Advice to wean from formula top ups to breast milk

[Sarita42]

I really struggled with latching on in the first few days and eventually had to give some formula and mix in ebm as often as possible. Now little one and I are being much more successful but its difficult to know when to get rid of the formula completely. The midwife advised just stopping but baby gets frantically hungry as my milk is only slowly picking up in volume and I have been weaning the volume of each top up down instead. Anyone else had this problem? Any tips? Many thanks

Hi Sarita42,

I highly recommend that you read a book called "what to do if you're breastfeeding and what to do if you can't" by Clare Byram-Cook - it was the best help ever (and much better than what any midwife provided) when my son was born and I went from a position of fearing that I could not bf my son to successfully feeding him on my own for almost 6 months (my son was too nosy by 4 months so the last 2 months were a complete struggle - and quite painful as he kept look round at everything!!). Unfortunately, I had some really poor advice from midwives (for example, one told me my son was being "lazy" when in fact he was too exhausted to feed) and so we started off by trying to bf whilst giving top ups of formula to build his strength and weight. I don't see anything wrong in what you're doing to try to give lesser formula whilst trying to give more breast milk (equally, you're mummy and expert with your own baby), as that's what we did, but I would recommend trying to increase your supply by expressing on top - you can keep your expressed milk in the fridge and give for later feeds if necessary (if you have anyone who can take on a night time feed it will be good opportunity for you to get some rest as this will also increase your supply). Medela pumps are fine - you don't need to get top of the range, but just don't get a hand pump as you'll be bored to tears!! (one midwife told us that she and her family had taken turns in hand pumping to help out - we thought that it was not really that suitable advice for people with non-strange families!) I know they are not very glamorous at all, but you will feel better about being able to increase your supply - better though also to let baby feed as much as possible as they are better than any breastpump around. Anyway -good luck - and make sure to read that book!! :)

sarita If you want to move to fully breastfeeding don't touch that book. There are a million books on bf, any other book will be better.
any of the breastfeeding helplines will be able to support you in achieving your plan, they are manned by highly trained counsellors. that book is written by someone without any formal breastfeeding training and contains the opposite of credible evidence based information

expressing in addition to feeding is a good suggestion, you can give the expressed milk as top ups and when all top ups are ebm you know you are making all the milk your baby needs. I topped up for a little while for big early weight loss and it's so hard to feel confident to drop them altogether, isn't it.
Lots of skin to skin and frequent feeds will help boost supply.

Agree to not touch that book - it is indeed awful and has some terrible advice which can make you think there's something wrong when its not.

Just feed feed feed as much as you can and lots of skin to skin time when you're not feeding. always offer breast before formula and really, it might be ok to just stop formula. It's how I did it, but I had very supportive midwives helping me so understand if you don't feel confident enough to go cold Turkey like that.

And get along to a bf support group as soon as possible.

Good luck. Sounds like you're doing an amazing job x

Feed, feed, feed all day long. Get comfy and keep eating and drinking. Has your baby been checked for tongue tie? Mine had a small TT snipped and it helped. We were in the same situation as you and were EBF by about 10 weeks. Still feeding now at nearly 2 years!

Claire Byam-Cook is not generally well thought of. Her advice is seen as pretty old fashioned.

Good luck

I was sent home from hospital pumping and topping up with formula (early baby and a few feeding issues initially). My very helpful midwife advised dropping to every other feed for a top up then reducing to twice per day and then phasing out. We did this over a couple of days. He did feed an awful lot to stimulate my supply so you have to be prepared to sit on the couch for hours and hours but it is totally worth it! He is now 5 months old and bf is going really well - it was worth the hard work in the early days as it is so easy not to mention so much better for DS and lovely to do.

On the book front the womanly art of breast feeding is well worth a read!

That's really interesting as that's one of the books highly recommended on my NCT course.. Anyway, old fashioned or not, I found it worked really well for me and just thought I would share.

That's really interesting Dandileeno - was it recommended by your antenatal teacher or was it on an official reading list?

I didn't want to you feel I was having a pop at you, as the suggestions you gave were good, it's just that that particular book is not a good resource and contains lots of the author's personal opinions which are not facts, and contains a lot of untrue statements presented as 'facts' which are very undermining of breastfeeding.

Some good books for the OP -
The Breastfeeding Mothers Guide to Making More Milk - this might be especially good, as it looks at why mums might feel they don't have enough milk, why the vast majority of mums do have enough milk if they feed on demand, the few medical conditions which can affect milk production and ways to boost supply if needed. I was really put off by the title but it's actually a really good book, written by IBCLCs (lactation consultants)
The Womanly Art of Breastfeeding
The Food of Love by Kate Evans

It was actually on an official reading list. Also just read an interesting article on her if you're interested. www.icarriedawatermelon.co.uk/blog/the-best-100-i-ever-spent/

Stop the formula and feed feed feed.. your books don't know to make milk if you don't nurse. Eat, drink, watch dvds. It'll take a couple of days of constant feeding probably but it'll get there.

*boobs

My ds was discharged on ff top ups.. I agree.. Feed.... Feed.... Feed... Oh then feed some more. I bought a total of three tins of formula. The third one is still in the cupboard.. Virtually full. And ds has gone from 50 th centile to 97th centile.... It's possible.. Just feed.

kellymom.com/bf/got-milk/basics/decrease-formula/

Kellymom has all round good advice - the above is step by step points to wean off supplements