Weight loss after giving up breastfeeding

[Midbat]

I have a 8 week old who until very recently has been exclusively breast fed. Have had my normal share of issues with this, wind, reflux, fast flow etc.But my baby was thriving so much and piling on the pounds so that 'satisfaction factor' was well worth all the long nights ..... However, I have also had 2 nasty cases of infective mastitis (the last one resulting in 3 different types of antibiotics and awful, awful C.Diff....)I have familirised myself with all the tips for not getting mastitis (after the first episode) but seem to be prone due to having a large baby (10lbs + at birth) and big milk supply. After being so very ill last time with C.Diff i took the VERY hard decision to give up the BF.
That was 5 days ago. I have felt 'in my bones' that LO was not taking enough formula (about 4oz max, 3 hourly) so I have just weighed him at a midwife friend of mine's house. Has dropped from 91st centile to 75th.
Would like some advice as to whether this is normal? I don't feel able to ask HV as I know I will get a gentle berating for having weighed him 'so soon', but I knew in my gut it was insufficient feeding so i don't see the value in waiting another few weeks for the weight loss to get worse.
I am beginning to feel I have made a terrible decision and am plagued with guilt so, so much that I am thinking I should just start the BF again and keep everything crossed that the mastitis doesn't come back. Any advice?
P.s. have tried feeding more frequently and in his sleep etc but anything that he doesn't want just makes a swift reappearance...
Cor, that was a long post - apologies!

Hi, i've found in general that my LO doesn't drink as much milk from the bottle as she does from the breast so the weight loss could be down to that. However to drop one centile isn't worrying so you shouldn't get too stressed out about it. Just takes a bit of time to get used to the bottle.Have you tried changing the formula that you are using as maybe too thick in comparison and reason for less of a feed. my LO hated SMA and Cow and Gate but has taken quite well to Hipp Organic as it seems to be thinner.

Hope that helps a little

He may just be finding his 'natural' growth line to follow- it doesn't sound like he's dropped much and the scales might not be that accurate either.

It sounds like you had a really tough time with the bouts of mastitis and I can understand you'd be worried about getting it again if you went back to bfing.

It's entirely possible to go back to it though if that's what you want to do. You could talk things through with one of the helplines - they'd be able to give you advice about the mastitis too.