I want to mix feed from day 1...

[Mrsdp123]

Can anyone give me any tips or hints. For a number of reasons I only breastfed my first child for 3 days before bottle feeding which I was completely fine with. I am thinking about possibly breastfeeding this one but don't want to solely breast feed because I don't want to express and the thought of doing it all just makes me tired (!) plus I liked that others could bottle feed and you knew how much they were getting etc etc.
I have heard various stories about supply and demand, teat confusion etc - just wondered if anyone had any hints. Am thinking about bottle feeding for the 11pm and night feed....

I had to mix feed for the first two weeks when DS was born. No specific advice but just to say DS was totally fine with it. I switched to exclusively BF with no issues and he now takes expressed milk easily from a bottle at 24 weeks. I reckon it'll be fine.

I think Kellymom website has some advice on mixed feeding. You will need to be careful as the night feeds are always said to be the most important ones for keeping supply going. I had to express a lot and the night expresses were the most important ones in terms of maintaining supply.

If you can cosleep the night feeds are actually much easier done as breastfeeds, especially if you can learn to feed lying down. You can sleep through the feed.

There are easy ways of working out how much they're getting when you're breastfeeding without seeing it in bottles: www.kellymom.com/bf/supply/enough-milk.html

Many people find that the evening and night feeds are the easiest to breastfeed because you can just do them lying down :) They're also important for your milk supply, especially in the early days.

It might be worth considering exclusively breastfeeding for the first 6 weeks or so to get things settled down (don't bother with expressing) then if you want a break and you don't want to or can't express, start trying a bit of formula then at the times that you want someone else to be able to feed. You're more likely then to have BFing settled and be less prone to nipple confusion. Suckling from an artifical teat is different to a breast, so to ensure that your baby learns the breastfeeding technique (which takes more practise than bottle feeding) it's best to avoid teats for the first few weeks.

When you feed from a bottle, use the smallest size hole teat you can so that the flow isn't too fast as babies can get used to the easier and faster flow of bottled-fed milk and get frustrated at the breast.

Good luck with whatever you choose. Any breastmilk will make a difference to your baby's health as well as yours :)

reasons to be proud of whatever breastmilk you feed