how much expressed milk to bottlefeed?

[spotofcheerfulness]

i have made the decision to feed my newborn my expressed milk in a bottle and wondered if there are any guideline amounts for the volume to give. i am feeding on demand but am sure have overfed him a few times when i've misread his cues and he's sicked the whole lot up.

i know the guidelines for formula quantities but as bm has a different consistency i guess the amounts would either need to be more - or more often.

i know it;s not possible to overfeed a bf baby, but assume that doesn't work if the milk is distributed by a bottle?

Bump plus, as I'd welcome some more expert advice myself!

The guidline amounts seem to be 19-30 oz in 24 hours, with 25 being the average. This works out at about 3 oz per feed assuming 8 feeds a day.

Yes, you can overfeed a BF baby if s/he is taking BM exclusively from a bottle. With the breast, s/he is fully in charge of sucking and how much s/he takes in.

I'm sure I've read somewhere on MN to have 1.5oz per hour available, but that may be anecdotal.

I'd never be able to express that much myself though! It takes me half an hour to get 5oz, and only if DD feeds at the same time. Good luck - you're a braver woman than me to try it.

25oz a day is average for a baby 1 month-6 months old - I think generally they take less than formula fed babies.

If you're exclusively bottle feeding then I'd introduce a dummy so the baby can comfort suck without feeding. Babies need to suck a lot!

If I express after 3 hours, I can get out about 2 to 2.5 oz per breast, though less in the afternoons. When I'm breastfeeding, DS is much more efficient than the pump at getting the milk out, so I suspect he's getting at least 3 oz per breast. He's still on 8 feeds at 6 months, so the 25-30 oz thing makes sense to me.

thanks! i guess would be a bit lower for newborns? ds2 is 1 wk old...

dancing i think it is a bit mad but have double electric pump and will give it best shot!

I normally allow about 6oz for a feed but DD only has expressed milk if I'm out for the afternoon, she's never had more than 3 expressed feeds in a day. Nobody has ever told me whether or not that's enough/too much but I used the same amounts for DS aswell.
Can i be cheeky and ask why you're bottle feeding expressed milk?

you can - basically had a nightmare feeding ds1, developed pnd and stopped at 8 weeks before my sanity and relationship completely broke down.

wanted to try again this time, had a week of no more than 2 hrs sleep (broken) in 24 hours, my toddler who is already missing me seeing me in tears the whole time, snd my frustration at this gorgeous baby increasing.

went to a bf counsellor yesterday, told her the situation, admitted i was ready to give up and she suggested this compromise. i realise it's slightly the worst of both worlds (more faff than straight ff and none of the convenience of bf) but figure that some bm must be better than none...

I'd probably offer 1 or 2 oz every couple of hours - you can always offer more if necessary.

If you can find an american forum, exclusive pumping is much more common over there. I'm not saying mumsnet isn't great :) it's just you might be more likely to find someone else who has done it. Off the top of my head I know of mothering.com and ivillage.com, but no idea what either is like.

Also - pumping section on kellymom

(It's worth noting btw that in the US they tend to split the distinction between breastfeeding and formula feeding differently - bottlefeeding expressed milk comes under the label of breastfeeding, rather than bottlefeeding as you might find here)

HTH :)

thank you

Fair play to you for trying again, I hope you find a way of making it work.

There was a woman at a Breastfeeding group who did something similar when I was going with DS but her DS was older and had started refusing the breast when she started back at work. I remember her saying one day that she had expressed 27oz in one day!

Can your HV or BF counselor help out with an electric pump at all?

Your name is so apt. I have so much respect for you dedicating all this effort to your newbie with a toddler in the house. I really hope everything goes well for you all.

That is very kind . I have to admit to being a far cry from cheerful of late but hope my spirits will return soon. I already feel a weight has been lifted from my shoulders after admitting yesterday that it just wasn't working so will try and stay positive as I attach myself to my milking machine throughout the night. The fancy schmancy hired one arrived today, and it is very good and quiet, but I look an absolute sight attached to it!

spotofcheerfulness - I have a 13 week old and exclusively express rather than directly BF. I think it's brilliant and don't understand why more people don't do it.

