I'm breastfeeding atm and tbh i really feel I'm at the end of my tether. I swear i'm so close to a nervous breakdown. Its not just the breastfeeding it's everything. Imogen's in the terrible two phase, Joshua feeds every 2hrs and has gone back to waking in the night. I take them both out but have to carry Josh and push Immi in pushchair as she won't walk sensibly. On top of that my hips are worse than when I was pregnant and somedays it hurts so much i can barely move. I think Matt can see I'm struggling and has suggested formula feeding so he can take both kids out and give me a break and also to see if Joshua sleeps better. I'm not sure how I feel about that as I really want to carry on breastfeeding and would love to get to 6months at least exclusively breastfeeding, but is that just for my sense of accomplishment rather than for Joshua? I can express milk, well last time i managed to get any decent amount out was before christmas, i'm struggling to find time to atm as Josh whines, then Imogen grabs the pump and it just doesn't happen. At night I can only get out about 1oz (in the mornings i can get 6oz easily) so I can't even really do it when Imogen's gone to bed and Matt is here. Sigh... I feel a bit like everything is against me atm, which is silly cause I know it's not. I'm going out next weekend and I have to express enough milk for the night but its just not happening.

So opinions please... should I maybe introduce formula in the evenings to see if it settles him more and also means I don't have to stress about expressing for next weekend? Or do I just suck it up stop complaining and carry on breastfeeding?


Any other mums of two did you feel this stressed, like you're being pulled in all directions and you have no control?

Aww shell I really really sympathise, it's definitely not easy!

Noah went from being a great sleeper to waking up every couple of hours through the night (I think he's had a cold since December which really isn't helping)He was trying to feed every 2 hours, grizzling if I put him down, and much like Immi, Milo's going through a very dramatic phase so i know how stressful that is... and as for going out - by the time i get them both dressed and into the buggy - and convince Milo to get on the buggy board! - I feel like i'm about to collapse, so i can imagine if your hips hurt that must feel awful

I don't know that I have any decent advice as I feel equally stressed and out of control! Noah feeding every 2 hours was getting out of hand so I put him on a 4 hr routine, so he'd have a feed at 7am, play/be entertained by milo for an hour, hour and a half or so, then sleep for an hour or so, then feed again at 11am. He was a lot less grouchy on this routine and was sleeping and napping better until his cold came back.. It's tough though, at 4 months there's growth spurts etc, but I found Noah fed a lot better and took more each time with less messing about if I made the gap between feeds longer.

As for bottle feeding - if it relaxes you, and helps Joshua sleep, it can only be a good thing! You'll still be doing the rest of the feeds, and it will give Matt a chance to bond, and you the chance for a much needed break! If expressing is going to stress you out more, then it's not really worth it.

Hang in there, it will get better!! Not sure when but it definitely will!! Hugs xx

hun i sympathise with you although i cant relate, but could you do a few breast feeds a day and a few formula feeds so you can get a break i would do a formula feed at night to see if that helps him sleep through x x x

thanks ladies for replying.

Kat how did you manage to get Noah on that routine. i'm in awe! I've tried but Joshua will just scream after 1hr and 30mins. I fight him just to keep it at 2hrly feeds. He will only go 4hrs if i'm out shopping so he's been in car then pushchair so asleep that whole time. If he's awake he wants to feed? Could it be my milk isn't enough for him? or am I just giving in and he's only snacking

I have a few thoughts because I was at the end of my tether with Imogen and I didn't have a toddler climbing up me at that point!

1 - My HV tried advising me to have more rich and creamy foods to make my milk thicker - like making fruit smoothies with vanilla ice cream in and that sort of thing (I was struggling to find time to eat so how she thought I could do this I don't know!). It worked though, getting more in me seemed to get more in her.

2 - The community HV I phoned one day said to try to make sure baby was good and hungry so you are doing right by hanging on as long as you can before feeding.

3 - Is Joshua sucking for comfort or for food? I used to struggle to tell the difference. Can you palm him off with a dummy or would you prefer not to do that?

4 - I could never express any decent quantity during the day whilst feeding - only once I got back to work and was expressing instead of feeding, apart from first thing when I would express one boob while feeding from the other, because the boob had all night to get nice and full. That could then go in the fridge for when Matt gets home so you can go to bed for an hour or so perhaps?

Sorry just to rattle this off all unsympathetic like, just wanted to be quick cos I'm at work!

xxx Em

I agree with Em is he sucking for comfort or because he's genuinely hungry? Does he have a dummy?

