car journey feeding

[TheABC]

Hi all.

I have a 7 week old ebf DS who generally sleeps through most car journeys. However, going down to Cornwall at the weekend, he turned a 3 hour journey into 6 hours due to long feeding stops at service stations. We are keen to avoid this next week, when we go home. I am thinking about expressing a bottle of emergency breast milk for use in the car. We have not used bottles before (may do a trial run this week), so any tips or advice will be welcome.

My 6 week DD happily takes a bottle of expressed so as long as you have a practice run and some way of warming the bottle you should be fine. If your DC is as windy as mine though that could be a problem. The position of the car seat means there is no way I could feed my DD while strapped in one, she would be screaming with wind.

Good point, Xavier. I had not considered the wind. Mine is not so bad now, but we are still on the infacol with most feeds. Heating the milk on the go is also a problem. A thermos flask half filled with hot water? Or is there somewhere at a motorway station you can warm it? Although if we have to stop, I may as well whip the boob out!

You might not need to warm it - my DS always had expressed milk straight from the fridge.

We found that the best way to avoid feeding stops when Dd was little was to do the journey on an evening (We frequently did a 4 hour drive for weekends with family). We would go through the usual bedtime routine a little earlier than usual but then put her into the car seat and drive while she slept. I'd do a feed on arrival then put her down in her cot for the night.

We did try to do it in the daytime once and swore never again, I've never spent so much time at services!!

We just did a long car journey yesterday during which I twice fed 7 week old dd a bottle of BM whilst sitting in the back next to her. I didn't warm it (room temp only) and wind wasn't a problem - she is pretty good at getting her wind up anyway and the angle of the car seat meant she was able to quite easily. I did put one hand under her to lift her back up and therefore tip her head back slightly which seemed to help. .

Thanks, everyone!

Won't you want to stop anyway to give them a break from the car seat. I thought they should only have max 2hrs at a time in one at that age?

Would you not worry about choking if you bottle feed in the seat?

How do you manage that with your ds in his carseat, MoreSnowPlease? You must be very bendy!

We will still have stops (there's a limit to how long we can drive, but I don't want to stop at every single service station). The bottle really is an emergency only thing - and I don't really have an answer yet to the choking question. However, the fact other mums have done it gives me hope!

I sit in the middle seat in the back and bf dd while she's in the seat. She hates the car so I spend a good amount of time doing this on long journeys!

I would just give a long feed before you leave. Ie an hour before feed, then 15 mins before offer feed again.

Then hope they will sleep the majority of the way. So time it for when he should be tired.

Maybe offer a dummy? As I would think any liquid too dangerous as if he starts choking you will be taking him out of seat and driver panicking.

Impressively bendy, Rowanred! I couldn't have done that, I am sure.

We timed feeding and leaving all wrong this weekend and ended up trapped on the M25 with a hungry baby! I gave her a bottle, and although she found it difficult being more upright, it seemed that loads got dribbled down her front rather than her choking. She's 15 weeks.

After all that prep (bottles, expressing, etc.), DS proceeded to sleep through the journey, waking up for his normal feed at our scheduled stop. That'll teach me to stop making assumptions about babies! Thanks again to everyone who chipped in on the thread. :-)