I know the baby can get out more than a pump can, but I'm happy with my litre a day and that is enough for my DS four or five days out of seven - if he wants more than that I give him up to one carton of formula.

In answer to your question, I took the simple approach of offering DS as much as I was making in the very early newborn days,and adjusted my frequency of expressing (minimum 6 maximum 8 sessions a day) depending on how fast he was getting through the bottles. Have tried to do it so that there was always a feed "in hand" in the fridge.

He is a hungry little beggar and I was starting to panic that I would never keep up with demand, but it levelled out at about a litre by week 5-6 I think. For context so you can relate it to your own baby, mine is 91st centile for weight and 98th for length. This is about right considering mine and DH's size and the HVs, GPs etc are very happy with him. He has maintained that line faithfully without going above or below by more than 0.1kg.

Yes, we overfed too to begin with and he was occasionally sick. But I was so paranoid about wasting my hard-won EBM that we got better at recognising the cues and always used the slowest flow teat. When they slow right down and the sucking looks more dreamy than productive, eyes start to close etc, remove the bottle. If they start hollering it means you've taken it away too soon!

I started doing it partly because I am the sort of person that needs to see how much is going in. Although our latch was fine DS is very very impatient and as letdown was taking more than a few seconds, or if the milk didn't come out fast enough then he would scream like crazy, pull off, flail wildly and then feeding him was almost impossible. He would get into such a state he would take in a load of wind and it would cause him pain and make him sick. Couldn't bear it, not patient enough to power through it, simply could not deal with the idea of him being hungry or being glued to him 18 hours a day while he snacked.

Benefits FOR ME/US (deliberate capitals) have been

• fast and efficient. The more you express the better your body gets at it IMHO. It has just taken me 20mins to get 200ml (at 12.30am) I will do it again at 6am and get the same. 30mins all in including sterilising pump (Philips Avent and Tommee Tippee steam steriliser). You may be even faster than that with a double pump. I dropped the 3am pumping session at 8 weeks and gradually moved it back and back to give myself five hours sleep in a row (apart from when I'm on MN at stupid o'clock typing this
• I know each breast gets drained enough each time so DS gets the fattier/creamy milk as well as the thirst-quenching foremilk. Nice orange poos to prove it.
• I know he's getting enough
• Never had mastitis, blocked ducts, or pain of having a massive hungry baby hanging off me all day
• I get stuff done between feeds, not chained to the sofa. I still have a life! I can play with him/put him down for a sleep knowing that he's not distracted because he's always slightly hungry
• Feel good that I'm still giving him breastmilk. That's the most important thing, more so than the method of delivery
• Has not affected bonding, we make loads of eye contact while feeding
• DH and others can share the feeding. While DS is occupied by this/sleeping I can pump again.

I honestly think it is the best of both worlds (breast and bottle) rather than an inferior compromise.

Feel free to PM me if you have any questions.

Heck, this has been really cathartic!

Last word, then I really am going to bed. In the first couple of weeks it did seem like it was double the work, 30mins to pump etc then another 30mins to feed. But I split the feeds with DH so I get time to myself (sorry if I am incorrectly assuming you have a partner). DS is also a super-fast eater which helps. A 150ml feed only takes 10mins.

Also we are hard-arses and after the first couple of weeks for DS to get used to being in the world we refused to allow snacks of 20ml/40ml here and there. He wasn't really hungry, so we would do other stuff (distract, cuddle etc) until he would take a sensible amount at each feed to tide him over at least a couple of hours.

Clarification: "A 150ml feed only takes 10mins." Well, it does now he's older. When he was very little it used to be half an hour.

Any more suggestions from the exclusive pumping experts on exactly how much per day? We've now got through our first week of nursery and it's still slightly unclear whether baby is getting enough or too much.