Bottle feeding

[NotSoThinLizzy]

So I'm way ahead of my self here but bear with me. I breastfed my 1st born for 4 months before moving to formula. Im breastfeeding my 2nd he's 17 months.
I've had a positive pregnacy test yesterday and today.
So aibu to consider bottle feeding the new baby I don't think I could handle another wee one that was so difficult. Has anyone exclusively pumped? And did it that way?

I guess I don't want new baby to "miss out" but DS will still need lots of one on one time so new baby could be in a bouncer chair while being fed so I could still play with ds

Also the extra sleep I could get while oh gets up to bottle feed will he amazing

Some people do, and I considered it at the beginning when I was finding BFing really hard. Ultimately to me it’s the worst of both worlds because you have to spend ages expressing and you still have the faff of remembering and sterilising bottles all the time. If you do it, it’s probably worth hiring a hospital grade double breast pump to speed things up a bit.

I formula fed my baby from the beginning. It's personal choice.

You sound just like me! I worked out that I had been either pregnant or breastfeeding non-stop for four and a half years by the time my youngest was born! I chose to bottle feed her, there was no way I could have coped with breastfeeding for another 6-12 months.

Do what you feel you can cope with, nobody has the right to tell you what to do with your body, and your baby will be absolutely fine if you choose to bottle feed. x

There are advantages to both types of feeding - do what you need to do ! Baby will be fine either way.

I BF dd1 then moved to bottles after a few months. In 2 months I'll have a newborn and a 16month old - I'll try bf but if it's too hard / takes too much time away from dd1 I'll switch.

Yes, as someone who slept for 3 hours last night while DH slumbered peacefully next door (only to wake me up at 6.30 because the baby was “grizzling”), the sleep aspect of it would be great!!

I found expressing awful. It’s very time consuming and a real faff. I don’t really understand what you’re suggesting? A bit of expressing so baby can have an occasional bottle is a great idea. Doing nothing but expressing, not so much.

I think either breast from the source or formula would be less time consuming than expressing

I'm thinking that if I can crack bf relatively easily with dd2 it will be less faffy than ff. But BF dd1 was all consuming torture for weeks on end and I won't be able to manage that with two of them x

Oh , I did try and express / bottle feed dd1 for a bit before moving to formula - it was so difficult and time consuming. Not possible with two (or more) little ones in my opinion. Such much sterilising and being strapped to a pump. Not something I'll consider this time around x

I think as long as you’re feeding your baby one way or another, it’s completely up to you.

I think it's a personal choice and their is no right or wrong.
I didn't want to breastfeed or express at all, I didn't even want to try it. So I exclusively formula fed.
And I don't think sterilising is a faff at all.

I exclusively pumped for 6 weeks. It's hard. You need to express as often as baby feeds, including all through the night. So not only are you up bottle feeding through the night, once baby is asleep, you'll need to stay up and express. It's exhausting and time consuming. Which is why I couldn't do it any longer. My supply started to drop as I didn't have the energy to keep it up. I would do it again, I wish I could have done it longer but I just needed sleep.

Your body, your choice.

I really struggled BF DD, it was horrendous and I preserved through pig headedness more than anything. Latch issues, slow weight gain, you name it.

DS came next and was a doddle. Fed perfectly from 2 minutes old, I was determined that if I had a stumbling block I wouldn't do it, and luckily I didn't have one!

To me exclusively pumping seems the worse of both worlds - you still have the faffing of sterilising etc but still have to pump as often as you would feed so don't get the freedom either

You say you would get extra sleep if bottle feeding as your husband would do night feeds (at least some of them) but would you? I found I still woke up anyway (it didn't work both ways he could sleep through me waking to feed the baby so I guess it depends on how deeply you sleep)

I found that breastfeeding I could do one handed, whereas bottle feeding needed two so I could still sit with one arm round a toddler while breastfeeding but couldn't if using a bottle

Also don't forget you won't have a newborn and your 17 month old (and the older one), it will be a newborn and a 2 year old.

You will make the decision which is right for your family - and congratulations

It's never unreasonable to consider exclusive formula feeding, exclusive breastfeeding or mixed feeding. Though I must say I've always heard exclusive expressing is the worst of both worlds. The bottles and sterilising of ff, the night wakings and the being tied to frequent breast emptyings of bf.

Why don’t you stop breastfeeding the 17month old slowly then breastfeeding the newborn.

Pumping is harder you need to find the time to pump so sitting waiting to empty then you need to keep track of what's in each pouch and when is was pumped. You have bottles to wash too.

I ff ds1 the pumped for ds2 for a few weeks. Switched to formula as pumping was too much work. They are both healthy secure bonded children do what's best for you and remember fed is best.

I expressed formy daughter for 4 months until I couldn’t keep up with demand anymore - she had a posterior tongue tie which went undiagnosed for 15 months, and every time I tried to latch her, she was ripping my poor nips to shreds.
Exclusively expressing is really hard work, and honestly I wouldn’t do it again. I had to pump so many times a day, and then still spend time feeding from a bottle and washing and sterilising - all the stuff that goes along with bottle feeding. I felt like my whole life revolved around pumping times. Including pumping at night - so even if DH was feeding DD a bottle of breast milk at 3am, I was still up pumping the next feed.
We moved onto formula eventually because I could no longer pump enough to keep up with DD.
With DS, I said I would try bf from the source again, and it turns out he could effortlessly latch and there was no pain at all. But again, we moved onto prescription formula after a few months because he has multiple food allergies and I was terrified of eating something that would pass through me and make him sick
I’m pregnant with DC3, and my plan is the same again: give breastfeeding a good go and see how it pans out

Are you thinking you can feed the newborn by putting them in a chair with a bottle?

I guess I don't want them to think I've treated them differently when older. I think where I'm at is mix feeding straight from the start I'm hoping to wean DS soon he's showing no signs of wanting to stop yet

Yes the expressing is pretty time consuming. I bf my first and found time to express every day while he napped and stocked up the freezer. I bf my second but hardly every found time to express unless my DH was home too to look after the oldest.

I'd suggest bf tbh if you get on with it, and formula if you don't.

An no not a tiny newborn but mabye when 3 months I've seen people put them in car seats or chairs ect to feed

I take it you do mean formula?
I expressed one bottle a day so I could get some sleep. That’s doable. But expressing all the time no frigging way I wouldn’t recommend that.
Obviously it’s up to you but my honest answer is that there are drawbacks to using formula so it depends how you feel about that.
The thing that puts me off formula is that I know three babies who ended up with bad stomachs (constipation/wind/hard poos) due to formula and in the end that was more time consuming for the parents and the baby was upset all the time and not sleeping due to discomfort which kind of defeats the purpose!