mix feeding - is it better to give formula on regular basis or occasionally

[fullamilk]

Hi
Went back to work when ds was 13 weeks. he was exclusivly bf till then. i express like mad and he is still mostly bf but occasionally i cant quite keep up so he has the odd ff - probably 1-2 bottles a week.
Spoke to hv about this and she said if i give formula i need to give at least one a day so his system is used to digesting it.
Is this right?

[fullamilk]

Thanks - yeah we do have that issue he only ever seems to take 3/4 oz of a formula bottle but will wolf 7/8 oz of my milk!

[fullamilk]

anyone?

[MrsBadger]

hv talking bollocks afaik

The more bm you can get down him the better. Have you got a decent pump? I found a double electric one made a massive difference in keeping up with dd's nursery guzzling.

[PrettyCandles]

Rubbish, IMO. In fact, if you give him a regular bottlefeed - whether of f or ebm - it's your system which wil adjust, to produce less bm.

Two of my babies (one breastfed for 23m, one still at it at 18m) if they needed a feed when I wasn't around had either ebm if it was available, otherwise they had f. No problems whatsoever switching between boob, ebm, or ff.

If anything is going to help your baby's system get used to digesting, it's going to be your breastmilk!

[PrettyCandles]

I wouldn't worry that he takes smaller amounts of f than of ebm (my no3 is similar) because he will make up for it when he gets to feed from you.

[fullamilk]

thankyou, thought was bolloks but just wanted to check. use tommy tippie freedom pump which is quite good. was considering investing in an electric one. does it make a massive difference?

[MrsBadger]

it does to me because I express in my (limited) breaks at work - double pump means double the amount of milk in the same time. A single electric one would have no benefit over the TT.