stopping bfing-what to do with milk?

[ems1910]

Hello.

Today I made the decision to stop bfing and go onto formula for many reasons. Son is 9 weeks.

He's taken 5ozs from a bottle this evening, been trying for a couple of weeks and tonight he took it.

I can already feel like I'm full. Do I express it out? Could I mix it in with formula until it dries up? How long should it take?

TIA :)

To stay comfortable I would suggest you try and change one breatfeed to a bottle every 3-7 days. So if you do an evening bottle for the next few days, then switch the lunchtime milk to a bottle and gradually make the change until you have made the switch. That way your body has time to adjust and you shouldnt feel too uncomfortable. Expressing will only encourage milk production so try to avoid unless you feel unbearably full. But hopefully if you do it gradually that won't happen.

If you want to stop faster than that I suggest you get proper advice from someone more qualified than me to avoid risk of infections etc. Hth

I'm not an expert but yes, keep pumping til you lose your supply or you'll end up with engorgement / blocked ducts.
Why can't you just offer the EBM directly in a bottle and supplement with ff on top rather than mix it with formula?
Good luck

If you express a full feed you will be continuing to stimulate milk production, so you should only express a little bit to relieve the full feeling.

Stopping abruptly can risk mastitis, so it would be better if you could gradually cut down, maybe 1 feed every 2 days or so swapped to formula.

I stopped at a similar time to you and I took Sudafed to reduce my supply, based on this info from KellyMom

I only took one or two doses in the early days and it took the edge off enough to avoid me getting mastitis.

Thankyou all! I have had internet problems so couldn't reply sooner :/

Took your advice on board and we are mix feeding to encourage my supply to go down slowly, had a very uncomfortable day yesterday before I read these replies.

Thanks again x