Can I introduce 1 ebm feed from the beginning?

[gateacre1]

sorry if this has been done before

im having dd2 soon and this time I would like to OH to be involved in feeding too.

I have in my head this ideal plan ( ha ha) that I will do an early evening BF, then put dd2 down to sleep, I will sleep too and then OH will do the 10ish pm feed with ebm. hopefully meaning I get more than 3 hrs sleep in a row. then I will wake up and do the next bf.

my questions are,

1. can I do this from when we return home from hospital ( obv once milk has come in?)

1. What is the best time to express day/night or does it depend on each pair of boobs?

1. Should I express from one boob or both? and then on the next feed which boob should I do it from?

1. do you have to warm up ebm or can you offer it at room temp? if you do have to warm it up, do you just pop bottle into bowl of warm water and then test?

1. Which bottles do people reccommend for ebm? ( with dd1 she refused any silicone teat and the only bottle we could get her to take was a latex teat on a nuk)

sorry for the naive questions its been a while since I breast fed!

I would wait til 4-6 weeks, so that your milk supply is well established and you're over any hiccups at the start.

You can offer milk at any temperature - though the baby may not drink it. I didn't get on with expressing so use cartons and tried offering at room temp (so much easier) but ds wasn't having any of it - has to be body temperature for him.

I started expressing a bottle of milk a day from 2 weeks. I think you would struggle to find time to express before this. DD now 20 weeks and we don't have any nipple confusion or supply problems. I would aim to give a bottle sooner rather than later and certainly no later than 6 weeks to stop bottle refusal.

Most people usually find it easier to express first thing in the morning.

I used to express from both boobs but other people just express from one. Experiment and see what works best for you. I would start from the opposite boob to the one your baby last fed from. When starting the next feed I would use the boob that feels fullest, but I don't think it really matters.

I used to give EBM straight from the fridge or at room temperature. If you want to heat it you can put the bottle in a bowl of warm water for a few minutes.

We used Tommee Tippee Closer to Nature bottles.

. can I do this from when we return home from hospital ( obv once milk has come in?)

Probably best to wait 4 weeks but if you want to do earlier wait until she can latch well and BFing established.

1. What is the best time to express day/night or does it depend on each pair of boobs?

Generally most milk in the morning - would express after morning feed from both sides. GF recommends that you express before you go to bed as well to prevent supply falling from missing a feed. She recommends what you describe in her CBB might be worth reading.

1. Should I express from one boob or both? and then on the next feed which boob should I do it from?

Both sides.

1. do you have to warm up ebm or can you offer it at room temp? if you do have to warm it up, do you just pop bottle into bowl of warm water and then test?

Warm up in bowl warm water. Can be drunk cooler if baby will agree.

1. Which bottles do people reccommend for ebm? ( with dd1 she refused any silicone teat and the only bottle we could get her to take was a latex teat on a nuk)

We used avent depends on baby although only use newborn teat even when baby gets bigger.

My DH did the 10.30pm feed with a bottle of EBM from about 6 weeks. I pumped in the morning and we used the Tommee Tippee Closer to Nature bottles. Never had any nipple confusion or bottle refusal.

When we dropped the 10.30pm feed (DS was in such a deep sleep he was obviously nowhere near needing the feed!) DH started doing the 7pm feed (and he still does, DS is 8mo). I would recommend this as DS has never associated the boob with his bedtime routine. I recently stopped bfing and had no issues with him going to bed.

Just a word of warning - we introduced a bottle on day 7 to top up DD on the advice of a midwife (which I now think was the wrong advice - wish I had known of tiktok's existence back then!)

We then had 4 days of her absolutely refusing to breast feed and having 15-30 minutes of screaming on the boob followed by EBM in a bottle before she finally latched back on.

Now all is well with bfing, but I wish I had never given her that bottle at 7 days! I'd wait until 4-6 weeks until you really feel bfing is established.

HTH

Sorry, that should have been 15-30 minutes of screaming at the boob at each feed

and before she finally latched back on 4 days later