Changing from bf to ff as fast as possible without boobs exploding

[ComradeJing]

For various reasons (partly my wishes, partly need) I'll be going from bf to ff when DD is 6 months. Wgat is the fastest way to do it without being in agony or causing too much damage/mastitis risk?

Ideally I'll start to switch on the 11th of July and need to be stopped as much as possible by the 25th when I'll be away from DD for over 36 hours (she'll be with DH) and I wont be able to express. I cant start the switch before the 11th as we'll be travelling. I can still do some BF after the 25th if need be but as I said, I'm ready to switch now!

You've got two weeks, that should be alright. Usually the advice is to drop one feeding at a time - if you feed 7 times a day, drop 1 every two days, if you feed 4 times a day drop 1 every 3. Start with the one least important to you and your child - for me that would have been mid-afternoon after lunch because my supply was greater in the mornings and she was easier to distract in the afternoons.

Don't offer feeds, wait till she asks, that will give you an idea of which ones you can do without, and when.

Also has she taken a bottle before? If not you might want to start introducing that earlier to get her used to it. I found no trouble with daytime bottles but mine was really resistant to anything but me at night, so when we night weaned (quite a bit older, though, so it might be very different with a 6 mo old), DH did the wakeups for a while to get her used to it.

AFAIK the advice is to drop 1 feed a week to try to avoid engorgement.

You could try subbing in a FF for a BF and then express for comfort.

Do you know if she takes a bottle and tolerate formula okay?

Thanks for your replies. At the moment we're feeding every 3 hours in the day which roughly equals 6 feeds a day (but more like 7 in reality) but I'm going to start to push her out to every 3 and a half to 4 fours now as she isn't really hungry at 3 hours. I've only been on a routine as her sleep has been so bad I've needed some kind of routine to get her vaguely sleeping.

Tortoise that's good advice about waiting til she asks to feed. I'll try that over the next few weeks.

She is quite happy on a bottle and quite happy with formula thank god.