Breast to expressed. When to introduce mixed feeding - Help, mixed advice!

[PurpleDana]

I have a 2wk old dd & have always intended to bf at first & then express so dh can help out etc, but I have had mixed advice about when to introduce a bottle. Mw & Hv both said wait at least a month, bf support worker said as soon as u like! She believes babies find it harder to adapt to mixed feeding after 6wks so earlier is better.... Help! Who's advice do I go with??? Anybody done it successfully & can advise?

Hi

Thought I'd give you my experience. I have a 5 week DS who has had lots of trouble with BF (traumatic birth, stiff neck, locked jaw and un-diagnosed tongue tie). Long story short we had to introduce a bottle at 3 weeks. He took to it fine and happily goes between boob and bottle with no issue. The problem I have is maintaining supply. If you ever give formula instead of ebm then make sure you express at that time. I didn't and now struggling. If your just doing ebm then shouldn't be an issue. Also think carefully about which bottles to use. We tried Avent, Dc Browns and Tommee Tippee. We have stuck with the Tommee Tippee as DS prefers those and they have a softer treat. Also check you are using a slow flow teat as not to flood your baby when feeding. Start off with small amounts and feed them sat up (in burping position) with the bottle held out horizontally. This again prevents the flood in their mouths. Oh and burp half way through to stop it all coming up at the end!!

We are trying at 3 weeks too. Worked well with dd1

Great. Thanks for the advice almond

We started at 3 weeks- I give LO a couple of bottles of ebm a week so she can take one easily. I had to go into work for a KIT day the other day and she happily took bottles all day and went on to breast when I got home with no problems. If your LO is latching on fine, then I'd start sooner, rather than later, or else you might end up with a baby who won't take a bottle at all. X

My lo is 4 weeks we introduced expressed bottles a week ago. Fine so far!

Nice to hear success stories, thanks ladies

Just another question to follow on from this -
When introducing expressed breast milk, how much do u give? She's 3wks old & usually feeds every 2hrs in day & 3hrs at night

We followed hv and mw advice and waited till 6w and only have a bottle twice a week.
Now, I say we gave her a bottle. What I mean is that we struggled for literally months with her gagging, thrusting the teat out with her to hue and generally refusing!
She now takes one every night with EBM but only after months of trying.

If we had our time again, we would introduce much sooner!

We introduced the bottle at 5 weeks and he took it perfectly

I tried from about 3 weeks (have a 6 week old now), be prepared that she won't automatically take a bottle (I foolishly did so was a shock). Lots of gagging and crying, we tried every other day, started with medela bottles, but now on tommee tippee, and eventually he realised he has to suck.
If she doesn't take a bottle straight away don't force it, let her get used to the feeling of a teat, we did about 10mins at a time, if he cried too much we let him calm down and only tried a couple more times until we stopped for the day. We'd just try again in 2 days, so be patient and don't fill the bottle with milk as it breaks your heart to see that breastmilk being poured down the sink.

As for how much when she does take it, my 6wk old is happy with 5oz, so about 4oz for a 4wk old. She'll stop when she's had enough.

Good luck!