best time to introduce expressed milk?

[ALotToTakeIn]

My DD is nearly 3 weeks old and is BFing like a trooper- has gained over a lb since birth! I need to go back to work one day a week from new year so I need her to be happily accepting a bottle of EBM.
When is the best time to start introducing her to it to give us the best chance of success?
Also what breast pumps are good or bad?
Many thanks

I would do it as late as possible tbh as bottles can change the way the jaw develops and cause problems with the way teeth come in and possibly speech problems.

When you do it, it might be better if you leave it with someone else and leave the room/house as with you there the baby might be having none of it.

hth

With DS, the nurses in the neo-natal unit advised us not to try a bottle of EBM until we'd had the breastfeeding established for at least 2-3 weeks.

I know people who've left introducing bottles till just before starting work - when baby was 6 months - and then found the baby wouldn't take the bottle at all. So best not too leave it too late!

I use a Medela swing breastpump, which I think is very good. The neo-natal unit lent me a Ameda one when DS was still in hospital, but I didn't think that was as good as the Medela swing.

Alot fab that bf is going so well. Completely disagree with starlight. I think if you expressed now and gave dd say a bottle or two a week you would create no problems whatsoever. You are obviously not damaging your milk supply as you'd be expressing and always useful for a bf baby to take a bottle incase you were ever too poorly to feed or something. Your bf sounds well established already and I think your dd would cope fine with a day a week of bottles in a couple of months. There's a lot of scaremongering about nipple confusion too which really isn't necessary. My 2 dd's have switched between without question.

My personal experience:

DS1 - given a bottle at 2 weeks, tok it no problem, continued to have one bottle of EBm pretty much daily (my 7pm bath time ritual, hubby able to settle him if he woke!), was always great at taking from bottle

DS2 - because of small age gap and having to look after toddler, din;t get chance to express and give him bottle until about 6 weeks old. Never really took to it and was always a battle to get him to take anything other than breast. Fortunately I didn;t have to go back to work, but meant even leaving him and getting a haircut was stressful.

DD1 - 2 weeks & 5 days old, just had her 3rd bottle and like DS1 she's a natural with breast and bottle.

My sister also held off giving her DD (now 5 months) a bottle and is struggling to leave her.

Might be coincidence, but what seemed to work for me was giving a bottle as soon as breastfeeding is properly established but as early as poss after the 2 week mark - almost before they get too 'used' to just the breast. Thereafter I think it's important to keep regularly offering a bottle, not just when you need to for childcare reasons.

I too was keen to introduce the occasional bottle and not leave it too late, as i'll be returning to work in the new year. The advice i got from a BF counsellor was to leave it 4 weeks as then the milk supply would be more established. Other ladies at my bf group advised to do it before 7 or 8 weeks otherwise the baby may refuse the bottle.

My DD is almost 3 months. We express a bottle most days for dady to give to her. They both love it and she has no probs with teat or boob. BF counsellor advised that we do it at the same time each day, as after 3 months the milk is 'supply on demand' so your body needs to see it as an extra feed. For me, i have to do it before 9am. From 5 weeks I could do enough for a bottle and some for the freezer. Now, I can only express enough for a bottle.

Oh, and my elder child was mix fed and there are no probs with his teeth or speech.

good luck!!

How much do i need for a feed? guess that is one of the advantages of the boob- no worrying about how many ml she has drunk!

We started at three weeks, and it's been plain-sailing here on in. My husband gives our son a bottle of expressed milk every other day, which enables me to go for a run or take a nap. We have the Medela Swing pump, though I opt to express only one side (and get 4oz every time). We use the Playtex drop-in bottles, with the slow flow nipple, as the action most closely replicates breastfeeding.

Whether they refuse a bottle later depends on the baby. I slaved over expressing and sterilizing from week 3 or 4. DD took a bottle until 4mo. She is also a stubborn little thing who refused to be spoonfed. So I don't think starting early or them taking one now guarantees they will still take one when you return to work. Maybe if I had stuck with formula instead of ebm I would be less angry about it!

Talking to another mum last week, I think DD stopped taking the bottle when she lost the reflex which force them to suck when you put a finger against their upper palate. We were talking about dummies and when I tried it DD actually bite me instead of suckle. It sounds plausible because it coincides with the time they start weaning too.

Hi, I was advised to give top us feeds to my DS when he was around 2 weeks old as he was losing weight. We tried giving him EBM in a bottle, which he took no problem, but after doing this over a period of a couple of days he started to be really fussy when BF (I think he found the bottle much easier, perhaps faster etc). I found that really distressing as it felt like I couldn't satisfy him. I do think giving the bottle was the beginning of the end of BF for us. Other people I spoke to at the time said that bottles shouldn't really be introduced until about 6 weeks. Obviously your DC is doing really well with weight gain, so it's a different situation (maybe my son was so hungry that he was relieved to get a bottle into him with little effort!).
I had an Avent manual breastpump and a Medela swing electric, and found the Medela much more effective.

We have given an expressed bottle at night with all our dc (6) since quite soon (days) after birth. Fed them all between 10-12 months

I make sure teat is slow flow to prevent baby favouring the bottles . Good luck with it.

smk84 I think the difference is your DS hasn't really established BF. Like you say he's hungry because he hasn't learned to latch on properly to get a good milk transfer. Some babies probably just like to stuck with one way of feeding. So yours prefered the easy flow of the teat. While the bottle refusers (like my DD) probably hate how the teat flows or feels in their mouth. There are always those are more chilled and aren't fussed where milk comes from.