How few feeds can I get away with?

[FlightofFancy]

DS is 11 months, and now at nursery during the day. So he's only BF at 7am, 7pm and during the night. He has a bottle at 3pm ish and 11pm ish (obviously, one at nursery, and other one has been a bottle since 6 months so I can sometimes get an early night). I'm a bit concerned that sometimes I'm dropping too many feeds to keep the BF going.

He's not a great sleeper, and is a hungry boy, so Sun-Thurs nights I'm doing one, sometimes two, feeds between 11pm-7am.

Now, occasionally my DH is doing nursery pick up and I'm not home from work for the 7pm feed. And at the weekend he does a night feed. Both of these are bottles.

So, sometimes I can only be doing one feed a day - is that enough to maintain any kind of supply, or does it not matter as much at this stage? I haven't got time or energy to express - sorry, but just can't add that to my 100 point list of things to do.

Basically, I really want to be able to do the night feeds and early morning as BF, as can't face dealing with making bottles but don't want to end up with very hungry baby and even worse sleep because I've got rubbish supply.

Little bump - sorry, probably not very important, but it is to me!

I think you should be fine but my understanding is that this can vary from woman to woman, so if you've had dodgy supply (why do you say that??) it might be different. I have been doing 1/2/3 feeds a day depending on what's going on since DS was 13 months.

He seems satisfied with what's there (even though I sometimes doubt that there IS anything there if he surprises me and asks for a feed he doesn't usually have, iyswim).

Sorry, sleep-deprived punctuation - even I couldn't work out what I meant!

No problems with supply to date, just the fear of future issues leading to sleep/cross baby problems! (and boy does he do cross when he's hungry...)

I think this depends on both the woman and the baby.

I went back to work when DS2 6 month old, tried to maintain 3 feeds a day but he quickly lost interest as the bottle was easier and my supply quickly dwindled. I managed to keep it going for 6 weeks after going back to work.

Some babies happy to suck if there isn't much there - which helps with supply, others not really prepared to.

My nephew (16 months) on the other hand still feeding even though SIL is back at work 5 days a week full time. He feeds morning, evening and during the night and it seems constantly at the weekend. SIL wonders if there is anything there esp during the day at weekend but he doesn't seem to mind.

From what I can gather, after a year or so your supply will be fairly robust.

From DS was one to 18 months, he had two bfs a day, and from 18 months to two years just one, at bedtime.
I didn't get that full, engorged feeling any more but he was definitely getting the milk he wanted.
Hope it works for you.

Thanks all - seems to be working so far, so will play it by ear. Won't be the end of the world if we stop now so I'll take the risk!