To have such an aversion to formula?

[whalewhatsallthisthen]

I know I am BU here so I'd quite like reassurance and tips but debate welcome too. Essentially I am currently exclusively breastfeeding my almost 4 month old first born. Will be going back to work when she is about 7 months and DH will be at home with her for another 6 months. We have been feeding her bottles of EBM since she was 2 weeks old but now she often refuses it or only take a couple of ounces.

I am getting in a bit of a tizz about going back to work. Soon the plan is that she'll be on a 4 hour feeding schedule at 7am, 11am, 3pm, 7pm, 11pm and 3am. I hope the last two feeds might be dropped by then and I can still do the 7am feed myself but realistically the others will be formula or EBM. I am concerned about the latter because I don't think she'll take a bottle and I read that sippy cups should only be used with meals. I have a strong aversion to formula though I know I am being a bit U there.

My questions are 1) is my milk likely to dry up if i only do one feed a day and express twice, 2) do babies take formula from a bottle when they reject EBM and if so why and 3) could I still do EBF on the weekend?

Fourth AIBU to be so worried about feeding formula to a 7 month old or to worry about this so much generally?! It just feels like it's coming around quite quickly now :(

I went back to work when ds was 7 months old. I continued to bf morning, teatime, night and weekends until he was 1 yr (and he decided to start painfully bite me!). We went straight to a free flow Tommie tippy sippy cup as he never got on with bottles.

I wasn’t as concerned about formula as he was weaned at 3 months (this was just before guidance changed to 6 months), but my body quickly adjusted to the new routine, it didn’t dry up or feel overly full during the day either.

Good Morning.
I exclusively expressed for both of our Daughter's from birth to 1 year old. I went back when DD1 was 9mths old and back to work when DD2 was 7mths old. I was lucky that I was able to go home to my parents at lunch time and express, but my employer did confirm that they would have provided somewhere for me to express if I needed it.
My milk didn't dry up much and actually when I was stopping expressing I had rock hard breasts and leaked quite a bit...I learnt 2nd time round to cut down rather than stop cold turkey.
Both girls were doing well with solids when I went back to work and all went well with me pumping 1st thing, lunch time, dinner time & twice in evenings then.

Don't panic about feeding baby formula. It's perfectly fine and baby will not suffer because it's not breast milk. You will work out a routine that works for you both when the time comes. For now enjoy your baby.

1. Nope. I expressed once a day when I returned to work and Just fed on demand outside work and on weekends. No issues with supply.

2. no experience of this - my eldest refused bottles... regardless of what was in them

3. Yes - no issues at all with this and that’s exactly what I did.

4. totally normal to worry about returning to work and about how you’ll handle breastfeeding. Is your baby on solids? For many exclusively breastfed Babies they will have solids and water while mother is away and will continue to breastfeed when reunited with their mother. My two were slightly older than yours but that wa any experience. I pumped once during lunchtime and that gave me enough EBM to use the next day in crèche while I worked.

Ah bless you. This is a first born thing I think - I felt exactly the same when DS was that age but now he is 9 I just wonder why I worried about it - it is a kind of food - a supplemental food, just like solids, that babies can have alongside breastfeeding. I wish I'd seen it like that (although I was v lucky and didn't have any work issues to worry about.)

It is totally up to you, of course - but personally with future children I will not be killing myself to try and express if that does not work out. If it does, then great. If not, no big deal.

If she doesn't take it from a bottle she might take it from a cup, sippy cup, open cup, dropper, spoon, mixed with porridge... etc.

It might be a temporary thing - from about 9 months most breastfed babies will be happy with solids and water during the day, although they will probably need some milk before this. Supply seems to adjust to this just fine even if you feed normally at the weekends. Supply is much more flexible the older your baby gets which is really handy actually, but you might find that you get to a point where you can no longer express, but the baby takes what they need when you're together.

