Any breastfeeding mums occasionally use formula?

[frans]

My DD is 18 weeks old and, until now, has been exclusively breastfed. However, I'm trying to finish my PhD so my mum has offered to take her out a couple of times a week to give me time to get on with my work. I find expressing quite tricky and find that on days when I express, there seems to be less milk for DD, which is far from ideal. I'm thinking of sending her off with mum with a bottle of expressed milk and a bottle of formula, for back-up. I will then express to relieve engorgement if necessary. Has anyone had any success using formula just a couple of times a week? Many thanks

[Lazycow]

I did this with ds quite a bit as I was always paranoid that the expressed milk was not enough but tbh ds only ever drank very little from a bottle anyway and he really drank almost none when it was fomula (he didn't like the taste)

I just sent the carton for my peace of mind. Say I got run over or something and the 'babysitter' only had one bottle of milk.

I did actually eventually build up a small stock of milk in the freezer although it was painstaking to do as I used to express so little at a time. That way I'd have 2-3 bottles of expressed milk available in the freezer. Even then though I'd rarely provide 2 bottles of expressed milk to the person looking after ds as I seemed to sweat blood to get the stuff and mostly it got thrown away as ds would generally just wait for me to come back

[Haylstones]

My ds is 25 weeks and still bf. I hate expressing so don't bother. If I'm going anywhere I leave a carton of formula, which he has is he gets really hungry. I think he has had about 4 or 5 bottles of this and I'm happy he's happy!