Can u formula feed a newborn but breastfeed once a day???

[yumeymummy]

This may sound a funny question but i only formula fed my first child and never ventured into breastfeeding! Now pregnant again im full of questions!
Basically with my first son i didnt have much of a milk supply so gave up probably too soon and switched to formula after 2 days.
Im a little worried itll happen again this time and i would like to try to breastfeed this little one im due to give birth to in 3 mths time. But if it did happen and i didnt have much of a milk supply, would it be possible to formula feed but maybe just give the baby one or if im lucky, 2 breastfeeds a day??? Im just thinking some breast milk has got to be better than none??

I wasnt sure if a newborn would be able to cope with 80% formula and 20% breastmilk?? But then some newborns have it the other way round dont they where they have mainly breastmilk but the odd formula feed??
Any advice on this would be really appreciated xx.

[Chandra]

I think that the main problem would be to establish breastfeeding and get a good milk suply if you only feed newborn once a day. The more that you breastfeed the more milk that you produce.

I'm sure somebody more informed than me would show around with more info soon

[Gemmitygem]

hiya,

I'm sure people will be along in a minute with proper links to professional advice, but what I would say is the more the baby feeds, the more your milk will come, it is possible to build up supply by letting the baby suck loads, trying to keep confident, and if that didn't work, expressing. Don't forget you have only the tiny bit of colostrum the first few days, milk doesn't come in tilll day 3-4 and it is an anxious time. You say you switched after 2 days, well I can totally understand that cos milk wouldn't have come in yet, the baby is losing weight and you are overwhelmed with the first thought being how to feed the baby. However, the milk will come in, you just have to trust yourself. I would really try and get as much info as you can from the professionals (la leche league springs to mind but there are others. I managed bf but ONLY because of great support after the birth from the midwives, you really really need this support arranged before you give birth.

wish you best of luck! I'm sure you'll be fine and remember to get that support and info (as you are already doing I know!)

[tiktok]

Yumey....yes, some breastmilk is indeed better than none

But you will simply not be able to build and manitain a supply if you start off giving one or two bf only a day.

This would be the equivalent of not bf at all, and your body would produce milk for a very short time only. You need to stimulate a supply in order to 'tell' your body to continue to make the milk.

No one has a supply at 2 days - and boo to whoever told you it was a good idea to switch to formula. No one has more than colostrum at first, which is produced in small quantities only. Your baby may have wanted to feed a lot at that time, and that is not an abnormal thing at all. Keeping your baby close, skin to skin, and feeding unrestrictedly in those first days will help to ensure you build up a good milk supply. Milk starts to come in for most women from about day 3.

This time round, good information and support will help you get things going, and you can then decide at a later stage if you want to mix feed - but using formula reduces your milk supply, and the best health outcomes are seen in babies who have breastmilk only.

There's a lot of info on mumsnet about early days breastfeeding, so it might be worth having a browse before you make up your mind what you are going to do.

Good luck

[snottyshoulders]

Hi
I don't really think that it would be a problem. Lots of people 'mix feed'. I have to say though that as Chandra says, the more you breast feed the more you produce so if you feed more regularly it is VERY unlikely you won't have enough milk.
It's up to you but midwives are sometimes very quick to tell you to top up with formula when its unnecessary. I would advise that you feed breast milk only for the first few days until your milk 'comes in' though to build up a supply ( and the first few days the baby is usually hungry until the milk comes and colostrum is very good for them) once you've got a good supply going you can wean to the bottle and feed as often or little as you like.
Hopefully you'll enjoy feeding so much you won't feel the need for the bottle til later?
I loved breastfeeding my two, and found it very convenient and cheap! I breastfeed for 10 months with them both. Towards the end of this time I used to give them just a night time feed or morning feed and the rest of the day they had formula. Hope this helps. Good luck with breastfeeding. It's great

[yumeymummy]

Thank u ladies for your advice xx. Sorry i wasnt very clear on my previous post. When i say i gave up bf after 2 days i mean 2 days after my 'proper' milk supply came in, not 2 days after birth, sorry! My milk came in after about like u say, 4 days and then i tried for 2 days but it just wasnt working. My mw wasnt very helpful obviously and thats how i ended up switching.

