Introducing a bottle when bf

[Ameybee]

Just wanted a bit of advice really. My 5 week old Is doing brilliantly with bf but I would really like to introduce one bottle a day so my husband can do an evening feed. Ideally this would be expressed milk but given i have a 3 year old aswell my time for expressing is limited. I'm nervous about giving formula tho. Don't want to leave it too long as I've heard between 4-6 weeks is best time to introduce one. Think I'm apprehensive incase he prefers it too! Any advice welcome!! Ps my first went exclusively onto formula at 8 weeks happily as was losing weight because I was poorly and couldn't keep up with feeding. Thanks!

I had to introduce a bottle to ensure ds would take it once I returned to work (I had to go back at 12 weeks). I introduced it when he was around 4 weeks old. And then just made sure I gave him a bottle every couple of days, so he didn't 'forget' how to use it. He didn't seem to have any problems switching between. You may find it easier if you don't give them the bottle, and if necessary go into another room so they don't know you're potentially available! If you're planning on doing a bottle a day, and carrying on for a while maybe consider a (double?) electric pump, then you can express in about 10 mins. You could express at the same time as your husband does the bottle, as your body will have enough milk because you'll be used to feeding at that time. Otherwise express after 1st morning feed as you'll probably have most milk then. You might not get much the first time but if you expressed the same time each day your supply would adjust.

Good luck!

My EBF LO is 11 days old & we introduced a bottle yesterday as my friends have told me a number of bottle-refusing horror stories after waiting until 6 weeks+ as the NHS advises. We didn't think it would work first time but it did, although it wasn't a full feed (I'm still learning on the expressing front) so I topped him up with the boob afterwards.

On the advice of the feeding adviser in hospital we got Medela calma bottles as they're supposed to be most like breastfeeding to avoid baby preferring bottles. Also got a Medela swing pump but I don't suppose that matters. I pumped once in the morning the day before & yesterday and my DH gave the bottle so LO wouldn't smell my boobs & refuse the bottle.

He needed to do the 'big mouth' latch on thing like the boob which I think helped. DH said he looked confused on sucking the teat but LO carried on manfully, bless him!

We're going to keep trying with me expressing once a day & DH giving a bottle each evening for a few days & then see if he'll take a bottle from me too.

After that, hopefully give a bottle every day or other day to keep him on the habit (as per the poster above) for any times I might need to leave him longer than feed breaks allow - I'm not going back to work until next year so I'm thinking of trivial things like getting my highlights done or going for a meal with girlfriends but no babies etc.

Best of luck OP

We introduced a bottle at 12 weeks as there were endless problems before then. DS took to it no problem.

I found this info really useful when decided what to do.

DH did a regular feed for while & then DS dropped it. He will still take a bottle even if he's not had one for a month or so

Thanks for all the advice! Funnily enough I bought one of those medela calma bottles today before I saw the replies! They look good. I have got a double medela breast pump so might give double pumping a go. I also want to be able to get my hair done etc but most of all I want to take my 3 year old swimming n just give her some one on one mummy time that she really needs. Xx