undecided... introducing 1 bottle of formula a day at 6m

[nannyl]

OK.... can i just run this past people who understand
(sorry its long)

I was / am absolutely determined to EBF DD for the first 6m.... nothing was going to stop me, and nothing has, but i have really found it an up-hill struggle, and have made it 1 month at a time, through various BFing hurdles (with lots of help / support / encouragement from here )

OH gave her 1 bottle of expressed milk at bedtime from about 5 weeks old (when i just couldnt cope with feeding all evening, most of the day and most of the night anymore, and i expressed this feed.

I expressed religiously 3 times a day for 3.5 months (which by the end i HATED with a passion) and as her sleeping was still rubbish, and my 3 expression sessions a day were now not making enough for 1 bottle, and i realised even with my freezer stocks, i would not make it expressing til 6months, I went back to BFing her to sleep. (sleep improved within days)

Quite early on i made the decision that when she was 6m she could have a bed time bottle of formula, and in all honesty i have been counting down the months / weeks / days left since she was about 2months old!

OH always liked doing the bed time feed (whole bath / bed routine) and I liked to have a bit of peace / my time / cook nice dinner etc for an hour or so while he got on with it.

Now DD is 11 days off being 6m....

and I am terribly upset about the idea of giving her formula (which i have been looking at longingly in the cupboard since January, counting down the days etc!)

OH says he doesnt mind me continuing to BF her to sleep.... BUT I know he really liked it and is saying what i want to hear, and early on her always said he wanted to do 1 feed a day. (we stopped due to me not being able to express enough, so he was happy with that, plan being just for a few weeks when he could do a bottle of formula)

Also there are a couple of things I want to do, which start at 7pm so I cant get to if i am BFing her, but can if OH feeds her.
(I really want to go to Zumba with some of my mummy friends, and since Jan I have been saying once she's 6m I can come along.... I WANT to go)

I know i can continue BFing her at bedtime as I do now
I DO want my evenings back.....
I KNOW OH deep down would love to give her that bottle but will not pressure me and will go along with what I decide

BUT for some silly reason i am suddenly having real issue with giving her formula.... which is so silly as i have been counting down since about November!!!

Shall OH give her that 1 feed a day formula as planned?
1 formula bottle a day wont hurt her will it? Ok i know it wont, but im worrying.

As I will still BF all her other feeds she will still have BM for as long as she wants / needs it.

What would anyone here do?

I've had it injected into me for excessive vomiting when I had pancreatitis at least twice if not more (had pancreatitis 4 times in 2010!). I had it checked with Wendy Jones at the BfN's helpline as after the Drs had given it to me they suddenly said I could't bf with it . Turns out it was fine - I think they thought that as I had initially been to ill to bf DD3 while in A&E I would just stop bfing as she had taken a bottle of formula okay.

I found that I had/have slowly dropping milk supply until 14w when it stops altogether (not yet stopped any of the 3 DDs from bfing when there was no milk) so even if you are dehydrated it may not matter so much to your DD how much milk there is, if she is still able to nurse she may well continue to 'dry' nurse. Of course not every woman dries up during pg, some do, some have a dip, some don't notice any difference. Mine go mad when the colostrum comes in though which is pleasant on the nappy/potty front!

yes of course, we were talking about that a few months ago, remember Truthsweet? About whether nursing would reduce HG symptoms? It's certainly known to reduce the chance of "regular" morning sickness but I've not been able to find any research into whether it might help HG. I feel like a moron for not thinking about this when you mentinoed HG coz I'm pregnant and BFing my toddler, and didn't even know I was pregnant for 3 months as I had no symptoms (and must have caught on my first ovulation as my periods hadn't started), which is when I discovered the fact that BFing can squash pregnancy symptoms, including MS.

I had pretty bad nausea/ms with DD1, just nausea no sickness with DD2 (was bfing DD1 while pg), not really any ms or pg symptoms with DD3 (was bfing DD1 & DD2) and DC4 - well aside from the aversion to any other drink apart from fizzy orange - no sickness/nausea/pg symptoms at all and if I hadn't have tested and had 2 scans there is no way I would believe I was pg, no way at all (apart from the sore hips )

Hi nannyl Congratulations on ebf to six months, I know, like me, that is something you have wanted and worked hard to achieve ;) I am in the exact same position as you now and funnily enough was just feeding DS to sleep thinking the exact same thing! I started weaning him last week and he is really enjoying food (pear in particular!) I am already pumping for England to give him enough milk to send to nursery and would really like some time and a little bit of me time back, but I feel so guilty for thinking that and I'm totally torn as to what to do! I'm going to have another good read of all of these posts! PM me if you like - perhaps we can be of help to each other :)

it sounds like the 6 month deadline that you set yourself is putting you under loads of pressure! Especially since you promised friends you would go out in the evenings, DH that he would give the bottle, etc ... and now it feels like you have to follow through on your promise?

This is exactly how I feel, in fact I am going out next weekend for my birthday and have been saying for months how this will be the first time I can go out and have a few too many drinks! I still haven't told most of my friends that I'm still BF, so will only be having a couple of drinks at the most. I wish now I hadn't created a self imposed deadline!

Oh go for it! I was in a very similar position with DD at 6 months - was struggling to express anything and hoping to take an exercise class (oh ok, a poledancing class maybe )

I did the same hand wringing and worrying as you but then decided that since she could now eat yoghurt and so forth, one bottle of formula milk was presumably not so terribly different. I just counted it as part of her 'food' intake for the day.

Bebebelge I second organiccarrotcake here. This discussion is not about condemning mothers who gave formula to their babies. Please don't get cross. Nannyl struggled to ebf for 6 months. If it was anything like my first, it progressively puts you in a very specific frame of mind where you don't want to let go because you've gone through so much already.

Nannyl, you have indeed done very well to continue EBF up to the 6-months mark. Huge pat in the back .
There are 3 important people in this equation, you, your partner and your baby. Your friends will survive if you miss a few zumba sessions, no doubt .
In terms of the timescale, I would suggest this is probably determined by your baby: is she interested in food at all?
In terms of how you manage your evenings and carve out some free time/ me time, I would suggest you go with what feels right for you, considering your partner is supportive.
If you feel sad at the idea of not doing the bedtime feed, then don't drop it as a rule. It will maintain your milk supply. When you want to go out, I like hazchem's suggestion. You can also do a dream feed when you get back.

organiccarrotcake I am fully aware of the difference between breastmilk and formula. I am not disputing that BM is best at all. But the OP is talking about ONE bottle of formula a day (maybe not even every day) and she actually said herself "1 formula bottle a day wont hurt her will it?". It's her hysterical attitide to formula that makes me cross as it could so easiy really offend someone who has no choice in the matter (and I'm not referring to me here, just generally I wouldn't want anyone to feel bad about their feeding choices -OP included!)

Bebe please take care with labels like 'hysterical' ... that's really insulting to the OP.

Of course you're right that some people have no choice but to give formula. But we're all entitled to our feelings, and the OP is talking about her own baby, not making judgements about what other people should do.

Let's not have another breast v formula thread, mums have a hard enough time without this extra aggro ...

Bebe .... some people cant see; does that mean no one should discuss which views to look at?
Some people cant hear, so should we not discuss music / the birds singing because they might be upset?

A few people cant breast feed.... but I CAN and in the same way i wouldnt expect a blind person to be upset about me being able to see, I wouldnt expect a person who couldnt breast feed, to be some-how offended that i can.

Lets face it im a female mammal, and almost all female mammals can provide milk for their babies. I cant see why it is offensive?