So u think that it really wont work me giving one or 2 breastfeeds a day??
What if i expressed from the start too to help milk production?
Sorry if i sound stupid but like i say this is all new to me. xx

[tiktok]

yumey - if you start off giving mainly formula and only ever give one or two breastfeeds a day, you will lose your milk very soon. That's biology! You might keep a small supply going for two or three weeks, but it is unlikely your baby will tolerate the small amount and slow flow for this long, sorry. You could express, yes, but why on earth bother? The best stimulation for breastmilk supply is the baby You'd need to express about 8 times in 24 hours to replace the baby.

The time you spend expressing you could be feeding direct. Your baby needs to learn to feed from the breast as well - giving bottles does not help with this, and could intefere with it.

It sounds to me that this is question of confidence. You don't trust the 'system' and you are worried to leave your baby's nutrition up to breastfeeding in case it doesn't work out. So you think about giving formula as a back up right from the start, and expressing as a back up right from the start.

The irony is that these back ups are likely to work against breastfeeding - so you end up not breastfeeding at all.

This may not be what you want to hear, but it's better to have the facts, then you can make a realistic choice.

[Chandra]

You can express, but it's a lot more work to do that than just allowing baby to do the work. I was told babies are far more efficient than breast pumps in getting the milk out.

[Chandra]

...and obviously I have crossposted...

[yumeymummy]

Tiktok, youre spot on. I have no confidence with breastfeeding at all, and i think my bad experience last time has just left me totally confused.

I really want to bf this one but feel like im hoping for a miracle and i think by thinking ill formula feed from the start im not setting myself up for the dissapointment of not beaing able to bf. But im hanging onto the hope i can try to bf even just a little, but it sounds like even that isnt going to be possible.

[tiktok]

yumey - call one of the breastfeeding telephone lines for a good chat about your concerns. The NCT one is 0870 444 8708.

[yumeymummy]

Thank you very much, i will try them xxx.

[tribpot]

Remember as well this time around you'll have MN to help you - you only need to look at the number of posts along the lines of "my supply isn't enough" to realise it's a very common fear.

My story's very similar to yours but next time (if/when there is a next time) I am gung ho to try again, hoping that not having the 'shock and awe' of being a first-time mum might boost my confidence. I know quite a number of people who didn't manage to bf their first but did with subsequent babies, so let's hope there's something in my theory!

[yellowrose]

yumey - my advice is that don't expect to have masses of supply on day one or two, or three you are not really meant to ! Many women have their milk "come in" around day 4, like me. Newborns have tiny stomaches (size of a walnut ?) so can only really take in small amounts of colostrum in the first few days, about a teaspoon - tablespoon full at a time. Newborns are not biologically programmed to guzzle down large bottles of milk (bm or formula), so don't take any advice from any one that they should be taking masses amounts of either bm or formula in the first few days.

Unfortunatey things go wrong where you have an inexperineced mw/hv/gp who tells you baby is hungry every time they cry, you believe them and give in to formula. Babies cry for many many different reasons and are usulaly poor sleepers, nothing to do with hunger. They are just not used to being outside the womb, takes them a while to adjust !

Bf DOES take a lot of confidence you are right. You have to have confidence in your body that you can produce what your baby needs. You are biologically programmed to produce bm in quantities that baby needs, there are some cases where a mother may NOT produce sufficient bm, but these are rare cases.

If you want to give bf a real go this time, have the nos. of all the major bf orgs. at hand, find out if you have a local Baby Cafe or La Leche League meeting, speak to them NOW, make sure you read some stuff on www.kellymom.com re. what to expect about baby feeding behaviour in the first few weeks after birth.

Good luck !

[Runninglate]

I think it's brilliant that you want to give it a go and please remember.....

