Have I messed up bf? (Long, sorry!)

[Felix90]

My dd is 4 weeks old and I've been trying to bf but have been struggling through so far. Around a week ago, I tried to start combi feeding and giving her formula at night/if we were out of the house as I'm really not confident bf in public. I decided to give her the one feed of formula at night as I was ready to give up bf totally due to being so exhausted and my OH wanted to help out and give me a break but I couldn't manage to express enough milk to give her. Stupidly I've fallen in to the routine of feeding her two feeds of formula at night on the pretence that I would express milk instead and put it in the freezer so we have a nice supply built up, then OH could eventually start feeding her the expressed milk instead of formula. But because I've been so exhausted at night, I've ended up falling back to sleep after feeding her the formula and not expressed anything and I think I've really messed up by doing this

Now when I bf her through the day, she doesn't seem satisfied and wants to feed for a very very long time. Im assuming my supply has dropped massively as I've missed the feeds at night and now I'm not producing enough for her through the day. I seem to be in a cycle of trying to bf her, then as I'm bf her for so long (sometimes over an hour) I'm getting very sore and end up giving her a top up of formula out of desperation as I can't feed her enough and it hurts too much. I need to get out of this cycle and try and get bf back on track but I don't know if I've done the damage now and can no longer breast feed? She will drink around 4oz of formula and although I can't see how much breast milk she drinks, I'm sure she didn't drink that much breast milk before I introduced the formula, and now she will expect the same volume of milk when I try and bf her. I've just tried to bf her on and off for the past 3 hours and she's only just stopped rooting/crying and dropped off to sleep. My left nipple is shredded to bits from feeding her for so long this morning and I've used nipple shields for the last half an hour which seemed to help, so I think I'll carry on using them whilst my nipples heal so I can keep trying to feed her.

Sorry if that doesn't make much sense! Hopefully someone can advise if I've totally screwed up bf? I really want to persevere with it and stop giving her formula at night but it's so hard when I can't satisfy her, and it's causing arguments between me and OH because I'm so stressed over it all

Is there anything I can do to rescue my supply? I'm staying in bed watching tv all day today so I can let her feed/suckle as much as she wants and have lots of skin to skin contact. I feel so stupid and disappointed in myself for getting in to this situation and I really hope I can get back on track and keep breastfeeding.

Thanks Emmy that's really good to hear! I am still expressing through the day and feeding her a mixture of breastmilk and formula. I've had a really stress free day knowing I don't have to try and put up with the pain of bf and I can just quickly make up a bottle and she will be satisfied afterwards. I like how nice and predictable it is if that makes sense! The only problem I've got now is she's really constipated. When I originally started giving her the pre-made SMA bottles through the night last week, she got a bit constipated but it wasn't too bad as she was just getting breastmilk through the day. DP bought some Hipp Organic hungry baby formula yesterday (I told him not to buy hungry baby ones!) and she's been really struggling with constipation all last night and today. I read about buying formula with more whey protein in so sent DP off to buy the normal stage 1 milk and they didn't have the Hipp one so he bought Cow & Gate. I fed her some of the C&G one earlier and then about an hour later she threw up a massive amount of curdled milk which looked a bit like cottage cheese consistency. I feel awful for feeding her formula now after the constipation and sick is this normal? Will she get used to the formula or should I stop giving it to her?

Sorry I've rambled a bit there - Emmy what formula do you use just out of interest?

Glad you are feeling less stressed Op, that is good news, hopefully someone will come along with formula advice - I did some hipp/aptimil mixed feeding but dd didn't have any reaction to it (although she was generally a sicky baby). People usually recommend bicycling legs and swirling around in a warm bath for constipation.

Don't feel bad. It may just be a case of finding what's right for her. I use Aptamil 1. My baby has a bit of a problem with wind and reflux so I make sure to keep her as upright as poss during feeding then keep her upright for a bit afterwards. I also giver her infacol before each feed. But if your baby has constipation, I'm not sure what the best advice is! Maybe speak to your health visitor or GP? I think Aptamil do a Comfort formula to help with constipation so you could give that a try?

It's so much better when you aren't feeling the pressure on yourself to breastfeed exclusively if it's not working that well. I prefer giving a bottle because I know how much I am giving her and it feels like I'm a bit more in control of things. Like I said, you just need to find the best way to keep baby fed well and keep you happy and relaxed :-)

Glad to hear you're feeling a bit more relaxed!! I'm just using normal SMA yellow top and DS seems fine. We tried cow and gate first but he became really unsettled so we switched. Now he feeds off both boobs then tops up with formula- I sometimes miss a BF- made up SMA most or the time and cartons for out and about. It's working really wellfor us -the BF is not as painful now and I'm feeling a bit less stressed about it too. I quite like that he still gets some breast milk but I don't worry so much about him losing weight