I've exclusively expressed for DD since birth. She is now nearly 24 weeks old. I've been lucky and found it relatively easy - only 4 pumps a day and get about 1.4 litres. She has about a litre (91st centile) and I've frozen most of the rest so I have a huge freezer stash
I have an 18 month old DS and exclusively expressed for him til he was 22 weeks so I feel I've done a lot of expressing over the last 18 months and actually want to start supplementing with some formula. I know that WHO guidelines are to breast feed for two years etc but I feel I've given DD a good start (and DS) and would like to reduce to one pump in the morning and one at night. That will probably give me about 500 mls. I'll start using up the freezer stash too. I think I have enough in the freezer to feed her breast milk exclusively to about 7.5 months.
DS took yo formula top ups no bother at 22 weeks. However, my DH once tried to give DD some formula about a week ago as a test. Unfortunately, she went absolutely ballistic and refused to take it. She had one mouthful, spat it out and refused the bottle totally. She then only took a bottle from me about two hours later very suspiciously
She is a lovely, placid thing. Sleeps through the night and has lots of naps in the day - I really don't want to do anything to disrupt that. However, I really want to give up expressing during the day.
Any tips? I have thought of mixing the formula with breast milk and reducing the ratio of breast milk. But I'm worried she'll be able to work it out and refuse it. Aarrggh - I'm going to be wearing my hideous expressing bra til she goes to school at this rate!