to decide if they are really hungry. It is quite common though for babies to take larger bottles when mum is not there as they want the comfort! That 8 hr stretch of sleep sounds amazingly restorative, but it might mean he missed out on a night feed that stimulated the next days supply. No-one can decide for you how important any of these factors are.

A lot of the benefits of breastfeeding are down to the parenting that breastfeeding demands (immediately responsive, no set schedules, physical closeness with primary attachment figure etc.) which it is perfectly possible to create while bottle feeding or supplementing. Some of the other benefits (oral muscle development for example) are still going to be present from you continuing to breastfeed some of the time. Yes it is possible that formula strips the gut of some of the protective factors in breastmilk, so it depends how strongly that bothers you.

Don't let anyone else dictate to you. Some mothers made me feel like it was mad or cruel to deny myself and baby that sleep, but it was NOT THEIR CHOICE and there was no guarantee that giving more formula would have made any difference (we once had LO sleep through the night when we changed from disposables to cloth nappies at 4months old - and we thought BINGO - but it only happened once!). Others made me feel like using formula was unhealthy or weak, but it was NOT THEIR CHOICE.

 

[AngelofTroy]

I give a bottle of formula as part of my 5 month old, otherwise breastfed, baby's bedtime routine. Her weight gain is poor and I wanted to introduce a bottle, so I thought bedtime was the ideal time as it might help sleep... But nope! She never takes more than 3-4oz and never sleeps more than 3 hours. That's just her! But I would try it, definitely x

 

[jtink28]

my 7.5 month old is EBF, and I'll tell you what - if he would take a bottle of formula at night and sleep for 8 hours, I would do it EVERY GD NIGHT!!! Do it!

 

[Natasha2605]

my 7.5 month old is EBF, and I'll tell you what - if he would take a bottle of formula at night and sleep for 8 hours, I would do it EVERY GD NIGHT!!! Do it!

totally with you!