EBF - when to introduce a bottle?

[Loislane78]

LO only 17 days old but planning ahead! We seem to be doing OK with bf; no problems with latch since birth and feeding on demand - every 2-4 hrs depending.

I can express quite quickly so my question is when should I introduce a bottle so my DP can do a feed occasionally and give me a break? I've got a couple of the Tommee Tippee bottles which are supposed to be as close to a nipple as possible.

Any advice/experience welcome :)

When I asked my midwife about this she said that the official guidelines is not to introduce a bottle before 6 weeks however, in her experience, that could be too late for some babies and she had known babies to be more likely to refuse a bottle if left that long. She advised me to introduce the bottle at 4 weeks or so as long as BF is well established. I actually gave DD her first expressed bottle at more like 3 and a half weeks as I had to leave her with DP for a few hours. She took to it just fine. She only has a couple of expressed bottles a week (now 9 weeks) but she switches easily between breast and bottle with no problem.

Have you checked out cup feeding? Not had baby yet but DH has done it in an emergency with quite a few of his DNephews and nieces, says it's not very hard to get the hang of.

Good to know harlett :). Think I'll give it a try maybe next week and see how she gets on. Which bottles did you use?

Also interested to hear advice on this. For instance, how do you know when breast feeding is established??

All I know is that 18-20 week old stubborn madams called DD2 can fall right off the weight chart and still refuse to take a bottle, refuse to drink from a cup and screen if you try a syringe.

OK she might have simply hated formula as I can't express at all, but I suspect she knew it was a slippery slope to less mummy and she wasn't having that.

We did it with both at between 3 and 4 weeks and both took to it without any trouble (though did make sure the first few times that I was out of the house). Definitely recommend you get your DH to do it - baby is highly unlikely to want to take a bottle from you! It's worth doing just a couple of times a week just to keep them used to a bottle on occasion.

Oh, and we also used to the Closer To Nature ones with the anti-colic valve.

The bottles I used were bog standard Avent ones that a friend gave me. She's happily taken from a variety of bottles and teats now greedy little madam isn't fussy how she gets her milk