OK, another question...
My son is 2 months old and has been on breastmilk exclusively except for when he was 4 days old we had to supplement waiting for my milk to come in.
Someone was telling me that if I gave him a bottle of formula before bedtime that he would sleep longer.
Is this something that I would want to do? Would it mess with his digestion/belly? Is it worth it or should I just continue to do breastmilk??
Some nights he sleeps for 4-5 hours between feedings at night, but most of the time it is every 3 hours. I am going to be going back to work soon and would like to get some more sleep at night if possible...if not that's ok.
I would personally not do it. It's just not worth messing up his tummy and you may get LESS sleep if the milk gives him a tummy ache.
It also will make his poo stink horribly. Just thought I'd throw that in there. LOL!
I would stick with the breast milk, because not feeding during the night might cause issues with your body supplying enough milk for during the day. Plus, formula has a lot of iron in it and can cause constipation and gas in infants, so it might actually give him a tummyache and cause him to have a more fitful nights sleep. If it's possible, you could try pumping your milk and feeding it to him in a bottle at night, or have your husband do it, so you can get a little more shut eye! Good Luck!!
I found that my breastfed baby would fall asleep during his bedtime feeding before he was full. I started pumping and giving him an 8 ounce bottle for his nighttime feeding at three months and gently waking him if he fell asleep before finishing, and within 2 days he was sleeping completely through the night 8:30-7:00. Before, he was waking up once to eat.
I would just stick to the breast milk. It is really more filling than the formula anyway. All babies are different. I breastfed all three of mine for the 1st year. The oldest daughter started sleeping through the night after 3 weeks. My son woke up every 3 hours for 3 months, then every 4 hours until her was 6 months old, then he continued to wake up at least once a night until he was 1 1/2 year old. My baby (15 months now) woke up every 4 hours until she was about 4 month old, then started sleeping through the night. Also, it might mess up your milk supply. If you give formula and skip the feeding you supply will go down, but if you pump, then it should stay the same. If you will be pumping during the day after you go back to work, you might want to keep those night time feedings. I pumped once a day when my son was 10 months old and my supply stayed the same but I got nothing when I pumped. It took about a month before I started getting enough to feed him. I had one of those $300 pumps too. Let me know if I can help you any more.
I would not give him formula at this point. It can really constipate your baby and then you could wind up having a REALLY bad night! Try giving him a pacifier to soothe him without picking him up. I know that someone suggested putting rice in the bottle - please DON'T do that. Only in cases where a baby has SEVERE reflux should you do this with your pedi's blessing. Babies know how much they need to drink based on volume, so upping the calories in the bottle can cause them to overfeed and become overweight. I certainly would think at two months old that he is too young to take solids anyhow - this poses its own health risk. In babies that young their sucking and swallowing actions are not yet fully coordinated and they can inhale small amounts of the rice cereal into their lungs, which can lead to pulmonary problems. It will get better, but you have to start by training him to go longer at night between feedings - just try to soothe him quietly without feeding him. I know it is hard and a lot of these other options seem like a quick fix, but in reality I don't think they are in your babies best interest. Good luck!
The only thing that will make your baby sleep longer is time. Nothing you feed your child will have the magic effect of making them sleep through the night. It never fails that (usually) an older relative or non bfing friend will tell you how wonderfully their formula or cereal fed baby slept. My experience is, they either forget or their lying. :) The clinical data has shown over and over how the whole giving a bottle of formula or putting cereal in the bottle is a fallacy.
Your dc's sleep does seem pretty normal (even a formula fed baby). Will formula mess with your child's digestive tract? Well, it's not breast milk so there's the chance he won't like it or it could upset his tummy or he could be allergic. Also, supplementing with just one bottle can wreck havoc on your supply -- trust me I've been there.
If it's sleep you want, perhaps you could try one of several things. Perhaps pumping and then having your husband give your son a bottle. Another thing you can try is cosleeping. When you can simply roll over and nurse, you get a lot better sleep. We did this at the suggestion of my ob and since I had some supply issues. Yes it can be done safely and with positive results. Frankly, it's nobody's business but your own where your baby sleeps. As my ob said, you do what you have to for sleep.