I should also add that with DS his father wasn't very involved and I'm v happy to have a lovely DH now who is really enthusiastic and hands on and while I feel anxious at the thought of leaving FutureBaby to go back to work myself, I am so happy and excited to see DH's relationship with them grow and have that new experience. I feel like it's so important and even though my close relationship with DS as a baby was special too, I think it can only be beneficial for a child to have a more flexible parenting team rather than being reliant solely on one person. DS had a lot of issues of clinginess and difficulty with separation as a toddler and although he's fine now, I'll be interested to see if it's different. It's hard to let go and remember that DH's parenting style is just as valid even though it's not exactly like mine(!) but I do really strongly believe in the benefit of this for the baby and also for our relationship as a couple too - because we learn to trust each other to do things differently and also because both having a period of being the SAHP means that you understand the position of the other much better, and hopefully don't get stuck into either traditional "default parent" roles or into sniping because you can't imagine that the other person's role might have been stressful too. So while I'm expecting it to be hard, I also think it's going to be worth it. I'm sure it will be for you, too! :)

My milk dried up on mine once I went down to 2 or 3 feeds a day. I didn't really do much expressing as I topped up with formula. For my older two I had to abandon bf by 9 months as I had nothing left despite feeding 3 times a day. I lasted a lot longer with dc3 as I was working part-time so fed more frequently..

All mine refused bottles initially but with perseverance, they were happy to take formula from them.

BertieBotts that is excellent advice and I am looking forward to that too. Thank you. I think DH and I will both be more understanding and able to pick up the slack for each other once he's had time off with her too. He just doesn't really get it now, doesn't know how much you have to do to feed clothe and entertain a baby! He thinks I'm mean because I'm always so keen for him to hold her as soon as he gets home from work

Formula feeding mums, instead of just telling me formula is not poison could you tell me what you enjoy about formula feeding, esp if you previously breastfed? Also if anyone has experience of going from breastmilk to formula that would be interesting. Is bottle feeding with formula slow? I just managed to get DD to take 2.5oz of expressed milk (DH had no success and is a bit miffed) and it takes ages. Breast is so much quicker these days that doing the whole pump and bottle feed feels like a real chore by comparison, but I'm not sure if this is just because she's a fussy madam with the bottle.

I think it's okay to not want to give formula. I felt the same. I wanted to exclusively bf. This wasn't a denigration of formula but a preference. I'd have given it if necessary but preferred not to. It is okay to say that out loud. I wanted a natural delivery, not a cs, I wanted to do blw, not purees and so on. It's okay to say all that. It really is. As long as it isn't criticising the alternative or refusing it when or if it becomes necessary. If you do give formula, it'll just be your new normal and part of the rich tapestry of nourishing your child in the way she needs.

Good luck with the return to work. It's hard and you'll second guess every decision but you'll be just fine. So will DD.

You'll be weaning by then and that could change everything anyway! Some drop milk v quickly, others don't buy until you start no way of knowing. This therefore makes it very hard to plan at all other than to say maybe try the odd bit of formula now. If you are worried about the nutritional / breast milk superiority you could always freeze some and use it in cooking later to keep the intake going longer?

Babies do get faster at drinking from a bottle. DD as a newborn would take about 45 mins to drink about 20ml and 10-15 mins at 12 months to drink 200ml.

Worry about how you are going to feed your DC in a couple of months. Things can change so much between now and then. I found that my milk supply (had to express as somebody refused to open her mouth near my boob) dried up at 6 months and I had to switch to formula. Some babies really take to weaning and want little milk from 6 months and others are real pains and want milk, but not food.

Maybe it is worth seeing if your DC is willing to try a free flow sippy cup (the really cheap tommee tippee ones are easy to clean and can be sterilised) instead of the bottle.

My two never liked bottles EBM nor formula. They did drink well from sippy cups though. Had cow’s milk from sippy cups at nursery from 12 months and would also take a reasonable amount of EBM from one from about 7 months. Much more successful than bottle. You will still be able to give most feeds even when working and by 7 months DD will be eating some food (which can include cow’s milk) and drinking some water so I think she will be fine.

I went back to work part time at just under 6 months. My Mum looked after the baby who was EBF at the time. From 6 months it is fine to give them BM in a sippy cup, possibly better than a bottle. Probably it means not to give water in a sippy cup apart from meal times. I carried on feeding her when I was there and Mum brought her round to work at lunchtime a couple of times. Once she got the hang of the cup I expressed one cup a day. She took to solids quite quickly. Never had a bottle.

She was my second baby so I wasn't too worried because I knew how much they change between 4 and 7 months! As for milk drying up- we have been on one feed per day for a long time now and still fine!

OP relax they're a lot more adaptable then we give the credit for.
By that age between water and food they should be fine.
It's more you I'd be worried about. Be wary of mastitis.

Also I never wanted my kids to have formula. It was a conscious choice I made and at 3 and 19 months I'm glad I did.

