Introducing bottles for EBM

[Bagpusstree]

Hello,

I am due in a week with my second baby. My first I BF exclusively for the first 6 months, and then really struggled to get him to accept a bottle. He had to have anti-convulsant medicine for the first 6 weeks of his life, which I used to give via bottle, so once he no longer needed it, I stopped the bottle...I'm not sure if this related to the difficulty in getting him to accept one later on in life, or if that was just normal after becoming used to BFing.
Anyway, with this next baby I was thinking of introducing a bottle with EBM earlier on, to avoid the struggle when I swap, and also to allow me to have the odd break! Something I wished for last time round.
How long should I feed for to establish BFing before I start introducing a bottle without jeopardising BFing, and do babies sometimes 'prefer' a bottle and then refuse to BF if a bottle is used as well? I would assume BFing is more natural, so they would stick to breast given the choice, but I'm sure I've read before that some do stop on the breast when bottles are used as well.....
Sorry if thats a waffle!

My midwife suggested introducing a bottle at around four weeks which I did with ds and he switched between breast and bottle after that no problem. I guess four weeks is the given time so that you have had enough time to establish breastfeeding but not too long so they reject bottle entirely

DD is four weeks now and I'm going to be introducing a bottle this week

Good luck

There are definitely babies who decide they prefer a bottle to the breast because they don't have to work so hard with bottles. IIRC you can reduce the risk by using the slowest teat you can find and taking frequent breaks during the feed.

Fab, thanks for the replies ladies.