How and when to introduce a bottle?

[Gobletoffire]

Hi all. DS is 3 weeks old on Tuesday. I’m not sure if he’s going through a growth spurt but the last 3 days I have been breastfeeding him what feels like non stop through the afternoon and late into the night. Earlier we nipped to the shop for 20 mins straight after a long feed thinking we’d be ok, as soon as we got into the shop he’s wailing because he’s hungry again so I had to go wait in the car so I could feed him, to be honest it’s becoming a little exhausting. I was concerned that there was a problem and maybe he was sucking but not getting the milk, but midwife and health visitor said everything seems fine and his weight gain since birth has been ‘incredible’. He is thriving on breastmilk so I want to continue with this but it’s getting draining particularly at nighttime as I’m hardly getting any sleep due to the cluster feeding. I bought a Tommee Tippee manual pump in the hope of expressing so that DH can help with the feeds but is it too soon to express? I’m being told different things by the health visitor and midwife. The community midwife said it’s fine to start expressing now as my milk appears to be well established but the health visitor said to wait until he is 4-6 weeks. I’m just concerned that by expressing my breasts are going to get very engorged and I’m going to spend literally all my time feeding him direct from the breast and pumping in between. I have considered combi feeding and introducing one bottle of formula a day, maybe around evening time, but again is it too soon to do this? I mentioned this to the health visitor but she shot me down straight away and said nope, don’t introduce any formula, he’s thriving on the breast milk. But I am so tired! Any advice please?

[RosieEffect]

I'm by no means an expert but I have a 3 week old too (first time mum). My LG struggled to put on weight from bf the first week so I was advised to top up with 10ml of expressed milk or formula after every feed (or 8xs/day). I couldn't get hardly anything pumping so began giving a 60ml bottle top up in the evening at 10'days old. Since then the top up feed has gone well and she is gaining weight. We haven't had any problems transitioning between bottle/breast.

[Loubyloulou88]

Our DD is 7 weeks old, exclusively BF for the first 4 weeks (and mostly is now), but she has the odd oz of pumped BM and formula here and there when I've felt she needs it and she's perfectly fine. She BF's very well but I just kind of went with my instinct so id say go with yours too. The only thing I would add is if you're going to be adding a few bottle feeds here and there and don't want your breast milk to be affected then maybe try and pump some off to keep up your supply. I struggle to pump normally but have found that if I pump one boob whilst she's feeding on the other it flows really well. It's hard but you're doing really well and just go with what makes him and you happy and settled. 'Breast is best' but formula is not your enemy! If it's any help I got a 4 pack of those little bottles of ready made aptamil in the cupboard, reaching for them when I need to.

[Loubyloulou88]

And your boobs should settle down, i have days where I feel i'm forever puming and feeding but don't have constantly engorged boobs. He might be going through a growth spurt too but things will hopefully settle off for you both x