Combi feeding - where do we start?!

[HK171]

Hi everyone

Our little one is 6 weeks now and have been exclusively breastfeeding til now. It's been going well and we're ready now to introduce a bit of bottle feeding using expressed milk, mainly for a bit of flexibility and so I can get a bit more sleep!

The plan is for my partner to give her one bottle per day before she goes to bed.

How do we go about this? I've got a Medela pump and milk storage bags but not sure about the following:

How much milk should we give her in the bottle? Is there a set number of ounces for a 6 week old?

When should I pump? She spends a lot of time feeding (think it's for comfort as much as the milk) with only an hour or two usually between the end of one feed and the start of the next.

We've just got normal Mam bottles atm - have people been ok with this sort of thing while combi feeding or would you recommend the ones that mimic a nipple?

Thank you in advance!

Following for the advice.

Mine is 3 months now and while she took to the bottle no problem in the first week and a half due to tongue tie & excruciating pain, once she was able to go back on the breast she totally rejected the bottle. As much as I love breast feeding I'd love for her to take the bottle again for the occasional feed.

As for how much milk you should give her I'd check the recommended oz per her age online or on the back of a formula tin and use that as a guideline. Obviously if she is still hungry give her more

Bumpity bump

So this is what I did for my three kids. I would pump every few hours. My first guzzled milk and my other two would drink around 5/6 ounces. My first guzzled because if gave Advent fast flowing bottles. I changed the nipples and I should have kept on the slowest the whole journey. All three liked different bottles. We spent a lot of money till I found the right one. Start with the medela breast feeding bottles is my suggestion. I would freeze my milk into large ice cubes. I didn't bother with bags. I bought lots of Medellin breast bottles and stored milk that way before I would freeze. I used a zip lock bag and would take out a few at a time and defrost slowly in the fridge. I would write dates on those. Sometimes I found I had more one day than the next. You will find a pattern that works. I found I still had to pump often due to breast comfort, baby wants to feed comfort and just easy of it.

I loved it but I'm so pleased that ship has sailed. Pumping is like another job!

Forgot to write each ice cube was 2oz. This worked well when knowing how much I should defrost.

I managed to successful combo feed using my method outlined above.

We just gave formula for the night feed at six weeks (with no issues).

Thanks for the advice everyone. We've tried it today - and with formula for now (one thing at a time!) If we stick with formula instead of expressed milk, I'm ok with that to be honest.

Watching my partner feed her was as once really sweet and also really emotional as she was making her same little feeding noises, but not on my breast! Still, the flexibility will hopefully more than make up for it.