1. you are designed to produce milk

1. only people with medical conditions that affect the pituitary and other hormone glands have genuine milk supply issues

1. Aside from being 'best for baby', breast feeding helps to protect you against breast and cervical cancer later on

1. Your baby is born with enough 'brown' fat (slow release energy fat) to keep it very much alive and well without having to eat at all for 48 hours (assuming it is well and healthy at birth etc).

1. Round about 6 or 7 weeks on (it happened to all of us in our little group) the babies all started fighting at the breast and screaming, arching backwards and seemingly rejecting it - feeding did happen but was rather a protracted and stressful business! This lasted for about 2 weeks and then all stopped as soon as it had started.

6.Weight charts are based on formula fed not breast fed babies. Breast fed babies are generally slimmer and lighter or rather, formula fed babies are fatter! Throw the damn things away and go on your gut feeling of whether you think your baby is thriving.

1. The more baby sucks, the more you produce.

1. My personal opinion is to feed on demand, particularly at the beginning - your baby won't over eat. It may use you as a dummy but when it is doing that will become apparent as you get to know it and you can either provide the boob or a dummy to satisfy its very strong and important desire to suck.

1. Babies tend to drink more volume wise from a bottle than the breast as it 'falls' in, rather than them having to work hard to get the milk out. Also, you can't express as much as the baby can suck out. Don't try and compare!!

The most important thing really is that you are designed to do this and your body won't let you down. It really wont. It is ABSOLUTELY NORMAL for babies to lose weight post birth. If you are worried, hop on here and ask away.

[Runninglate]

p.s. Assume that you can breast feed and it will happen. It's nothing to do with mind over matter - it's just that you can do it if you want to. Just have faith in the system!!

It's a perfectly normal thing for mammals to do!!!

Look at all other mammals - they all produce the milk as long as they are able to eat meals themselves. Their offspring only starve if they can't get to the nipple for some reason. We're the same!

[twinklemeagain]

BUT, there seems to be no reason why you shouldn't be successful Yumeymummy and I wish you the best of luck! You really do need to give it 100% in the beginning to be able to succeed. Mixed feeding can and does work, but it is best to have built up your milk supply as best you can before introducing any formula. Otherwise, your own milk will run out very quickly indeed.

I'd like to bet though that if breastfeeding works out for you, you won't even be thinking about formula after a while.

[Runninglate]

which bit twinklemeagain?

[twinklemeagain]

"you can do it if you want to". I know you're trying to encourage Yumeymummy, and good on you. But sometimes wanting to just isn't enough. Don't want to argue about it though - that won't help YM at all.

Yumeymummy - my previous post still stands. Give it the best shot you can - it'll probably work brilliantly for you. And if it doesn't then you're quite right that some breast milk is better than none.

[Jenkeywoo]

Yumey mummy - just to let you know that I was unable to breastfeed my first born - she never latched on despite seeing every breastfeeding counsellor available to man - I left hospital expressing and cup-feeding DD. After 3 more weeks I gave her a bottle of expressed milk and as it happened was lucky enough to be able to express and give breastmilk for 6 months. When I was pregnant with DD2 I felt sick to the pit of my stomach about breastfeeding, I wanted to so desperately but had no faith in myself - I didn't read a thing about breastfeeding or even allow myself to think about it as it hurt too much. As it happened DD2 had to be delivered at 35 weeks and for the first week had to be tube-fed - I was so upset and really felt breastfeeding was going to fail again, I found myself at the breastpump again and at one point told the midwives to get me some bottles as I would rather not try to breastfeed than try and fail. Anyway, after one week she suddenly began to breastfeed (sucking reflex develops about 36 weeks) and she hasn't stopped since! She is now a year old and still breastfeeding beautifully.

I know my story is different to yours but I do know how you feel at the moment and can understand you wanting to try mixed feeds but if I can do it so can you! of course some breastmilk is better than none but I think it would be nearly impossible to only breastfeed once a day from the start. Try to have faith in yourself- arm yourself with knowledge if it helps you, demand to see the hospital breastfeeding specialist if you want to get feeding established (who knows you may well have a little one who just feeds beautifully right from the start anyway). I hope this hasn't come across the wrong way, I'm not trying to make your decisions for you but I wanted to let you know that I know how you feel.

