Which bottle & formula for breastfed baby? What problems will giving one bottle a day cause?

[CherylAnnTweedy]

HI, DD (DC3) is 9wks old, she is exclusively breastfed but I'm feeling really crap and thinking about introducing a bottle.

Both ds's were breastfed until 14mths, neither ever had a bottle so all this is totally alien to me. I have quite a few questions:

1. What is the best bottle to use to make it easy for her to change between bottle & breast.

1. I've heard that SMA is crap, but don't know why, should I avoid it? Which of the other brands is best? (I've never been able to get anything by expressing)

1. Will introducing one feed be the slippery slope to her being fully bottle fed.

1. How will we feed her when we are out? E.g. we are going away for a few days in May, when it gets to the time of her bottle how will we do it? Or would I still be producing enough milk to BF her that feed while we are out? WOuld that confuse her too much?

1. How badly will it disrupt her in general? Since 7wks she has been sleeping right through, she has her last feed at 8pm, goes to bed at 9pm, then wakes at 6am. I don't want to disrupt this as I like my sleep .

1. If I decide in a few months to go back to fully breastfeeding her, will I be able to? Or will it have messed up my milk supply completely?

Background:

SHe is the most amazing baby I've ever seen. SHe is so happy and content I don't want to ruin that, but I'm feeling really rubbish atm. I'm feeling hugely fat and I think breastfeeding is really not helping me drop the weight I still have. This isn;t helped by seeing other mums at the school who have had babies after me and are all looking great with fab figures and in their normal clothes.

I'm a bit of a mess right now and a big part of me wants to just stop breastfeeding right away but I know that deep down I don't want to do that. It may help me feel better about myself for a short while, but will definitely make me feel guilty, the thought of not breastfeeding her makes me think that I'm saying she's not deserving of the best start in life. My boys had it, so why not her? It doesn't seem fair on her to be punished because I feel fat.

ALso if I was to stop now and then in a few months feel better about myself I wouldn't be able to start up again.

She currently cluster feeds between 6pm & 8pm, going to bed at 9pm, waking at 6am. She then goes back in her cot. She has 'breakfast' after getting back from school, so between 9-9.30. SHe then has 'lunch' at about 12.30-1, then 'dinner' at about 4-4.30. This is the one I'm thinking of dropping as having spent all last night & the early hours of this morning thinking about it, that will probably be the best one.

Help & advice greatly appreciated.

I can only tell you what I did! We started doing an occasional bottle around 8 weeks, as I also can't express. Maybe one every two or three days at bedtime - we went on holiday for a week when ds was 11 weeks though and I just breastfed the whole time as it was easier than bringing bottles. By 4 months we were doing a bottle dreamfeed every night at 11pm, but again when we were away over Christmas at 4.5months I just breastfed.

At first it did seem to upset his tummy a bit and he was a lot more farty - slept better after breast than bottle - but soon adjusted.

I first tried a tommee tippee closer to nature bottle but worried it was a bit too "easy" - little effort involved from ds! Have since been using Breastflow bottles which are supposed to mimic the suckling action of breastfeeding.

We started off using Aptimil cartons, but recently switched to SMA as they were so much cheaper. Possibly coincidence, but he had very runny nappies on SMA so we switched back to Cow & Gate - made by the same company as Aptimil and smell and taste identical to me!

So, ds is now 6.5 months. At 4 months he was having approx 7 bfs and 1 ff a day. After introducing solids he dropped a couple of feeds, and now has 5 bfs and 1 ff (the formula feed is about 150ml). Hasn't seem to affect my supply or diminish ds's boob love at all! I now don't breastfeed at all between 6pm-6am.

I started giving DD an evening bottle at about 7 weeks. My supply seemed to adapt to it after about a week of being a bit overfull but I never had problems giving her extra BF when she needed it after that. It really did take the pressure off me a bit and she was absolutely fine. She had Aptamil in Avent bottles. If you want to feed a bottle out and about you can use cartons of ready made formula. Very easy. And I never had a problem getting it warmed up in places if needed. I found DD did like to have it warmed up though, possibly because of being BF for the most part. I know a lot of FF babies will take it at room temp though.

I did gradually move over from BF to FF until at 6 months she was FF. There were other reasons for that though, it wasn't because I needed to for because of lack of supply or anything.

Thank you everyone for your replies, I think I'm going to try and get some Breastflow bottles, they don't seem to be any dearer than any others and see how we go with them.

I'm glad to hear that it shouldn't have a big effect on her feeding from me. I hadn't thought of just giving her one every few days, I think maybe we will start at that, that may just be enough to make me feel a little less like a milking machine but not enough to make me feel guilty.

Good luck & I hope you feel better!

I BF & expressed for my DD since she was 6wks and she took the bottle, (Tommee Tippee closer to nature & Avent anti colic) without any problems, but I stopped doing it for a month or so & now she is 6mnths and refusing all bottles of BM or Formula! Really struggling trying to get her to at least have one bottle feed a day!

I think its a good idea to get them used to both so you can decide to use a bottle when you need to, for example, so that you can leave baby with somone else. I had to do a Course last saturday and she basically refused milk all day untill I came home & Bfed her. Will keep trying!

CAT I use avent anti colic with slow flow teats. I express during the day for the 2 am feed, but was ill week before last and DD had a growth spurt as well so bought some formula SMA powder. I've also tried the aptamil ready made milk which you can use when out and about. I think because she was so sleepy she didn't notice the change at first. I feel happy knowing i have a back up if she is still hungry between supply and demand.

On your feelings, really don't stress yourself out. I have decided to just chillnout about my weight, i am going swimming once a week, to relax, have some me time and get fit. I am so self conscious about my weight and size, i just don't want to get down for Dd's sake. It always takes time to loose the weight that then stays off. Part of me thinks stuff my weight and just tone up. In the end your children and partner are not worried about your shape, hopefully it will drop off once the weather gets better.

I was feeling pretty fat and shitty about myself until last week (what, breastfeeding AND getting fatter - no fair!), until I went out and bought myself a pair of marks and sparks super control tights, ditched the hideously unflattering nursing bra I've been wearing (not much choice in 30GG!) and bought a nice new va va voom underwired one and for the first time in aaaages, I thought I looked pretty damned good. Well. Pretty damned ok.

Sure, once the control tights were off the flubber was back, and once the nursing bra was back on the tits were down round my waist again, but at least I know I have the weapons at my disposal for when I leave the house now.

Oh, and I bought a pack of breastflow bottles at a really good price in TKmaxx a month or so back. I think it was 3 5oz bottles for about 4 quid. Bargain. Might be worth a look to see if they still have them.