To take bottles and formula into hospital even though I want to breastfeed?

[Giltedged]

Last time I ended up taking bottles and some formula as everyone said I should. Had a horrible birth and fainted so didn’t get skin to skin and DH gave our newborn baby some formula. I’ve no idea if that contributed in some way but failed miserably to breastfeed.

I don’t really want to buy newborn feeding bottles and formula - feels a bit like failure before I’ve begun. Equally I don’t have much confidence in my ability to breastfeed and don’t want to starve my baby! What should I do?

Do not take it.

It's extremely rare something will happen to you child due to "feeding issues". And if there are any some can pop to the shop for you.

@Terryer i think we’ve confused one another

DH will be home with DS, I’ll be in hospital. So neither of us in a position to just nip out.

Try and reword this OP. You are not ‘failing’ to do anything, you are ‘succeeding’ in making sure your child is fed, safe and happy. At the end of the day, a fed baby is a happy baby, he will not hold it against you over how you did it!
Take the bottles. You have a back up plan. Your birth may be awful (really hope not) and you will be so exhausted you will appreciate them. And also, then Dad, grandma, aunt etc can help you.

No that's why I said take ready made cartons in. I did that with all three of mine. Breastfed two for ages and one on and off for 4 months. They are all healthy and happy now!

I didn't buy a dummy for the same reason - if it was in the house there was bound to come a time where I was struggling and would have used it but kicked myself later. I didn't take bottles or formula into hospital either. The one thing I will say though is with the second you have to just go with the flow more. They need to fit into the family in a way the first often has you fitting around them. There are no prizes or badges awarded for doing things one way or another. Generally a fed baby is happier so however things turn out try not to beat yourself up.

After having a prem baby who couldn't feed and having to express for months before breastfeeding, I'm going to go the whole hog and take both a good pump and bottles of formula. I want to be covered for all eventualities and having husband run around London on Boxing Day trying to find a breast pump wasn't easy. If baby can't latch, you want to be able to pump every three hours to ensure milk comes in.

There's no need, they have milk in bottles in emergency, but try not to worry, years ago they didn't think babies needed to feed until your milk came in (seems bizarre now but babies were ok) so the few minutes to fetch a bottle is fine.

My top tip for successful breastfeeding is to ask for your baby to be put onto your breast as soon as possible after birth, ideally 5 mins or so, this is established as good practice in many countries and the who. Secondly try to be relaxed, breastfeeding is totally natural, you can do it but worry that something is wrong/not getting enough causes women to stop feeding. I would ask for advice on feeding lying down too, this was a great position for me

If you couldn't latch at all you needed better support. It wasn't a production issue. Either you needed showing, or your baby had tongue tie/ whip lash from the birth.

Rather than worrying about bottles, if I were you I would spend the time before birth lining up a decent lactation consultant. If you don't have any free serves in your area (my area had amazing bfing clinics run by the bfing charity, can't recall what it was called now, you could even visit before birth for advice) then hire one. The cost will quickly be absorbed by what you save on formula.

I breastfed, but I did take some of those ‘pre-made’ bottles of formula, just in case - I was really concerned that under staffing would mean no one would be available to give me the hospital formula in a timely manner, it just made me feel more relaxed knowing that in the worst case scenario, my husband had something to feed her with.

I did manage to express quite a lot of colostrum in late pregnancy, and I took that into the hospital and I’m so glad I did as after birth I was quite poorly and whilst they were sorting me out, baby started screaming for food, which meant my husband fed her using the syringes. I’d highly recommend that if possible for you.

I just personally felt more relaxed knowing I’d covered all bases. You need to do what’s best for you 😊

Op you sound nervous if your gut instinct is to want to take formula I would take some of those instant formula bottles in with the nipple just in case.
Honestly been there done that it's not worth the stress.

I took some of those ready made bottles with me as I wanted to give breastfeeding a go but wasn’t wedded to it.

I ended up staying at hospital three nights after giving birth and that was only to establish feeding (we were both otherwise fit and well). My baby was tired and wouldn’t wake to feed, would fall asleep during feeds and had a lazy latch.

It was three nights of really bloody hard work but I didn’t once use that formula, in fact I didn’t even remember it was there. So taking it with you does not mean you’re setting yourself up to fail or “you’ll almost certainly use it”.