Best wishes

[Runninglate]

I hear so much of people starting off at half mast in the confidence stakes and then think they're 'failing' when they aren't at all. In the majority of cases, it's all that misery for nothing.

I wonder if some of it is mixed info coming from midwives and HVs after the birth (and no this doesn't mean all of them etc etc)e.g. A midwife told me when my DD hadn't fed for 12 hours post birth, that if she hadn't fed in the next 2 hours I was to take her to A&E to be put on a drip because otherwise she would die. That was just not true and I knew that. This could easily have scared me in to a bottle of formula had I not known that though.

Keep an eye on the fontanelle (baby's soft spot on the top of it's head) - if baby is dehydrated and thirsty, there will be a dip there. This dip will go away after it's had a drink and rehydrated! No this won't happen every time it needs to feed but it is one way to help to reassure you how baby is doing hydration wise.

[twinklemeagain]

Blimey Runninglate - that would have scared me half to death! How irresponsible of the woman!

I understand where you're coming from btw RL. But I also see it from the other angle whereby if it goes wrong you think you're abnormal (I know I did), which doesn't help a great deal. It can help to know that other people have problems as well - that's not to say all problems are insurmountable, not by a long shot, but occasionally they can be.

[tiktok]

Aw, RL, you are trying to help, but a lot of what you say just isn't correct....it's not the right thread to pick it all apart, but please be careful to make sure what you say is accurate.

Of course YM needs confidence and encouragement - but she also needs correct info

[yellowrose]

RL you said: "DD hadn't fed for 12 hours post birth, that if she hadn't fed in the next 2 hours I was to take her to A&E to be put on a drip because otherwise she would die."

I would write to the hospital that employs that mw. She was quite off in my view. Very scarey to be told that when you are a new mum, very irresponsible of her.

My ds did not feed for 4 days after birth in the middle of a bad heat wave. He was fine, finally managed to learn to latch on day 4, I didn't have any formula in the house, never dreamed of buying any. Other babies in his situation MAY have become very ill and or dehydrated. It is difficult to tell when a baby is dehydrated if you are not a professional.

This can be very traumatic for the parents of a newborn (I spent 4 days crying not knowing WHY my baby would not take the breast) and got bad advice right left and centre. The advice I SHOULD have been given was to have lots of bare skin to skin with baby, and also to hand express colostrum and syringe/spoon feed him.

I also have largish boobs and big nipples, so again I needed to be physically helped with my latch. Got things going really well on day 4, my milk came in on the night of the 3rd day post birth, plus a friend helped me to get a good latch. We never looked back.

I was traumatised, by this experience, but became increasingly confident about my body as the days went by. I read things and asked for help over the phone.

yumey - things CAN go wrong, which is why i said get all the info. and help line nos. have them at hand even in the hospital, don't automatically rely on what the mv's or doctors say unless you are lucky and end up in a "Baby Friendly" hospital where there will be bf experienced mw's. Get the info. double checked by someone experienced (LLL, NCT any other bf org.) even if it is over the phone initially. Go to Baby Cafe, LLL meeting or other drop in sessions (some hopsitals have weekly sessions) as soon as you leave hospital.

[yumeymummy]

Thank u girls, i really fo appreciate your stories and advice. I really think it is a confidence thing and im hoping that im worrying over nothing and everything will be fine. I think ive come to the conclusion that i will try my best but if all else fails i will switch to formula like i did with my ds. But i will definately give it more time. Weeks rather than days.
How long would u say is needed to give bf a fair go? 2 weeks or so?? Would i know by then if it was really going to work?

[tiktok]

Mostly, breastfeeding that's going well by 2 weeks continues to go well, YM. But sometimes, it can take a little longer than that to really get going. If it's not going well at 2 weeks, it certainly doesn't mean it is bound to continue badly....and if you get off to a good start, build your confidence, refuse to think a baby who feeds a lot is saying 'you have no milk' (because a frequently feeding baby is feeding normally!!), and get a support system around you, you are doing all you can to have a great experience this time round