It gets better. As a friend of mine told me, the nights are long sometimes but the days are short. This will all be over before a blink of an eye. Your child will sleep through the night, just when he is ready. You sound like you have a good attitude about it all so I'm sure you'll do fine. Good luck!
4 to 5 hours between feedings at night is great for a 2 month old!
You could certainly try formula at night, or maybe mix formula with breast milk, but it's no guarantee. He'll sleep longer when his body is ready to, which will probably be around 12 weeks or so. I feel your pain though! I remember dreading going back to work when I still had to get up once or twice a night to feed a baby. Somehow we survived and it wasn't very long before we got 8 or 10 hours of sleep most nights.
Maybe once you're back at work your husband could take turns with the night time feedings. While you're still on maternity leave it's not really fair for him to be up at night too, but once you're both working, you should swap days. That way you get a break to catch some ZZzzs. Six hours of sleep in a row will have never felt so great!
You'll probably get differing opinions on this so you'll have to do what is best for you. I breastfed for 6 months, but also had to supplement with formula. I started giving formula for the bedtime feeding at 4 months and she was able to go all night without a feeding (she did still wake up but not as much) Doing a bottle before bed was helpful because 1) my husband could do the bedtime feeding, giving me some extra time for other things and 2)I could see that she was having a full feeding and formula does take longer to digest. By that time I was struggling with supply issues so I don't think she was getting very much at that night feeding. I was back at work and had only planned to breastfeed for 6 months so I was ok with starting to drop a feeding and use formula. I pumped at night for a couple of weeks but then stopped. If you have a good supply then he should be getting enough breastmilk at his night feeding and is probably still too young to sleep through the night without eating. If you are hoping to breastfeed for as long as possible then giving formula instead of BF is also a risk to your supply. You could also try and give him a bottle of pumped breastmilk at bedtime to see if that makes a differece- babies tend to take more from a bottle than then breast. As far as formula causing problems for babies you won't know until you try. I think the majority of babies can take formula without any problems so don't let others scare you. I personally like the nestle goodstart since it is closest to bm.
Good luck, those first few months are the hardest but it does get so much easier as they get bigger!
I supplemented both of my babies. I was always concerned that I did not have enough milk for them. So my husband would "top them off" before bed. My understanding is that the formula is more challenging to digest and so it sticks around longer.
Hope it helps,
H.
His sleep pattern is normal for his age. My daughter is 9 1/2 mos. and just now sleeps 9pm-4am and then she gets up to eat. If you start giving him a bottle at bed. He will get dependent on it. You will also have less breast milk. He has to nurse so that you can keep your output up.
Something we did so that I could get a few more hours of sleep is that I would go to bed after the 9 or 10 feeding. My husband would take the 12 or 1 feeding before he went to bed and give my daughter either pumped breastmilk, formula or combo of both. I would get up for the next feeding which was usually between 3 and 5. This really helped us out a lot as I was getting some uninterrupted sleep and dad got some good time with our little one. When she started sleeping thru the midnight feeding my husband would do the 'top off' after I breastfed.
Anyways...you can do whatever you want and whatever you feel comfortable with. It isn't going to hurt your son to have formula, it shouldn't mess with his digestion at all either.
"Adding cereal to a bottle of breast milk or formula has often been recommended to help a baby sleep better. But there's no evidence that babies will go to sleep faster or sleep better if they're given cereal — or even a full meal — just before going to bed.
For one thing, babies are programmed to wake up fairly often during the night, not only to eat, but also to socialize and touch base with their parents. Moreover, your baby won't be able to sleep through the night (defined as a five-hour stretch) until his central nervous system has fully matured; it has almost nothing to do with whether he has a full tummy. Every baby is different — and some will be able to sleep through the night sooner than others.
Keep in mind, too, that breast milk or formula provides everything your baby needs until he's 4 to 6 months old. Introducing cereal earlier than that puts him at a higher risk for allergies.
The next time someone tells you to "just give the baby a little cereal to get him to sleep better," ask what she would recommend for an adult who can't sleep. Chances are, her advice would be to drink a glass of warm milk."
Hey C.!