I took a box of the ready made bottles. Ended up using a few because baby had tongue tie and really struggled to latch.
the feeding midwives helped with colostrum and plan for combi feeding until the tongue tie was addressed

If this was the case, I would suggest that you take nipple sheilds (preferably medela or mam, these are the ones I’ve seen most babies get on with)
to help you feed.

I’m not going to be pumping again I don’t think, it was awful last time and I won’t be able to with a toddler.

Tried nipple shields. No joy! I think I was just really shit 😂

Also for what it's worth I had something similar with the baby not latching and I really tried to bf for 3 solid months.
By the time we figured latching out my milk supply had dried up and I wasn't able to recover it.
It caused me so much stress and anxiety and 3 years on I realise there was no need to put so much pressure on myself as a failure for using formula, he's happy and healthy.
So my advice is take the bottles in you may not use them but there is no shame if you do.

I agree with asking your midwife about harvesting some colostrum, also ask about whether if needed the hospital will have formula in; it tends to vary and some won't give it. Whatever happens you'll figure it out, go easy on yourself and don't be worried about asking for support with bfing if that's what you want to do- it's not always forthcoming

What I did was took some ready to feed small cow and gate bottles with teets, did end up having to use them as things were a lot more complicated than planned, glad we had them, but combi fed and moved slowly up in BF down in bottles at home, I ended up always doing a small bottle top up, but am glad they were there as the first period we were largely apart as I was unwell as was he, so I expressed to keep flow, gave that when could but they also had bottles to give :)

Combi feeding is so underrated! I think it's a brilliant option for many but its not something that's often explored.

My midwives told me off for NOT taking any even though I was breastfeeding and said i was starving my baby (I wasn't she was cluster feeding it was normal). They then took her off me and gave her a bottle of formula which I had no say in so they do have emergency supplies there!!! (I also got told off for not having a hat for the baby even though I'd been taken in unexpectedly by ambulance so didn't have my hospital bad with me though). So I'd take a starter pack just in case, but just one.

I had a nightmare breast-feeding my first baby and thought we cracked it eventually he lost a fair bit of weight. Was only because I had a supportive (coff coff slightly militant🤪) HV that I stayed at it, there were many tears (all mine). Second time around I took a box of those tiny pre-made bottles of Aptamil in my bag. Didn’t need them during the 48 hours I was in the unit. Only used a couple in the first week when I seemed to lose the knack of getting her on again when she was about three days old. It took the pressure off, and I exclusively breast-fed DC2 until five months. I think having them helped me because I had an insurance policy, don’t know if that makes sense. I’d say whatever makes you least worried is the best thing to do.

I took it with my first, had an awful delivery and I needed theatre to stop the bleeding. I didn't use it though. I BF fine although milk took a little longer to come in.

Didn't bother with my second - had an elective caesarean and my milk came in the next day.

They will have formula if you need it.

I agree with all of this. They only need tiny amounts in the early days so I’d express some colostrum and freeze it in the few weeks before your due date. Then baby can have that if you’re struggling or they have to be separated from you. Your midwife should be able to give you a kit and talk you through it if you need her to. You can buy suitable syringes off Amazon as well though. Then you just need to store it in their freezer when you go to hospital.

15 years ago. Big London teaching hospital which was brilliant and up to date in all other pre-natal areas.

it was simply they were so understaffed they did not have time to address any bf issues. I was in for 3 days post c-sec and the only bf “help” was the offer of formula as they were rushing past.

they also gave formula as her first feed. I was shaky post section but felt up for trying. Instead they whisked her off saying “oh you’ll be wanting to breastfeed, so I’ll give x brand formula”

fortunately I was stubborn and learned to ignore them. I had no idea if feeding that often was normal, and it didn’t hurt if she was constantly latched, so that’s what I went with 😂

You could do what I did-

From 37 weeks you can hand express colostrum. I bought 5ml syringes from Amazon as well as the typical 1ml ones. I hand expressed 'feeds' of 7-8mls which is the size of baby's stomach (1 big syringe and 2 or 3 little ones) sellotaped them together and labelled with my name and DOB. Breast feeding went well but latch wasn't great and after 12 hours was starting to pinch so these were a lifesaver. I just handed them over frozen when I got there and they kept them in the fridge.