Meet the Other Phone. Flexible and made to last.

Meet the Other Phone.
Flexible and made to last.

Buy now

Please or to access all these features

Infant feeding

Get advice and support with infant feeding from other users here.

combination feeding

2 replies

driedapricots · 29/09/2010 22:05

can you successfully mix formula and breastfeeding? my ds is 9 weeks and i find BF a bit restrictive as not good at doing it in public, plus i'm not good with the unpredicatability of feeding patterns that comes with bf. but it is handy and obviously good for ds etc etc...so i wondered is there a good way to mix and match without affecting milk supply? i am doing giving the odd bottle of formula now and he takes it ok / doesn't seem to get unsettled by it. but i am worried my boobs dont feel as full and when he does feed from me he doesn't seem as satisfied.
any advice welcome

OP posts:
Tryharder · 29/09/2010 23:55

I mix fed both DS1 and DS2 so it's doable and I bf both of them way beyond a year. BUT, it does cause your milk supply to decline.

I started mix feeding because I lacked the confidence that my baby was getting enough milk. It meant that DH could give a bottle and I could get some housework done or do something with my other child. On the downside, I had the added hassle of sterilsing, preparing formula etc as well as the decline in my own milk supply. With DS2, I returned to exclusive bf when he was 5months old, but it was very, very hard to reestablish my supply at a time when bf should have been easy.

So mix feeding can be done and I know of quite a few women who bf but give 1 or 2 bottles a day.

BUT, I currently also have a 9 week old who is exclusively bf. I have more confidence in my abilities to bf now and have "ridden out" the extremely hard early stage. I think you should wait a while before deciding to mix feed because you are nearly at the stage where bf becomes a doddle (about 3 months or so)and you probably won't want to bother bottle feeding when you reach that stage.

I think it's normal for your breasts not to feel so full at this stage. As for bf in public; I bf DD in a window seat in MCDonalds on our busy high street on a Saturday morning. Noone turned a hair. The more you bf in public, the more confidence you will have.

Sorry, am waffling now - should really go to bed but wanted to give you some sort of reassurance as it were.

susiey · 30/09/2010 08:16

I have successfully mixed fed all my babies. It is normal not feel so full after a while even if exclusively breastfeeding. The things I find really help is keeping the time of day consistent for us with dc 3 it's at midnight so I can get 6 hours of straight sleep !

New posts on this thread. Refresh page