Combination feeding from the begining

[kitkat321]

I'm not due til later this year but having put some thought into it, I'd like to combination feed baby from very early days as I want DP to be involved in the feeding process and I don't want to be the sole source of food for baby.

Ideally I'd like to primarily BF for the first couple of weeks with perhaps one or two bottle feeds per day (not decided yet whether to use formula or to express - probably a bit of both). This means that while DP is on paternity leave he can provide equal care for baby and will help him feel involved.

This is my first baby and at the moment I'm surrounded by all the "breast is best" material but it's something I've thought through and for my own reasons I don't want to solely breast feed.

Is this sort of scenario workable? Most of my friends/family have either been fully one way or the other (most have not breast fed for a variety of reasons).

I know a lot of it will depend on baby but I'd like to get her used to feeding from both very quickly but I'm not sure if I'm being totally naive as a first time mummy!

Any help or advice is welcome!

Worked for me! I did it for the same reasons as you. Bf as much a possible with a bottle as one of the night feeds. Ds was fine with both. Only thing is I began to bootle feed more as breast feed less as the weeks went on, so my milk supply was lowering. I had no milk in one breast anyway so to be honest I was happier to bottle feed in the longer run.

It also meant that dh felt he was able to bond with ds more in the early days, which was amazing!

The issue you may have is getting breast feeding established.
In the early days, your baby will feed a lot to ramp up your supply - the more they feed, the more you produce. If your baby isn't feeding enough to sustain themselves because you are also bottle feeding, your supply may also not increase enough.
Also, bottle feeding is easier for a baby because basically they can just lie there and the milk will still come out of the bottle - it won't of a breast. Some babies are lazy and prefer that!
If you want to combine feed, your best way of succeeding is to solely breastfeed until feeding is well established - 4-6 weeks, and then introduce bottles.
alternatively you could try expressing your own milk for your partner to feed the baby but honestly expressing is quite a bit of faff when you've already got a newborn to deal with.

I've breastfed three babies and DH was fully involved with all of them from the start - it's not just feeding that's required.

Im a maternity nurse and work with clients who want to combined feed from birth or early on. It is possible but I tell them that the more the baby has a bottle the less breast milk will be made unless you express regularly.

This is one rhythm of the day that I follow with most of the combined feeders:
First feed of day: breast feed one side and express other, bf baby after expressed side if needed.
Second feed of day: breast feed opposite side from first feed and express opposite side.
Other feeds of day until early evening are mostly bf but can use expressed milk as top up if needed.
Some clients choose to do a bottle for bed time either EBM or formula.
So mother may bf at 5pm and then baby has bottle around 7pm and mother expresses at that time too.
9pm mother expresses
late evening feed is bottle of EBM or formula
middle of nights are usually bf but can be top ups of EBM or formula. If a mum doesnt want to wake in night to feed I do recommend mother expresses both sides for at least 10 mins around 2am for at least six weeks to keep milk supply steady.

EBM is used in bottles and extra is frozen for use later. The above rhythm of the day has been introduced from about day three and overall do try to get the mother to bf as much as possible as it helps supply. Having this combined feed I've had a few mums who have exclusively used bm until six months or have used a mix of formula and bf.

Hmmm. I would be wary of making any feeding decisions just so "DP can feel involved": I think there's an idea about that if mum BFs, then baby is just mum's concern and dad will feel left out/can't bond/can't care for baby/mum is "selfish", while in my own experience (EBF both with a very hands-on dad) there were a bazillion ways dad could bond with baby that had nothing to do with feeds. Bathing, nappies, cuddles, walking in a sling, rocking to sleep, burping, general entertaining while mum has a shower, etc.

Obviously someone else being able to feed baby (either formula or EBM) is useful, but I'd do it for you rather than so your DP can have a go of feeding while he's on paternity leave. Especially expressing, as it is, frankly, a pain in the arse unless you absolutely need to do it.

Thanks for all the advice - keeping DP feeling involved is just one of the reasons. I also want to ensure that I can leave baby with DP/family for a few hours on a daily basis from pretty early on - I have other responsibilities that won't go away when baby comes that I need to still be able to meet.

It's worked for us. My DS was ff initially due to some problems in the days after his birth and in getting bf established when we got home from hospital. He's 8 weeks now and in the past week we've dropped to 1 ff at night, but prior to this it was maybe 3 a day. I expressed in addition to bf in order to get my supply sorted out and it's worked really well. It means that I can leave my DH to bottle feed him if I want/need and makes it easy to feed him when I'm out if I'm somewhere where I'm uncomfortable breast feeding.

As others have illustrated, expressing on a regular basis is a lot of hard work. It's great if you want your baby to just have BM but need to be away from him/her. It's an awful lot of work just to ensure your DH gets to feed (TBH, I dispute the idea that bottle feeding is important for bonding and think it's advertising guff, but I fully accept it is important to some people).

If it is a question of involving your husband, or you aren't that bothered about just bm, I'd mixed feed with formula. The pumping regime will be less intense. You do need to accept the risk of supply issues or breast refusing, but if you go into it with your eyes open it can work well. The fewer non-breastfeeds at the start, the greater the chances of long term bfing (if that matters to you).

Yes, it worked well for us with DC2, but I had breastfed DC1 exclusively and was able to establish bf with DC2 quickly. You may not be so lucky due to tongue tie or some other reason.

Make sure you establish bf first for a week or so at least.

I'm a huge advocate of combination feeding. I still bfed DC2 to 15mo but loved having the flexibility and brief spells of freedom that I missed out on with DC1.

Oh, and I used formula for the bottle feeds. We did one a day and just used the Aptamil ready-mixed stuff, which meant it was easy.

I think as long as you realise introducing formula and/or bottles at any stage may lead to baby rejecting the breast in favour of bottles (at any stage, not just the beginning), then give it a try.

There is a chance it may affect your supply and mean breastfeeding is difficult to establish. Breastfeeding is tough, and requires a great deal of stubborn. Even if you find it easy physically, in the beginning there's a lot if feeding and the sleep deprivation and constant-ness is hard. It can be very tempting to just give in to bottles (which are harder in the long run, ime :) )

Like I said though, depends how much you really want to breastfeed. Doing anything other than breastfeeding can, sometimes, mean breastfeeding doesn't work out.

Also your partner can be involved. Mine got me up in the night (post CS I couldn't sit up on my own!), made sure I didn't fall asleep feeding, got me drinks, snacks and the remote. He also did most of the nappy changing and cuddling when I needed a minute break.

Once he went back to work anyway I was pretty much on my own and he never got chance to feed, so I was glad I'd stuck with bf and didn't gave to mess with bottles.