I have twins and was using formula and breastmilk for both boys. I can tell you that there were a few nights that one would have breastmilk and the other had formula and it didn't change their sleep schedule. But that is my experience. Now, at 2 months we started putting rice cereal in their night time bottle per their pedi and they started sleeping like 8-10 hours sometimes more. So if that is ok with your pedi or if you want to do it yourself that is my suggestion.
Good luck!
I exclusively breastfed my daughter until she was about the same age as your son. At around that time we introduced one bottle of formula as her last feeding before she went to bed. We mainly did it so I could have a break and so my husband could have a chance to feed her as well. I was never very sucessful with pumping, just could never seem to find a good time to get it done during the day! She was never once bothered by the formula and she does have fairly severe acid reflux. It actually seemed to help her spit up less and she has not had a problem with constipation either. Honestly, it didn't make a huge difference in her sleeping. She would sleep about an hour longer before her next feeding when we started the formula, but to me, that extra hour of uninterupted sleep was fantastic! Give it a try, if things don't go the way you want with the formula, then stop giving it to him. I remember how hard it was for me to introduce the formula. I really enjoy breastfeeding and was afraid my daughter would learn to like the formula better, but it didn't happen. Good luck!
C.,
My concern with supplementing is that it could cause your supply to go down. Nursing is a supply & demand thing. I make sure that I pump whenever I need to give formula... if ever. But, it depends on your supply. My sister was super "milky". I joke with her that I'm jealous because I have to work for every drop of the liquid gold.
I've dealt with many many breastfed babies over the past 22 years of doing childcare in my home. It's has never created a problem to supplement the breast milk with formula on days when mom didn't have time to pump or didn't have enough milk for the entire day. It sure helps to make things less stressful for mom and baby. It takes a lot of formula to constipate a baby...but yes, the BMs will change and thicken to some degree.
Some of my families will, also, add rice cereal to a formula bottle or feed it by spoon....beginning very early....even against doctors' advice. Most of the infants will sleep longer between feedings with this method because it is so filling. Depends on whether or not you want to do this with your child. Doesn't hurt to try. No a teaspoon or two will not make a difference...more like a tablespoon or two. Mixed to the thickness just less than a milkshake if given in a bottle.
Doctors can only give you educated guesses as to what is happening or will happen with your child. They go by the information you give them. Who is at home raising the babies?
Babies are suffering more and more with reflux. Reflux can be minimized with a thickening agent in the milk with some children. Would you rather give them chemicals to settle their little tummies? It won't hurt to give cereal a try first; before going to such extremes. It certainly did NOT hurt me or you or your parents when the method of giving infants cereal to satisfy them through the night was used for years and years.
Please don't let those with different convictions determine your thinking. You know what is best for you and your child. You don't have to continue the cereal if it does not work.
I think giving your child a bottle of formula at night will make it easier for your child care provider to give it bottle feedings throughout the day....making the transition much easier on everyone.
Good luck to you and God Bless you and your little one...
When you've taken care of children and worked with families as long as I have you can believe that I am not a liar and have seen these things work. I've seen babies who are so fussy become happy babies once they are getting the sleep they need. I've never seen a baby who is just fussy for no reason. They are either teething, wet, need cuddling or are uncomfortable or hungry. Tensions grow within the home after a few weeks of parents suffering from extreme loss of sleep. The infants can sense the unhappiness and get fussier.
I've had moms worry that I won't be able to work with their babies because they can't put them down during the day or night and they need help during maternity leave. But, once, the baby is feeling satisfied and gets some sleep....they become like a different child. I've seen it happen time and time again. You can count on it. I don't care what anyone else says. I have plenty of references to show that I know what I am talking about. Experience counts for something and it's not just a coincidence that it works for different families. I would stake my reputation as a city and state licensed child care provider on what I am saying here.
I would suggest a bowl of cereal at bedtime for an adult when they have trouble sleeping. That could be oatmeal with warm milk or bran with cold milk. I've cared for two elderly relatives in my home for a total of 5 years and it works.
Read the additional comments from other parents of infants on the same website offered. There are some who confirm what I'm saying.
Formula feeding is absolutely no guarantee that your baby will sleep longer, and could affect your milk supply. My son was formula fed completely and didn't sleep more than 3 hours until after the 6 month mark. If breastfeeding is going well, I would say don't mess with a good thing! Formula could actually upset his tummy!
