Combining breast and bottle

[mouli]

I am going back to work soon and am having (sadly) to give a bottle instead of breast at bedtime. I know every woman is different but can it work to breastfeed at 7am and 2.30pm and then give a bottle at bedtime without your milk supply diminishing? My dd is 7 1/2 months old and has three feeds a day. Could I give milk in a cup at 2.30pm as well (eventually) and just breastfeed first thing in the morning?

Your milk is supply and demand, it will never diminish unless you completely stop for a week or so, infact when i was breast feeding i had to leave my babba for a week (emergency) when i came back i still had milk.

Could you express milk for the night time bottle?

Yes, it does work! (There is an archive thread on this with a lot of information - sorry, cna't do links).

I mixed fed almost from the start (usually one bottle a day at various times depending on what I was doing) - I didn't have a huge milk supply and found expressing very difficult, also it suited me to for DS to have the odd bottle if I was going out without him or in some places where I didn't wish to breast feed publicly - NOTE, not that I ever got dirty looks or comments, but I just preferred not to in certain situations.

So, yes, it worked for me.

Yes it can work Mouli. Will it be every bed time? You can breastfed the days you are there. I returned to work and built up a stock of breastmilk that I kepy in the freezer. I replaced that milk by hand expressing at work so that the bottles that were given were my milk which kept up my supply anyway. When I was on days off I breastfed as normal.Your milk is very well established and can adjust easily.

Yes yes yes. I returned to work when dd was 4 months. I managed to bf morning and night and express for her 2 daytime feeds for 1 month. I then gave formula during the day (too much hassle to express at work and store) and continued with two feeds until 10 months. I did then move to just bf in the morning, and after another month my supply did seem to stop, but by that time dd was only taking 4oz. It can work really well. Good luck

I found my supply very flexible when I went back to work in an office (only for a few months before started working at home but still away from my ds) - I breastfed twice a day on working days and breastfed more often on the days I wasn't working and weekends, which seemed to help a bit too. Good luck!

I had three big babies, 9lb 5oz, 9lb 13oz and 8lb 13oz. I found the first 2 needed mixed feeding from about 3 weeks, I just couldn't produce enough milk to satisfy the gannets, (DS3 however, was an pain and would only be breastfed, he would not take a bottle at all).
Mixed feeding does work. DS1 I fed until he went completely off milk at 6 months and DS2 until he was 8 months.

I mixed fed my no. 2 from really erly on, he wanted to feed almost constantly in the evening and was very unsettled at night, I just fed him after tea and then gave him a bottle at bed time, then fed at night. I tried to express but gave up after a few weeks as it was too much hassle, it worked really well.

I was able to breast and bottle feed for 5 months. I couldn't produce enough milk to satisfy ds, so I had to do both.