introducing formula to exclusive breastfed baby

[ScotGirl]

Ms ds has been breastfed exclusively for 14 wks. I would like his to be able to take a bottle of formula occasionally as I have been exhausted recently.

Tried Cow and Gate tonight and he hated it.

Is there a brand that is most like breastmilk? I thought of mixing it with ebm but it would break my heart to waste ebm if he won't take it.

I don't think any taste the same (although I've not tasted them!)

Has he takena bottle before...?

Do you express already then?
Could you not do this and delegate some night feeds to dh and get an uninterrupted night??

I don't know anything about formula but the b/feeding experts on this site reckon they are all pretty much the same.

I have been expressing since 6 weeks and try get at least 100ml for a bottle at 7pm for my husband to give when he gets home from work. I then top up ds with the boob. Ds goes to sleep much quicker and sounder if he has a bottle of ebm. Some days though I don't get anything and I would like to be able to give him formula. I'm really tired at 7pm.

SG,what kind of pump do you have?
It should be possible to get more than that.
We moved house when my ds was 3 weeks old and as dh was away too,I had a lot of things to do.
He was having a bottle of EBM a day and i found the medulla electric pump a dream to use.
With my first child,I had an Avent hand pump which was hard work.

Sorry,I know this doesn't answer your formula question but just thinking on a tangent.

Can you catch up on rest in the day???
Grandma or friend about to help you???

It would appear that many of the formulas seem to taste similar - some babies just seem to get on better with some than others. Have you bought the ready made stuff so that you can try some alternatives without having to get an enormous tin? My dd has Cow and Gate but when I was asking for advice before I started some of the Mums recommended Aptamil - don't know if it is worth a try?

Re the expressing, I found that at certain times of the day it was absolutely hopeless and I could barely get an ounce but at others when I had obviously left it a bit longer and was feeling more rested I could fill a bottle - I appreciate you have probably already tried different times but if not it might be worth a go?

Scotgirl - not much useful to add, but wanted to empathise. My DD is now 20 weeks and has never had formula, but I'd like her to start taking it for feed before bed to try and help her sleep longer (plus I need to give her a bit for paed test to confirm that she is dairy intolerant). Unfortunately she won't touch the stuff either, although the times that I have tried mixing it with EBM we do seem to have come closer to acceptance!

I would try mixing just a tiny bit of formula in with your EBM to start with, and gradually build up the proportion of the feed that is made up of formula until she is happy with it on its own.

Good luck!

hi scot girl, first of all, well done for breastfeeding exclusively to 14 weeks. i too went through a very tired stage when breastfeeding and also tried to introduce the odd bottle of formula for night feeds to try and give me a break. all i can say is that with my DS it didnt work. he didnt sleep for any longer off formula and i found it was much quicker in the middle of the night to get my boob out instead of waking DH then settling DS while bottle warmed etc. Also i think the small amount of formula he did get has possibly triggered a milk allergy in him. introducing a bottle of formula can also affect your milk supply. i am not trying to say "dont give formula at all" but just want you to be aware of possible pitfalls with it.
If your really tired i can reccomend taking baby into bed with you for nap time, that way you both get some sleep. i still do it now and Ds is 7 months and still BF.

SG sorry I can't answer about formula but I find that you can keep the tiredness at bay by going to bed with baby every time he has a feed, propping yourself up well and sleeping while he feeds (+ you can do the same at night) - everyone's happy baby can play with your boob for ages and you get to sleep many times a day!

I agree with vnmum, I also tried a bottle of formula at bedtime around the same age - made absolutely no difference to night waking (which was my 'problem' at the time) And in terms of tiredness, the best thing I ever did was start to co-sleep for part of the night (didn't even notice the night-waking then) and as vnmum says having a nap with your ds is great when you need extra rest.

If you can manage it, I found I could express more if I fed ds on one side and pumped from the other at the same time.