Does he settle himself to sleep or does he always feed himself to sleep? Maybe he's actually tired not hungry?

I can understand why you want to carry on exclusively breastfeeding but you have done amazingly well already don't beat yourself up if you need to give him the odd bottle of formula.

Why don't you try and express on the weekend when Matt is there to watch Immi? You might then get enough for next weekend when you are out so at least you won't be stressing about that. ummm as for when you do try to express, leave Josh to whine for a bit it won't do him any harm and as for Immi ummm can you palm her off with Toy Story while you express? or ummm get her to help lol?

oh hun.. well this is all im going to say

go for the bottle.. if it means matt can take the kids put for a few hours so you can get me time. n if joshua will sleep for longer then i would go for it aye. i knwo you wanted to bf but it seems like you are dealing with a lot of the kids if you get what i mean. n i think its about time for matt to take on a bit n take them out.

i dont knwobut thats what i think. xx

Earplugs!! I'm kidding but i needed them at some points!

I did the baby whisperer EASY routine (Eat Activity Sleep You time (as if!!!)) because where i was going wrong was letting Noah fall asleep bfing. Then he just wanted to bf if he was hungry or bored/sleepy/grouchy.. basically nonstop! Like Joshua, he got really grouchy about 1 and a half/2 hrs after a feed, so I thought he was hungry and was feeding him, only for him to just take a little bit then fall asleep.. then wake up and want more.. over and over.

So i just got firm with him, would feed him 7am, put him on his mat/chair/sling then after 1 and a half hrs he would get really grouchy/screamy but I just rocked him, put him in the sling and walked, and he did eventually fall asleep (after some wriggling/crying at first).

Then when he woke up he'd either have a feed straightaway if it was 4 hours since the last, or play/sit for a bit until 4 hours had passed since the start of his last feed. Then just rinse and repeat throughout the day. He doesn't always sleep for as long as he should, and esp if Milo is being noisy he might not sleep at all though.

It was really hard at first as he was cross he couldn't bf all day long, but now the feeds are more spread out he feeds so much better - he used to snack and stop, snack and sleep then snack again, but now at feed times he hangs on for dear life and takes a proper full feed, doesn't get so easily distracted etc, so much better for both of us. If he's anything like Noah he will grumble/scream about being made to wait, but it did make Noah happier and easier to settle, better at napping too.

If he's putting on weight well, I doubt your milk isn't enough, it could just be that he wants to feed when he's actually sleepy, to get himself off to sleep iykwim? If you can crack that bit and get him to sleep without feeding he might fall quite easily into the 4 hr routine.

Good luck if you do want to give it a try, it's worth a shot! if you want to know more you can google "baby whisperer forums" (i think) and there's some good advice there

Gah I'm at work at the moment but will come on later or send you a PM. What I'll quickly say it IT DOES GET BETTER/EASIER!!! xxxx

I feel your pain and I only had one to deal with. Jamie used to feed every couple of hours and we only dropped the last night feed a few months ago. Actually, I suppose we still do one at 10 so strictly speaking haven't. I seem to remember posting on here when I was close to a breakdown doing it

Does he have a dummy? Jamie wouldn't take one but I used to give him a finger to suck. If he was happy with that they I assumed he wasn't actually hungry and tried to make him go longer. It was easier by about 41/4 months because he was happier to play by himself.

I'm going to sound like a hypocrite because I refused to do it and was determined to get to the 6 month mark but there's nothing wrong with him having formula. If you don't like it you can always express then and go back to exclusive bf or a bottle that you expressed off the day before while Matt was feeding him

In terms of going out, could you try picking up a cheap double from ebay or something just to keep you going for a bit?

Hope you manage to work it out

thanks again for replies ladies.

He deff tries to feed to go to asleep which i allow at night but try as best i can to avoid in the day and get him to sleep in his pushchair or bouncer. He does have a dummy but he doesn't like it - typical boy just wants booby. He wants to be held all the time too which i'm fighting against.. trying to get him to lay on his own and entertain himself more but Immi is always trying to drag him round the room and shove toys at him that i understand why he just wants to be held. I think i will try the EASY routine Kat, thanks for explaining. it really sounds like that is what he needs.

Liberty - I'm looking for a cheap double now. I really thought Immi would get better at walking but it's not happening so really want one now.

