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Get advice and support with infant feeding from other users here.

Get advice and support with infant feeding from other users here.

Infant feeding

Still refusing expressed milk :-(

21 replies

WantAnOrange · 14/01/2013 15:48

I'm pretty much at my wits end. I've posted a couple of threads about this now. DD is now 15 weeks. I attend college 2 full days a week. We attempted to give her expressed milk from week 6. She has always refused and becomes very upset. We have tried several different teats, we've tried all the usual tricks (making sure I'm not there etc). The longest she went without a feed was 8 hours. It was awful for poor DH and resulted in me panacking because I couldnt get home to her quick enough.

So, DH is willing to come to college with me so I can feed her but this means several hours of hanging around and and expensive and long bus trips so we would love to get this sorted.

I have also been offering her a sippy cup each day (with my milk) which she doesnt get so upset by but cant really get any milk from yet. It's a free flow tommy tippee one.

I discovered (thanks you to mumsnetters) that my milk is high in lapase which meant my frozen milk tasted horrible and I beleive that is what was causing the problem. However I have only been offering fresh milk for several weeks now and she still refuses. It also means that I have to express enough for the entire day the day before I go or early that morning. I am struggling to express that much milk (not that she'll drink it anyway!) so have some formula for back up. I was also thinking that as formula tends to fill 'em up a bit longer DH would only have to put her through the stress of bottle feeding twice, rather than three times.

My question is, will giving formula for a couple of feeds a week have any negative impact on the health benefits of BF?

Is there anthing else I can do? Am I in cuckoo land even imagining that she might take a cup/bottle of formula at some point?

OP posts:

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jennimoo · 14/01/2013 19:00

I wouldn't like to say if the formula will effect your milk, but had a similar problem.

Not only was the frozen milk horrible, it didn't even keep fresh 24h in the fridge, so I had to give up and DD had formula 2 days a week while I was at work from 7 months.

I spent ages storing up expressed milk in the freezer the first few months only to have to chuck it all out :(

jennimoo · 14/01/2013 19:01

I should add that DD continued to successfully BF after this for quite some time. We seem to have weaned over the weekend at 2.3!

WantAnOrange · 14/01/2013 19:48

Thanks for the reply. I'm not too worried about my supply because it really would be just a couple of feeds a week.

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chipmonkey · 14/01/2013 19:58

WantAnOrange, I didn't see your original thread but do you know that if you heat the milk to just under boiling point immediately after expressing that it will stay tasting fine, even if frozen?

Twattybollocks · 14/01/2013 20:17

My dd refused ebm that had been expressed longer than a couple of hours. It was soul destroying, as I had gallons of the stuff going spare and ended up throwing my freezer stash because it tasted vile. She had formula when needed, and I can report that it didn't damage our bf at all, and she seems to be a fairly normal (if opinionated) 6yo now.

WantAnOrange · 15/01/2013 16:42

I didnt know that chipmonkey.

Twattybollocks (fab name!) It was sould destroying. I was able express a lot and had loads of the stuff. Now I cant express much at all.

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Twattybollocks · 15/01/2013 17:10

Yeah apparently scalding the milk before storing deactivates the lipase enzyme or something so it tastes ok. Unfortunately i think it nukes all the antibodies etc and some of the vitamins I think aswell, but as long as its given alongside fresh bm I can't see it would be a problem

shouldIbecrossaboutthis · 15/01/2013 19:49

is she having it cols or warmed? My Ds will only drink it warm :(

shouldIbecrossaboutthis · 15/01/2013 19:50

ps> on the forumla front this article might help? link. There might be other stuff out there the conflicts, I just read this today as I'm thinking of giving my DS 1 formula feed.

chipmonkey · 15/01/2013 22:14

Twatty, ( hate calling you that, I'm sure you're lovely!) apparently not all antibodies are destroyed, some are but baby still gets some protection and it's a better option than formula. Microwaving not recommended as it destroys most of the antibodies.
The milk needs to be heated to 71 degrees Celsius for 15 seconds. I know on some forums some people managed to do this in a bottle-warmer in work but only if you use a bottle warmer that doesn't shut off if the temperature gets too high for the baby. Also some people find that it doesn't need to be scalded immediately, that it still worked a couple of hours after expressing.

Twattybollocks · 15/01/2013 22:31

I don't mind being called twatty, it's better than bollocks :0)
I did do some reading on it when I was in the thick of it, I think a lot depends on how much of the lipase is in the breast milk, some women can only take a couple of hours to turn, some women it is fine for a day or so, or only turns after freezing or something. I made the executive decision at that point that since she was only having expressed once a week or so that I would either express fresh or give formula, and shortly afterwards her royal person decided that bottles were no longer acceptable! Anyhow, I'm not surprised she wouldnt drink the stuff that had the lipase in it, I tried some to see what the problem was when she refused to drink it the first time, it tasted like satans bum juice, bloody vile soapy bitter taste.

chipmonkey · 16/01/2013 00:28

I had that problems with ds3, but not with my others, I have no idea why just him!
I did read somewhere that one member of la leche league forums found it improved after she stopped putting flaxseed on her cereal. However I was never a flaxseedy type so it must have been something else with me. In any case, he also had an aversion to the bottles themselves or anything with a spout, that we might have been using to try to trick him. Very stubborn child and seven years later, he's exactly the same!

WantAnOrange · 16/01/2013 08:12

"satans bum juice" is a perfect description of what my DD thinks of anything that comes in a bottle.

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Twattybollocks · 16/01/2013 08:48

Lol it's the look of righteous indignation they give you when you put the offensive item in their mouth that cracks me up, an dont even get me started on the "broken boob" aka dummy. That used to get spat out so hard it hit the wall and rebounded

WantAnOrange · 16/01/2013 14:35

Oh dummies get me a look of complete disgust!

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McBaby · 16/01/2013 18:05

Have been trying to give expressed milk bottle from 6 weeks started trying sippy cup a couple of months ago and a doidy cup within last few weeks.. At 22 weeks she just took 3oz from a doidy cup today :) so it can happen. Hopefully this gives you some hope.

WantAnOrange · 16/01/2013 18:44

It does! We started at 6 weeks too. I've tried a sippy cup but it just dribbles down her chin. It doesnt make her upset though.

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McBaby · 16/01/2013 19:39

It did make me cry seeing her guzzling it out of the cup after so many hours of trying. I did down. Couple of glasses of water just before so maybe she was copying as she watched me intently.

She just gets annoyed with the sippy cup I don't think she understands it.

WantAnOrange · 17/01/2013 07:12

Is a doidy cup easy for her to use?

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McBaby · 17/01/2013 09:12

Yes. As its an open cup on an angle she can sip it so no suction required just a bit messy so hoping it gets less messy.

sipper · 17/01/2013 10:15

Thanks for the frozen milk/taste info. I didn't know that. Very interesting!

One the cup front, none of my DCs got on with doidys but they did all love using open cups. I found them to be better than sippy cups which were often pretty big. Babycup is a good size for little ones.

Best wishes. Hope all goes well.

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