Quick expressing question - which feed to substitute?

[DMCWelshCakes]

Is there a best feed to start replacing with a bottle of expressed milk?

DH has offered to do one of the night feeds so I can get some sleep but I'm not sure which feed he should do.

DiddyCakes is fed on demand so there's no real pattern to follow, but MW told me I should make sure I do the 10.00pm-ish feed and the 6.00am-ish feed to maintain supply. This means DH getting up at ungodly o'clock which is making it difficult for him to deal with DiddyDragon & get to work on time as he's knackered.

It would be better for both of us if he did the last feed of the evening but I'm not sure if this is going against good advice.

Anyone got any advice/experience on this?

How old is your LO?

5 weeks.

I wasn't going to express this early but was told at BF clinic that it would be better to express than carry on running myself into the ground (high risk of existing MH issue returning which would make life very hard for all 4 of us).

If he did the 10pm feed, when would you express and when would you go to bed? And what other feeds would you expect to do that night?

Are you co-sleeping or feeding in bed any of the time? This saved my sanity and I think that's common amongst successful breastfeeders. We never co-slept full-time but I read up on how to do it safely, got set up - grobags, bed guard, etc - and that meant that if DD was up a lot at night and I got exhausted, I could bring her into bed for the 4am or whatever feed and get some sleep whilst feeding her. I still sometimes do this after the first morning feed if I'm tired. I've found too that she often sleeps for longer in our bed, so I can get 2-3 hours with her next to me, rather than struggling to get her to back down in her cot for 45 minutes!

I express in the morning as I have lots of milk then & keep the bottle in the fridge. I'd be going to bed about now, sleeping & then doing the rest of the night feeds. DH keeps DiddyCakes downstairs with him until the late feed so that I get some uninterrupted rest.

I've tried feeding in bed, but a combination of tiny DS, enormous norks & overenthusiastic letdown have meant that all we've managed so far is a gnashed nipple, grumpy unfed baby & soaking bed. I'm going to keep trying & hope it improves as he gets bigger.

I also bring DiddyCakes into bed with me (grobag etc) after DH & DiddyDragon have left in the morning. It's not safe before then as DiddyDragon has a habit of jumping onto the bed with no warning in the mornings.

Practice feeding lying down during the day when you're less tired. It takes a while to get the hang of it.

If you're doing lots of night feeds, I don't think missing the 10pm feed would make much difference tbh.

Hi,

I am no expert (first time mum!) But this is exactly what we used to do (but we started at 2 weeks as I was so exhausted!). I would express a bottle in the morning when I had most milk and store this in the fridge. I would then go to bad at 8pm, leaving DS downastairs with DH and he would feed the bottle of milk whenever DS needed it. he would then Bring DS up to bed with him and I would take over and do the rest of the night. This worked brilliantly for us as I knew that I would at least get the 4 hours of uninterrupted rest.

When DS stopped wantng a 10pm feed (2mnths ish) what we did then was I would still do night feeds but DHwould get up at ablout 5.30am feed, give expressed milk then, so that I got my uninterrupted sleep on the morning.

Good luck with it, I do think its important for mums to have some uninterrupted rest