If you breast feed...To get your baby to sleep a bit longer, top them off with a bottle after they have fallen asleep from breast feeding. You can use pumped milk or formula. Sometimes you can get the baby to take an extra ounce or two and that could help the baby push from 4 hours to 6 hours of sleep. Only do this at the bedtime feed!
Some people suggest doing a feed just before you go to bed. It is often called, "A Dream Feed." This works well the first few weeks, however if you do this after the first few weeks the baby begins to use it as a regular feed and depends on it to eat instead of pushing them to last longer. Also, as the baby gets bigger if you wake it up, it may try to stay awake.
I tried very hard to only breast feed and use no formula. It was a task I put onto myself, and made myself feel guilty for even thinking about formula before 6 mons. That was very silly! With my son, it didn't matter what I fed him-he ate. So switching from breast milk to formula was fine. For my daughter, it was so traumatic-she went on a hunger strike for a whole day. After this experience with my daughter, if I were to have another baby and did not want to use formula for a whole feed; I would try to do the topping of at night with formula. This way the baby would be used to the taste.
Every baby is so different, you need to find what works for you.
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