Breast feeding in the day and bottle feeding at night

[LooeyLou]

2 week old ds struggled with breast feeding due to tongue tie, now snipped and feeding with nipple shields during the day fine, but during the night gets in a state and takes forever to feed. I've tried him with a bottle at night and he takes it well and settles more quickly. Am I mad to start doing this and how do you manage formula feeding at night? All help and advice appreciated first time mum and struggling with doing the 'right thing', many thanks

Congratulations on your new baby!
Have you perhaps considered expressing? You can give a bottle but it is still bm. And it really helps build up your supply too.
In the early days when night feeds are so unpredictable I would probably go for the ready made formula-no faffing with boiling water and cooling it down etc when the baby is screaming. It works out a wee bit more expensive though (not sure by how much cause I was just expressing for DS who never latched on properly)

Thanks for the reply :) yes am expressing in the day but would have to do a lot more to be able to feed him everytime he wakes and not sure how much I would need, just find it all so daunting!

Oh I know. DS is only 11mo so I still remember it very well. It does get better though! I used to express during every feed, I invested in a good pump and this and found it helped a lot.
I am not against formula or anything like that. Just found it quite tricky in the very beginning with the new instructions that you can't prepare it in advance. I know a lot of people though who prepare feeds in advance, just cool it down very quickly and put in the fridge. I suppose it makes it easier for night feeds.

I'm glad it gets easier ! He also gets a lot of trapped wind pushes away, cries and generally wiggles and writhes about, makes the process longer and harder!

Is there maybe a breastfeeding support group near you? Or can your midwife or HV maybe check that latch is correct? If you do want to bf it really is important to get any support possible. I failed miserably with bfing and it's partly because I didn't look for all help that I could have got. And exclusive expressing can be a total PITA sometimes.

I'm sure I heard/read somewhere that feeding between midnight and 4am is a crucial time for establishing/maintaining supply. To do with circadian hormone fluctuations.

But that might have been something said to make being up most of the night more bearable!

That would actually make sense! I had struggled to express enough until I started expressing during night feeds.
I've also heard that milk during the night has more fat in it but this might have not been from a reliable source from a bf terrorist who sees formula as poison

Have a browse around www.kellymom.com for useful stuff.

Congratulations! In terms of feeding You've got to do what's right for you and whichever you choose is ok. I had a similar starting point with DD1 and found it too stressful so started doing a mix of expressing and FF at night. Worked well and meant DH could share some of the night feeds so that I could express or sleep. With FF bottles I made them up with boiling water then cooled quickly and put in fridge - warmed up when needed (used bottles within 24 hours, guidelines on DoH website). Well done on getting through the tongue tie and for persisting with BFing where you can. Again, whatever feeding route you choose is ok x

The way you proceed probably depends how determined you are to continue to breastfeed. If it's a 'well, I'll do it for a bit and see how it goes' thing for you, I'd carry on. If continuing to bf means a lot to you you probably need to know that going for a long period overnight without feeding can really start to affect supply, especially since your baby is so young. You may find you have issues with continuing to bf during the day as your supply is not yet stable enough to cope with missing the night feeds. It's a combination of needing not to go long gaps and the hormonal changes meaning night ones are the worst to miss from a supply perspective.

The ideal is direct feeding at night, but I can understand why that isn't working for you. In which case you would probably need to think about expressing at least a couple of times during the night.

But as I said, it depends how much continuing to bf in the mid-long term matters to you. That's a very personal analysis.

Congratulations on your new baby.

AFAIK, your prolactin levels are highest at night so night feeds are important for establishing your supply, especially in the early days. BUT if it's distressing you both then that's no good to anyone. Really worth talking to a breastfeeding counsellor to see if there is a happy medium. Good luck!

Thank you all for the replies, I'm still going with the Breastfeeding at night and will see how it goes for as long as possible, really appreciate the advice :)