Well done for getting this far by the way

Well done with the BF...keep up the good work!! I have been expressing for six months with my son and have now had enough and am looking to give it up. He doesn't like the taste of forula either, but I tried SMA Gold and he seems to like that one. You can buy a ready to feed box or they do sachets for 4 oz feeds. At the moment I am doing 4 oz EBM and 2/3 oz formula, next week I plan to go half and half and eventually give him just formula in a week. I have tasted the SMA Gold and it actually tastes really nice, I would give that one a try!

Good Luck!!!

The SMA sachets are great if you only want to formula feed occassionally - we started off with big boxes, but ended up throwing loads away because we didn't get through it quickly enough - I think you are supposed to use it within 2 weeks of opening.

Well done for bf for 14 weeks. I found that it got much less exhausting at 4-5 months when DS began to space his feeds out a bit.

I personally would not introduce formula TBH. You have done terrifically by excusively breastfeeding for 14 weeks. You are tired because you have a baby. Bottle feeding mothers are also tired, it is a part of motherhood. What I would do is forget the expressing - so much easier and quicker to directly breast feed. By all means express when you can and stockpile milk, but it is an unnecessary strain to express for every evening feed IMO. Breastfed babies do not need bottle feeds of EBM to settle. My DS1 slept through the night at 9 weeks on exclusive breastfeeding. You might find that your baby will setle better in the evening with breastfeeds. Keep bottle feeds of EBM for during the day at weekends. Far better than introducing unnecessary formula which can negate some of the benefits of exclusive breastfeeding.

BTW, no formula is anywhere near breastmilk.

Also try lying down and having a snooze when B/F in the evening. Do you try and get some sleep in the afternoon? Mums are really poor at getting some sleep during the day at this stage. When baby is sleepin, so should you. Makes you less tired in the evening.

What Mears said. Better than I ever could. But empathy and sympathy from me too. It does get easier, I promise.

I'd agree with Mears and Hunker and advocate taking to your bed with your ds to feed. It's great to snooze on and off. If you feel nervous about the idea of co-sleeping, then even just lying down together and relaxing with him will take some of the strain off you. Make sure there are no pillows or duvets near his head. Alternatively, go to bed in the evenings yourself if you can and ask your dp to bring the baby to you for feeds and to look after him in between. That would give you a bit of a psychological break. It does get easier, you have done really well.

Thanks for all the advice.

I always feed ds lying down in bed for the 7pm feed and get a good rest too - sometimes I nod off as I like to cosleep. The reason I want to give a bottle is that ds has been getting terrible terrible wind at night ( after midnight), not sleeping for more that 2 hours because he wakes up crying and farting - so bad it makes me cry to see him in pain.

Doctor and health vistor think that it is because he is sucking so long at the 7pm feed ( it can take over an hour) in order to get enough food and is taking in too much wind as I don't have much milk. When he gets a bottle of ebm at 7pm he is satisfied in half the time and has a much more settled might with very little wind.

Th solution we feel is to try colief in the evening feeds as well as a bottle of ebm at 7pm. The problem is it is making even more work for me now to get enough ebm each day, hence why I would like the option on giving him formula.

I will do anything if it takes away the wind and make my ds more comfy at night time.

Why don't you try giving him 1/2 ebm and 1/2 formula? I started doing that when ds was about 7 months to cut down on expressing (was doing that exclusively - long story) and he took it just fine.

DS was very windy too. Due to stupid HV and centile charts and DS being "underweight" he ended up going from exclusively bf to ff at 7 weeks.

We had terrible trouble with reflux when we put him on Cow and Gate as the formula was just too rich (he won't take anything from C&G now - even juice and is 16mo).
We found SMA gold worked wonders though and he settled very well with this.

