Which feed (other than dreamfeed) to try giving bottle to breastfed baby?

[mountainlover]

My DS2 is 11 weeks, and almost entirely breastfed. However, since he was about a week old my husband has been giving him 1 bottle a day, either as a dream feed at about 1030pm, or when he first wakes of his own accord during the night. We've been doing this in the hope of avoiding the problem we had with DS1, who wouldn't take a bottle at all. However, DS2 has now started getting really cross if we try and dream feed him and wont take anything, and sleeps until about 5am even if we don't dream feed. If my husband does a bottle feed at 5am I get very engorged as I end up not feeding between 630pm and about 8am. Pumping before I go to bed yields very little as I'm empty. I'm also concerned that I may ultimately jeopardise supply by going that long between feeds.

So my question is, when else should we try giving as a bottle?

If its during the working day it'll have to be me doing it, and I don't much fancy my chances of getting him to take it. I just can't figure out what to do, but am desperate to be able to give him a bottle as I felt so trapped when DS1 wouldn't

Thanks

It is a long time, but I suspect if you do nothing you'll stop making so much milk overnight. Your supply can easily deal with a 12 hour gap between feeds when your baby sleeps through, not that much of a difference to go 15 hours.

Alternatively I guess you could get up when your dh gives the bottle and pump then (I think this would be crazy though. Mmmmm sleeeeeeep ).

Annecdotaly, ds1 was fine at accepting bottles having had 4 weeks or so of regular bottle feeding when he was first born and then nothing for months, I get that you're anxious to avoid your experience with your ds1, but it seems to me that it's a lot to do with the individual baby rather than any rule about regular exposure whether they accept a bottle or not.

How about a bottle at 6:30 as part of bedtime routine, then you pump when he would have his dream feed, then bf at 5am?

We do this around 6.30pm feed - half of bottle, bath, remainder of bottle. However DD still wants to BF to fully settle. I usually express first thing about 6.30am when I have plenty of supply and she's still snoozing.

We always did the bedtime feed as a bottle. We introduced it about 2 weeks ( the bottle) and even though she only had 2oz by bottle then cluster fed to sleep she was getting used to the bottle. By 6 months she was having 4oz ebm and was able to be put down by daddy after it. Then I stopped expressing so she now has one bottle of formula a day at bedtime which is brilliant as it means I can go out in the evenings again!

Same as Rowan- bedtime feed.
DS1 was breastfed and it was almost impossible move him to a bottle at six months.
DS2 had a bottle (of formula) at bedtime from about 12 weeks, mainly because I was totally wrecked having a toddler around & Dh was away with work a lot. Giving the evening bottle meant he fed quickly so I could tend to DS1 at bedtime.
Contrary to what I was told, it didn't cause nipple confusion and made for a much smoother bedtime routine.

I've been giving a bottle at bedtime, then putting him down - usually with a bit of nursing, then expressing for the next day's bottle as soon as he's asleep.

Thanks everyone, I'll give it a try at the bedtime feed. I hadn't thought of that because of it increasing the time without feeding overnight, but if I express afterwards that solves that problem (d'oh!). DH is home for bedtime a couple of nights a week, so he can give the bottle then and at the weekends and hopefully that'll be often enough. Sleepyhead, you are right, from reading other threads it's more to do with the individual baby whether they take it, I just want to be sure I'm doing as much as I can - particularly given the stubborn genes on both sides of the family!!
Fingers crossed.