Formula for night feeds

[eco79]

Wise people of the Family Room.

My son, is 4 months old, a big lad at nearly 18lb and exclusively breastfed. He has a tongue tie which has presented the following two issues....

1. Tongue Tie clinic were reluctant to cut the tie as BF is going well and he is putting on plenty of weight.

2. My son can only feed for 8/9 minutes at a time as he gets tired and frustrated.

During the day we seem to manage with this, although I seem to feed more often than other mums. But during the night my little one is waking up at 10.30pm, 1am, 3am, 5am and then 7am to feed. It's not a 'feeding to sleep' issue as he can self-settle for naps and at bedtime. I can't decide whether it's because he's not getting enough food during the day, whether he can only get enough food to last 2 hours during the night or whether it's just a BF issue that I'll have to live with.

I'm not unhappy with the night feeds, and feel refreshed enough with what sleep I get, but I wonder whether my little one needs to sleep better? Are the night feedings causing him to have poor sleep during the night.

Would a bottle of formula at 10.30pm help? Does it take longer to digest? Will it upset his stomach?

So many questions :) but if anyone has the time and inclination to reply I'd be grateful.

Jayne

[Pickle]

Hi Jayne,

I found with my 1st child (mixed fed due to tongue tie) that it didn't make a difference to his sleep whether he was given formula or EBM at 10:30pm, and certainly with my other two exclusively BF children they have slept well without formula.

Having lived through tongue tie I would question whether it's worth you having the snip done? If he's having to work hard to take his feeds it might really help with the associated problems. We got our sons fixed when he was a couple of months old, and it then took another couple of months for him to relearn his latch, but once that was sorted he was a breeze to feed.

P x

[Fuschia]

Frequent night feeding like that isn't unusual and makes sense from a baby point of view (no distractions, high prolactin levels) so I wouldn't worry that in itself it is a sign of something beIng wrong