What is the minimum I need to pump to make sure baby takes a bottle?

[pjani]

Hi,

I was a pumping machine (8x a day to start, 5x a day still when I wound down at 6 months) with DC1 as we had feeding difficulties. DC2 is 4 weeks and I know I need to start planning soon but I feel so lazy about pumping this time.

But I don't want to be unable to leave the baby if she refuses a bottle, which has happened to friends.

How do I do it? Pump just enough so she will take a bottle? Does it have to be daily? Every few days? Weekly? Do I do it at a regular time or just when I find the time?

Help!

[pjani]

Bump... I read somewhere that two bottles a week should be enough to make sure DC will take a bottlr, any thoughts/experience?

[Dozer]

Think the key thing IME was introducing the bottle early and often enough for DC to get used to it - 4 weeks is already quite late. With DC1 usually did one a day, DC2 tried one every few days after 6 weeks or so, which didn’t work and couldn’t leave DC2 for long.

[Dozer]

With DC1 DH always did the bottle at night, eg 10/11pm, I was asleep.

[skilliganmcgilligan]

Just gone through this myself. I found it too difficult pumping at a set time everyday and it would just stress me out.

So I got a Haakaa which collected let down milk during feeds and this was great to kick start a freezer stash. Super easy. When bottle fed before 6 months my DS would only need about 4-6 oz per feed. If I collected this via Haakaa in a day, DP would do one of the evening feeds with a bottle and while he did that I would pump as I would get more milk that way.

Other than that I just pump whenever I feel like I had the time and could be bothered. If I know I need to leave baby I will just put in a few extra pumping sessions in the week before!