Combined feeding from birth?

[buttonmoon78]

I'm currently pg with #4. Feeding history is:

DC1 - ebf 8 wks, b/ff to 10 wks, ff from 10 wks, various medical reasons
DC2 - ebf 6 months
DC3 - ebf 5 wks, ff from 5 wks, not helped by sinus inf, antibiotics, thrush on nipples and in his mouth

So I'm wanting to ensure that this one has the early milk at the very least. Nothing would please me more than having another experience like dc2 but I don't think it's going to happen. I really struggle to get feeding going in the early days and I still have a life to live and another 3 dcs to care for. Whilst I'd love to, bf is not the most important thing in my life. My children are, all of them.

Has anyone successfully combined breast and bottle from birth and how long did it last? I know that bottle feeding will diminish my own milk so I'm just wondering how long it'd take to reduce to nil if I began with one ff a day after, say, the first week?

With my first, I bf him for 3-4 weeks, then introduced a bottle, as I was going back to work. I gradually upped the bottles so that by 12 weeks, he was on bottles during the day, and I fed him morning and after work hours.
I did this until he was a year old.
I would say that the thing that helped was that I let my milk supply come in before I started replacing feeds. When he was 3 weeks, he only had a tiny bit of formula once a day, I started replacing feeds when he was six weeks. AFAIK, replacing sooner than this is when you have problems with dwindling milk supply, but I guess whether this is a problem or not depends on how important BFing is to you :)

Right - so perhaps leave it a bit longer than a week then.

The thing is I've never been much good at it really. So getting going is hard, and I just don't have the time to sit for hours and hours to feed. Which I know is not ideal but in the grand scheme of things it's a small thing really and the other 3 have been fine. In fact, ironically, it's the one I fed for longest who's ended up with all the asthma, eczema, hayfever etc!

I introduced a bottle at 4 weeks and then mixed fed til 20 weeks. i made a conscious effort to stop feeding around 18 weeks, although I was only doing bed and morning feed by then anyway.

Button - how ph are you? If you really want to bf, you could probably talk to someone in RL to work out what happened before. It may help next time to have some solutions before any problems happen iyswim.

That should be how pg are you?

I've only got one DC so had the luxury of sitting on the sofa feeding her while watching tv and eating biscuits!
But I have heard a few people mention feeding in a sling. If you're concerned about the fact you have other dc to care for maybe you could do this for the first few weeks, then do the combination etc once your supply is established?

I mixed fed both of mine from about 6 days (for different reasons).

With the first I was very strict and restrictive about how muich formula the baby had - basically a bottle at lunchtime and a bottle before bed. I breastfed what felt like constantly the rest of the time! I managed this for 6 months which is the age I was planning to give up bfing anyway.

My 2nd had a tongue tie and I had a toddler to look after as well and I just couldn';t manage to keep on top of the constant bfing. Fed that baby til 4 months when she just started refusing the breast and called it a day. By the end I was only feeding her morning and night with most feeds being given in the day.

My experience (and I am crap at breastfeeding!) was that mixed feeding enabled me to carry on breastfeedng but that for it not to affect my supply I had to work very, very hard indeed, and as such it wasn't something that made my life easier. Probably harder. Still glad I did it though as I doubt mine would have been bf at all after week 1 without it.

I'm 31wks. I know why it didn't work before, but I've never been able to get past that despite having (last time) an ace MW, ace HV and a good bf support network.

Another reason to wring my hands and despair of any decision ever being made!

With my first i BF for the first 7 weeks then introduced one FF bottle a day. Gradually switched BFs for FFs until 6 months when it became totally FF. The only problem that I had was when I dropped BF it took a while for my supply to slow down to match.

With my second I gave his first FF the morning after he was born having listened to him scream with hunger all night. I think we'd have been ok MF actually if I'd had enough time. Trouble was the BF took so long and with another child to look after and get to school (45 min round trip) every day the FF just took over. He does have allergies though so I'd really like to BF no.3 if I can. I still don't know what I can do if it ends up screaming with hunger the way no 2 did though. It didn't happen with no 1 so maybe we'll be ok.