What do you consider Exclusive Breastfeeding?

[TerrysNo2]

Just curious, is it only breastfeeding from the breast or only drinking breastmilk, but this could be from a bottle.

Just wondering how many people EBF and none of this is expressed / bottle fed? And what that means for your life - how far / long away from baby can you be and how long did this last for?

I want to EBF DD but assuming she will need to take expressed milk from a bottle at some point otherwise I can only leave her for very short times

I consider exclusive BFing to include expressed milk if required. It's more exclusive breast milk than breastfeeding. The risks come with introducing something other than breast milk. While pumped milk is marginally second best to direct-fed milk, it's still number two in the list with formula at number 4 (behind donor milk) according to the WHO.

My DD is 20 weeks and has never taken milk from a bottle. DP tried giving her ebm from a vote when she was about 3 months, so I could meet a friend one evening but she refused it.

I'm not that bothered though, to be fair. Once she's 6 months, I may try giving her ebm from a cup. I have a work Xmas do coming up that I might have to miss but in the grand scheme of things, no big deal.

If you need to give ebm, I think it is recommended to wait 6 weeks.

You should choose the feeding method that works best for you and not worry about whether it would fit an arbitrary description of 'exclusive breastfeeding'.

I use the term 'exclusively breastfed' to refer to a baby who hasn't had formula. The food is coming from the breast, regardless of how it is given, breast, cup or bottle. I know some people use 'exclusively breastfed' to refer to children who are only ever fed at the breast.

I did exclusive breastfeeding with DD3 - she only had a bottle of ebm offered to her at around 4 months but she refused it and waited until I got home from DD1's friend's party. Apart from that I didn't leave her at all for the first 6m (I didn't need to leave her though). She did take a bottle (sort of) when she needed to at 6m when I was in hospital for a week and was tube fed with bronchiolitis on two separate admissions (TF for a few days each time).

DD1 was ebf between 8 weeks and 25 weeks (though had some expressed milk but no formula when I went out on the occasional night out).

DD2 was ebf from birth to 2w then had 40mls of formula which she promptly vomited up then ebf from then to 23 weeks when she helped her self so ther sister's yogurt. She had the occasional ebm bottle (perhaps once or twice) before 6m.

I have met a mum who classified EBF as nothing apart from bm from the breast, no medicines, no vitamins, no vax, no water (not that ebf babies need water), just bm for 6m.

So by that standard I failed miserably .

Realistically, if you feed a slightly older baby (say 3m+) you should hopefully get a couple of hours out with out needing to give a supplementary feed. However all babies are different some will wait patiently until mum comes home and then eat and eat and eat, while others will get cranky and refuse a bottle and yet others will happily take a bottle from the postman if he had one and everything in between.

exclusive BFing to me means that the baby on has breastmilk. it doesn't matter whether that's from the breast directly or in a bottle/cup/spoon etc. just that it only has Bm and no other food or drink (except water)

Gosh, it never occured to me that I wasn't exclusively BF simply because I expressed. I have 4 and have expressed early own and frequently with each. I would still say they were exclusively BF until at least 6mths.

I'm not uptight about how other people choose to feed their babies but IMO EBF is only ever giving breastmilk not only ever giving milk from the breast.

Dd only had bm from the boob until she was 29 weeks.

I didn't find it that binding, managed some time on my own, few nights out, in that time.

thanks for replies, interesting to hear different experiences

damsel I will choose the feeding method that works best for us but I was only curious as to the definition of this term alongside RL experiences.

lovingthecoast I think you did EBF, its the milk not the method - well done. I didn't manage it with DS, introducing some formula at 6 weeks but I did feed him for 19m, this time I would like to try to EBF but will see how it goes.

I was mainly asking because I don't want to give DD a bottle, not yet at least (8 days old!) but I am concerned that if I reach that point where I feel I need to then she won't take it. I understand ppl have more success with bottles if they are introduced early on.

Only bm, regardless of method imo. That said, dd never had milk in any way other than direct from source. EBF to 6.5 months and introduced solids alongside. Stopped bf at 3.4. No bottles or formula at any point. Would still have considered her ebf had I expressed.

I didn't want to leave her for any prolonged period tbh and this was not because of bfing, just wasn't what I wanted to do. We went out for a quick lunch and for a walk or something and left her with my parents for a couple of hours once she was eating solids properly. Didn't leave her overnight until she was nearly 4.

Yes, the early on thing worked best for us. We waited a bit too long with DD1 (our second) and she was not keen so it took a while and we had to wait until she was starving. With the others, I have expressed with 2wks and they take the bottle fine.

Don't feel guilty about mix feeding your first. Things don't always work out as planned. Have a go at EBF this time but if you end up mix feeding again it's not the end of the world and your baby will still be getting the goodness of breastmilk.

You know the great thing about small baby's is that they are very portable, you can take them just about anywhere with you.

With maybe the excption of going for a night out.

We didn't go out so much with DD as I was exculsivly BF and she woudn't take a bottle of EBM. DS on the other hand just got draged out everywhere with DD even for the odd evening meal out. He would also go longer between feed's then DD so I could safly leave him for a couple of hours without worrying but that is totaly baby dependent as I couldn't have done that with DD for a long time.

It wasn't so much about going out for me but by expressing, it meant that a couple of nights a week, DH could do the 2am feed which made a huge difference to me especially this time with 3 other kids to run around after during the day.

I class EBF as 'no formula' too.

DS had 3 x bottles of EBM and apart from that was only fed from the breast until 6 months, when he started solids. Never had formula, still doesn't have cows milk (he's tasted it but didn't like it) at 22 m.o. Only had bm in a cup when he was on a nursing strike at 13 m.o.

To my surprise, I didn't want to leave DS for long anyway (although I did when he was tiny but that wasn't to do with bf, just that no-one but me could get him to sleep).

I've not left him overnight yet. I left him for evenings out from 9 months - he'd probably have been happy being left before then, but we didn't dare risk him not going to sleep for DH (again, a sleep issue rather than a feeding one).