baby nearly 2 weeks old - will I mess up milk supply if I express a bottle for him?

[strawberrycheesecake1989]

Hi there, really looking for some advice as im a first time mum and none of my friends have kids.

past 2 weeks have been a bit of a struggle as baby struggled to latch at first - he's now really got the hang of it and all is going well and we've had a few cluster feeding days but now that I know what's going on I don't feel distressed by it - I just go with it.

baby is only really napping during the day between feeds on me but through the night he's sleeping for about 2-3hours stretches between feeds in his cot which is good. However, it would be great if my husband could pitch in, he's been great with grabbing me food etc but anything to do with the baby he hasn't really been able to help because the baby is just feeding non stop during the day really and at night time there's not much help because the baby only wakes up for milk.

It would be great if he could do one of the evening feeds so I would like to express a bottle so that I can feed the baby, put him to sleep and at his next waking my husband feed him the expressed milk so that I can try and get a longer stretch of sleep and skip a feed. I feel like im running on empty by this point and I would feel so much better if I could just get 5 hours in. I don't know if this is unrealistic of me.

my question to those who have any experience with this is:

is expressing one bottle a day for my DH to give to baby in evening a good or bad idea?
will this compromise my milk supply as I know baby is just shy of 2 weeks old?
am I going to end up needing to express around the time the baby would want the feed anyway as breasts would get too full?

thank you in advance for any help - absolutely love my little baby to bits but I'm feeling so overwhelmed and exhausted and still in a lot of pain following a pretty traumatic birth and its all feeling a bit much. think a bit of sleep will make the world of difference x

[LouiseTrees]

1.Good idea. 2. And 3. Yes, but it depends how much you are actually producing already. The night time is actually when your supply is being boosted for the next day so you may be better off expressing eg a 6 or 7pm feed than a night feed and trying to sleep then for a while. And it might hurt but it might not as you might be so exhausted anyway and again it depends on how much you are already producing.

[SlB09]

Very sensible OP, you need to look after yourself after growing and birthing a child.
Like PP has said depends on current supply but alternatively you could use a Hakka (or similar non branded, Aldi did a good version) pump that basically catches the let down/dribbles from the 'other boob' when feeding handsfree. You can build up enough for a feed through the day without expressing seperately that way.
You might find missing a feed means you wake up for the next one with mahusive boobies but if it's a routine then your body will get used to it. Just have to make sure little one is ready for a potential milk shower
Sleep really does make a difference to how you feel but please discuss your traumatic birth with someone if it's all abit of a struggle, just talking early enough is often enough to help. Well done and keep going xxx