maybe i will not get answers to these but even some feedback will be appreciated.
i have a 3 month old, she is ebf during the day, then at night gets half a bottle at 8 and the other half about 11, of thickened formula. this was introduced when she was 2 weeks as i had bad mastitis and couldn't feed off one side, was very tired, and she had bad reflux. this has been working very well for us.
next week i have to put her into nursery otherwise we will lose our place. i wish she was older but we have no choice. i can leave her just for 2-3 hours.
i have tried expressing milk loads of times and its no good. pumps don't work, i can manually express but not anywhere near enough for a bottle.
questions
1 do you think if i gave her a bottle to nursery with her and then fed her myself in the evening this would keep my milk supply the same, and also would it interfere with her sleeping routines etc? i would only be doing nursery twice a week so it would be different routine for her everyday if i did that, unless i switched to giving her the formula during the day every day, but that defeats the purpose of her getting at night to help me rest and her sleep through the night
2 the other option is to bf her, and just leave her for 2 hours which means it won't really be a break for me, ill be rushing back to feed her. she is 3 months, sometimes she can go longer than 2 hours, but other times she feeds after an hour and a half....would it be a bad thing to make her wait for 2 hours twice a week?
3 the last 2 weeks baby has been cluster feeding at night. she used to feed around every 2 hours. now from about 4pm she will feed almost constantly till she gets her bottle, and is a bit more fussy also. i heard that this is normal...i just am looking for reassurance i guess. she has been carted around a lot and out of routine a lot over the holidays so that might have made her want to comfort feed more. but in general, when babies grow, do they feed more often like this to get more milk as they are hungrier? as i thought they were supposed to feed less often (as their stomachs are now bigger) please inform me!
my hubby is worried that she is getting enough, he has been hinting now and again but when he mentions it i get upset so he just hints. like today he asked me to read the formula bottle to see how many bottles a 3m old should be taking a day and it said 4-5 and he just said hmmm. he does not think she is getting enough bf. the hv has not had any concerns with her weight, she says she is doing well. his comments are making me lose confidence, as to be honest i don't think my boobs CAN make that much milk as i don't see it and i can't imagine it being that much as 4-5 bottles.
anyway, sorry for long post, thanks for reading and any feedback would be so great