The EASY method worked wonders with Alfie too. I used to find it hard to get Alfie to sleep therefore he was upset alot of the time. The EASY method honestly worked a treat!! x

Shell wrote:

trying to get him to lay on his own and entertain himself more but Immi is always trying to drag him round the room and shove toys at him that i understand why he just wants to be held. .

Had exactly the same problem with my two! The good news is that now, if Milo gets too close or tries to take Noah's toys, Noah just swings out with a huge punch/kick/hair pull..don't think he means it, it's just a case of "see thing - grab thing - eat thing!", but I think Milo is a bit scared of him now to be honest! He knows if Noah is grouchy is best to keep a respectful distance. Too cute. I'm sure when Joshua is a bit better at sitting up and playing, it might be a bit less tough. Hmm, I say that but i spend quite a lot of time saying, "stop licking your brother/don't pull his hair, it's making him cry/stop throwing balls at his head/don't eat his socks!"

Aaaah it will get better! xx

I would say that at the moment holding him or rocking him to sleep is better than feeding him to sleep.
I'm not bf.but had the.same problem with finlay,i thought he was hungry but he was actually tired,i was trying to let him guide me with his needs instead of me enforce a routine on him but it didn't work.i dug out my gina ford.book and am using her routine as Rough guide but basically feeds should be at 7 10.30, 2.30 6.30 10.30 and then one through the night,nap I'm not so worried about but if finlay is grumpy and it's more than an hour away from the feed times then I get him to sleep however I can.

Hey hun, I havent got a lot of advice as I had the very same issues and to be completely honest the decision to carry on/stop breast feeding was ridiculously hard. At first I was fighting Simon because he said it was too expensive to put him on formula then when he eventually realised how hardI was finding it all and he agreed to put him on formula I couldnt bring myself to do it and in fact the thought of doing it made me feel sick, like I was a failure - I thought I was strong enough to cope, all silly things that when I think back now I should of just done it for my own mental health.

As for Immi, Kat's right I'm sure when Joshua starts becoming more mobile/aware of things she'll back off a bit.

Is Joshua weaning yet? I found everything got so much easier when Dexter started weaning, and he got into a routine during the day which helped because I knew if he was hungry/tired/bored etc.

I think a double is a brilliant idea, I wish I'd got one in the early days as I was too scared to go out on my own just in case I couldnt control Libby - even though she's as good as gold most of the time - my confidence was just at rock bottom.

I know people say it all the time and it's so hard to believe it when you're going through it everyday but honestly it does get so much easier.

Huge hugs hun xxxxx

P.S. if you ever need a chat you can PM me anytime, on here or FB xxx

Thanks Suse. He isn't weaning yet, we've tried but although the first couple of times we tried he loved it he now refuses any food (although he's always grabbing at ours) and has been sick the last couple of times we've tried.

Hey hon,

Another thought I had was whether it could be worth trying different pumps. I had a tommee tippee electric to start and it wasn't very good, which I didn't know till I tried a Medela which was like Wow! Then the bf support worker lent me an ameda lactaline double when I was back at work and worried about supply dropping away, and that was as good again, but it was quite vigorous and at one point cracking got quite bad.

Don't beat yourself up honey, you're doing a fantastic job

Xx

Thanks Emma. I think my pump is pretty good. I've tired a couple of others before and this was the one that worked. We've tried him on some formula today. I'm not completely sure about it but will take the stress of trying to express for next wkend. Only giving him one a night, might help him sleep too. EASY routine seems to be working well too so i am feeling a little better.

x

if you're not sure you can always give him formula for the next couple of days while you express and then switch back. Then you's be in a routine and you could express while Josh is fed. I'm sure that's what Mari did

I felt similar two years ago trying to juggle an unruly toddler and a clingy breastfed baby, you are not alone!

I also ended up buying a second hand P & T which worked a treat as it gave me the confidence to go out again, and know that if Immy was playing up i could strap her in and i was back in control.

As for the feeding thing, i persevered with the breastfeeding, although Isla was steadily dropping down the centiles but she would not have a bottle! I found i couldn't express anyway as i had so little milk due to being tired, stressed and lack of time to relax. I know you feel strongly about bf but if i had my time again and my baby would take a bottle i would definitely top up with a formula feed at least at bedtime and see what difference it made.

I know i felt like things would never get better, but i promise they do! My two absolutely love each other now and play beautifully most of the time. Little more than a year ago i couldn't even leave them in the same room together whilst i nipped to the loo as Immy would be pushing and hurting her little sis', but all of a sudden things improved.

x x x