A 7 month old won't be exclusively breastfed anyway so having an 'aversion' to formula is clearly ridiculous!

Sorry Marcine, don't understand how your second point follows from your first.

I enjoyed FF when he was small as they really lock on to your eyes and gaze at you, and you often get the treat of a tiny hand patting and stroking your arm/face/whatever is in reach. It’s nice as well now DS is nearly one, he holds his own bottle which means you can get on with your cup of tea! DS was mega slow until about 8mo but he had a very difficult birth and head trauma meant he found it v difficult and painful to suck (which is why he isn’t BF). You’ll find something that works, maybe experiment a bit with different sized teats and bottles

I managed to pump 2 feeds a day during the working day but it took frikking ages (like 2 hours a day). I was lucky that I do a desk job (and the pumping room has a pc we can log into) so I could work and pump simultaneously. Some people can do a lot faster though.

whale - maybe I don't understand what your aversion to formula is about then?

You could look up dr jack newman & returning to work. He talks about reverse cycling etc

Formula feeding meant that dh could help with preparing bottles, and at weekend's do the night feeds. It meant that my ds could be fed in hospital via an NG tube for 10 days before his sucking reflex kicked in.

Whilst you oh so carefully say you are not judging those who use formula, you are in fact doing so. Feed your baby how you like, and don't judge others.

Fwiw my entirely formula fed baby got a First last year and is currently doing an MA, so he evidently hasn't been damaged by it. They are on formula for a short time, best to worry later when you'll have to contend with the lure of chocolate, crisps and junk food rather than the 'evils' of formula, which incidentally kept me alive in the 60s as a prem baby whose Mum couldn't breast feed.

just because I prefer to feed my own baby breastmilk
I have a strong aversion to formula
I would have preferred to bf too but that choice was taken away from me. What is wrong with formula?

what you enjoy about formula feeding
The main thing I enjoyed about formula feeding was having a baby that wasn’t starving to death!

Why do you think holding a baby in your arms and feeding it with a bottle instead of a breast will be so terrible?

"Whilst you oh so carefully say you are not judging those who use formula, you are in fact doing so. Feed your baby how you like, and don't judge others."

On what basis? I think you are reading something in my posts that isn't there. Just because it's not my preference doesn't mean I'm criticising anyone else - I acknowledged I am being a bit silly about it - and the main point made in the rest of my posts is that I'd like the breastfeeding to continue after I go back to work so I feel like I'm leaving a little bit of myself behind if you see what I mean. I appreciate this is a sensitive subject for some but I don't think anything I've said has actually criticised formula milk nutritionally or otherwise so I think you are reading something in that isn't there. Obviously if ebm doesnt work out I will be switching to formula. I'm just really keen for it to work but right now it's looking like it won't, so I would appreciate the experience of others who've been in the same boat.

Marcine think that answers your question too.

@whalewhatsallthisthen - I ended up formula feeding all three of my dses, because none of them put on weight on my breast milk - to the extent where one ended up in hospital, with the staff muttering ‘Failure to Thrive’, which was pretty scary.

I am lucky that I had a good alternative, so I could feed my boys safely and as healthily as possible. The other thing I have realised, over the years, is that how we feed our babies in the early months is important, but it isn’t the only good thing we can do for them - either nutritionally, or generally. It seems so vital, and such a big thing, when they are little, but maybe we don’t see it in proportion when we are in that stage.

When my boys were weaning, I worked hard to make sure they got a good diet, with as much home cooked food as possible - lots of variety, good protein, different flavours and textures, plenty of fresh fruit and veg - and I carried on with that, as they grew up.

All three are now healthy, fit adults. They can all cook, and will make themselves good, home cooked food. They haven’t suffered at all from having had formula during the first years of their lives.

I know you are looking for positive stories of how ebf can work when someone goes back to work, and my post may seem to go against this - but I am hoping that a positive story about formula will help you worry a bit less about it - and that might help you relax - because worrying less might make breastfeeding work better for you - if that makes any sense?

Waddlelikeapenguin, the issue with reverse cycling is that I don't think I could cope with the disturbed sleep and perform well at work and I'm under some pressure to perform as soon as i get back. I will be working relatively long hours so the 7am and 11pm feeds are the only ones I'll reliably be able to do. If she wakes for milk in the night DH will still need to do it unfortunately.