How do I (comfortably) drop my 10:30pm feed?

[OlivesIncubator]

Hi All,
I am exclusively breastfeeding my 9 week old DD and a couple of nights ago I gave her a bottle of formula for her 10:30 feed as I wanted to be able to leave her with my husband for me to have an evening out. I thought it would be an idea to make sure she would take a bottle from him if necessary.
She was absolutely fine with the bottle. I on the other hand, was in agony for the entire night. I only have a manual pump which I am not confident at using, so if I am ever feeling engorged I hand express, but can only manage to get out enough to be comfortable, not anywhere near what my baby would get out.
I spent the entire night painfully full and leaking and ended up frequently waking my baby to try and relieve the pressure.
Now if I will ever get to the point, I would like some advice on how I can drop this feed from the breast without getting super engorged and am I risking making my milk dry up?
Any advice would be appreciated.
Thanks.

Do you want to drop the feed to replace it with formula or are you thinking about when your DD might not wake to feed at this time?

I would like to replace the feed with formula for now.

Did the MWs teach you to hand express? If not then this is a great teaching tool.

If you want to drop this feed then hand expressing to comfort (i.e. not full to bursting or painful) rather than expressing to empty (the more milk you remove the more your body makes) is best though you may need to 'take the top off' a few times a night to start with before your supply starts to decrease in line with it's new requirements.

The only caution is if you then go a long time without feeding that might have a negative impact on supply but it's not something that can be predicted via internet.

Have you seen this article on bottle feeding? It's full of good information on how to bottle feed a baby (esp. bf ones).

Thanks Truth. Great article. DH doesn't know it yet, but he has some after dinner reading lined up. ;)

Ha ha lucky DH.

Hope all goes well tonight.

Great article Truthsweet. Wish I'd seen that a few moths ago.

We started giving DD a bottle of formula at 8 weeks, which got me extra sleep and kept me sane. However I exPerienced problems with BFing further down the line, which might have been related. One thing I'd watch for is not giving too much at that feed, hoping to get through the night. We gave DD more and more at the dream feed, not realising she was using it to fill up as my supply reduced.

Good luck!