“Lorraine says that most evenings her 14-week-old baby, Mabel is sleeping right through the night”
This article is copied from http://www.dailymail.co.uk/femail/article-2032243/The-secret-getting-baby-Mabel-sleep-I-d-kill-I-told.html#comments. The writer is editor-in-chief at Elle Magazine.
She may be risking losing her milk supply, as breastmilk is supply and demand.
She may be risking her babies health as formula takes a lot of energy to digest (which could be why the baby is sleeping longer) and do you really want your babies digestive system working overtime if it can be avoided?
Research by The University of Notre Dame Mother-Baby Behavioral Sleep Lab says that longer sleeps may mean a greater risk of SIDS.
And of course there are all the risks of infant formula that have been so well documented, in particular here – Supplementation of the Breastfed Baby: “Just One Bottle Won’t Hurt”—or Will It? by Marsha Walker, RN, IBCLC
Is it worth the risks if it can be avoided?
Article starts.
“The secret of getting baby Mabel to sleep? I’d have to kill you if I told
Last updated at 10:28 PM on 31st August 2011
Two things will happen, now that I have said that out loud: Mabel will wake up every five minutes tonight — and almost every woman with a new baby will hate me.
For I have broken the motherhood code of silence. The tacit agreement which decrees that even if you want to shout from the rooftops about getting nearly seven unbroken hours of sleep a night you shall not, in deference to the majority of parents who are not. It’s just not done, is it?
Gracie-in-the-middle had colic. She would howl all night, her little tummy tight with the pain of it. We lived in a fug of desperate exhaustion for nearly a year, as she was born 16 months after the first one.
A survey by Mother And Baby magazine found that new mothers now get two hours less sleep a night than their own parents did
I remember hallucinating with tiredness, the kitchen floor would shift from side to side in front of me and if I saw anyone in bed on television, I would stare at the screen with lust, longing to feel the pillows against my face.
I was once so tired after a long day at work on four hours’ broken sleep that I was physically sick. But we survived. No one died. And I am not complaining — if you have babies, you expect this.
Thus a sleeping Candy baby is a miracle, which is why I had to tell you about it. I am, of course, tempting fate by mentioning our guilty secret, but I am so surprised by Mabel’s nocturnal non-activity that I feel like going to confession (even though I’m not religious) or accosting strangers in the street with news of it.
I wish I could offer up a secret for all of you devouring every word related to the subject of sleep, but I can’t. There is no special trick; I’m not the baby whisperer.
We haven’t worked out a complicated formula on a huge blackboard in the manner of Russell Crowe in A Beautiful Mind, eliminating all the things we did previously to arrive at a scientific conclusion that makes babies sleep through the night. Sorry all, but it’s probably just luck. Bummer, as my teenage goddaughter would say.
I used to hate those women who’d look at my scary hair, huge eye bags and buttons done up wrong, then calmly say: ‘Have you tried putting her in a routine? Mine sleeps from 8pm to 7am under the “smughausen” rules (or whatever new thing was they were reading).’
I wanted to grab them by the throat and yell: ‘Listen lady, I have tried it all. Everything you have read about, every old wives’ tale, every stranger’s ridiculous piece of advice. I’m calling a white witch next, because nothing has worked.’
OK, OK, I can hear those of you on your knees with tiredness so bad you’ve forgotten your own surname shouting: ‘Quit the column drivel, woman. You must have done something to Baby Mabel to make her sleep.’ Really, I’ve got nothing for you.
Oh all right, I do have one thing — but we’ll have to hide behind a bush like criminals in order to share this. And if you tell anyone else, I will have to kill you. Just remember me when you see my name on the so-called Breastapo’s hit list. Look away now, anyone who is maternally squeamish. I have started to mix formula feeds with breastfeeds.
I did this on the advice of a health visitor concerned about Mabel’s weight (she’s not a chubbo) and the fact it was taking all night to feed her myself.
So she now gets two, sometimes three, bottles of formula each day.
The day I started this she slept through and has done ever since. Most likely, this is a coincidence. And, of course, it may all change tomorrow; babies are notoriously unpredictable.
But it makes you think. With my other newborns I was advised against this, breast is best being the mantra. But several years of parenting later and the professionals are less hardline and I’m more relaxed. I am, after all, a formula baby myself.
LORRAINE CANDY is editor-in-chief at Elle Magazine.
Although it’s worth being aware of the drawbacks of mixed feeding as compared to breastfeeding, the ‘Just One Bottle’ theory is based on dubious and contradictory evidence. I discuss this at http://goodenoughmummy.typepad.com/good_enough_mum/2010/07/the-case-of-the-lactivist-propaganda-a-reply-to-ann-calandro.html.
The ‘all or nothing’ attitude fostered by the ‘Just One Bottle’ articles does concern me, as I think it puts women off breastfeeding. Think of how many decide against breastfeeding because they want someone else to be able to give the baby a bottle sometimes. Sure, some of those mothers can be won round by knowing that it’s an option to express milk, but not everyone is going to want to do that. I think that if mothers knew that giving the occasional bottle of formula is a perfectly valid option for most breastfeeding mums, and that regular mixed feeding is also an option to consider, we’d actually get higher breastfeeding rates overall.
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