TIP - use tommee tippee health check bottles as we found these great for helping with DS wind.

good luck

Scotgirl - intoducing formula may well make the wind problem worse as it causes a different reaction in the bowel. Also I am afraid I don't agree with the logic about less wind with a bottle of EBM. Babies take more air in with a bottle than they do the breast. It is more likely to be coincidence that he has slept. Have you tried him without the bottle recently? Another way to reduce wind is to feed from one breast only and baby gets more hind milk. Feed him on one side, wind him and put him back on the same side.
I am sorry to appear so negative but i think the expressing/bottle thing is putting more pressure on you. There is absolutely no need to give baby milk via a bottle to help them settle. Your breasts are never empty of milk. If you feel your supply is low it will be increased more by feeding than by expressing. Most babies go through colicky stages which resolve themselves. It might be that your baby is passing through this phase and will be fine without a bottle.

i gave gripe water for wind straight after daytime feeds. didn't for nighttime but i suspect if you feed to sleep giving it during the day only would still help with night time wind. (didn't find infacol any use.)

? Obviously not an expert but I am a bit sceptical about your doctor's wind theories. DS often sucked for over an hour at pre-bed feed - I think he just liked sucking I don't think it had anything to do with me not having enough milk. I was very lucky in that he always followed his centile chart and didn't have any colic/feeding problems. I say lucky because this meant that nobody had any theories about whether I had enough milk or not. Friends who did have smaller children/babies with other problems were put under loads of pressure. On the other hand, many of them now have second babies who for whatever reason match the centile charts and mysteriously, despite them doing exactly the same thing as they did with baby number 1, nobody is putting them under all this 'not enough milk' pressure. Same mummy - different baby.

I understand that you are exhausted, but I am concerned that you are being put under extra stress by worrying about your supply. I would say that with breastfeeding it is tough for the first few months, and then it is very much the lazy mum's friend.

Good going Scotgirl - I too empathise! My ds has sadly had formula for one feed since 2 days old as he had to go into special care for a while - I have a 20 month old little girl and bottle (initially of ebm) seemed a great way for my husband to spend some time with ds as otherwise he would have been permanently latched on to me - it takes him ages to bf and now he's 19weeks old I am introducing more formula as he has been asking to feed every hour and a half (not okay for me when I have my dd to see to too!!) I think one suggestion that is really good and I have used is to gradually add formula to a bottle of ebm and to start the feed on the boob till baby is nice and relaxed then very gently slide teat of bottle into baby's mouth while equally gently moving nipple out of the way iyswim!! Talk to baby and explain (that helped me as I felt terribly guilty about bottle feeding). You will still be giving baby the benefits of bfeeding and that is probably better and more realistic than becoming too exhausted and glum to go on. You are doing brilliantly and you have already given your little one a flying start. Bear in mind though that once you have started bottle feeding it is often really difficult to stop the progression and in my experience it doesn't actually make much difference to how long baby can sleep and certainly doesn't help with reflux -both of mine have had this and it can be awful - I really sympathise . Before you make any decision try and get some rest or get out and do something different so that you have gained a bit of perspective on what you really want to do - it's really hard sometimes to listen to that inner voice which is probably telling you what you want - sorry if this comes over all purple!! Also try to remember that you are doing a great job and that motherhood is about so much more than just what you feed your baby for the first few months...

my DS went through this windy stage and would wake up crying trying to fart, but when we did try him on formula it actually made him worse as he got abit constipated and would wake up in more pain trying to poo.

have to say that the windy stage did pass eventually, but it might be worth looking at your diet incase there is something you're eating that could be making him windy.

i just rode this stage out and napped during day when i could, by this stage i was used to night wakings as DS had bad reflux and i would be up half the night with him throwing up, but thats a different story.

i also went through stage of expressing so dh could do feeds and in the end i gave up as it was putting too much pressure on me, and DH just bonded with ds in other ways like bathtime and play.

if you're worried about supply then take a few days when you feel more refreshed and offer the breast alot, the suckling will stimulate supply, and also make sure the breast feels deflated before offering the other during feeds, this ensures that milk supply is sustained. that said i'm sure your supply is fine, and i think its normal to worry about it initially, i did, then i just relaxed about the whole thing and things improved from there.

good luck