Why don't many people mix both ff and bf?

[Nancery]

I had to do both from birth for medical reasons (am Type 1 diabetic and bf affects blood sugar, plus we needed to get DS's levels up.) I continued mix feeding till, due to endless issues, I finally went to ff full time.
Nobody I know has mixed fed and I never thought to ask anyone 'official' (eg midwife) at the time so wonder if there's a reason for this?

[LBOCS]

We did a bottle of formula at bedtime in her Moses basket (so I didn't have to shift her), and that was all we did. I can't remember how early we started that but it was definitely in the first 6 weeks. Once she got better at being moved we stopped.

I gave up breastfeeding a couple of weeks ago, and my DD is 21 months. Doesn't have to be all or nothing.

[Rivercam]

I did both feeds - it worked for me.

[KeepTheCarRunning]

I give ds2 a bottle around 11 pm, he's otherwise fully bf. I suppose it's not really needed but I quite like to substitute that one feed for a bottle as I feel quite 'touched out' from being with ds2 all day. So I suppose it's a bit of a break for me. Did the same with ds1 from 6 months ish as far as I remember.
What are the signs of dwindling supply, tiktok?

[ladybirdandsnails]

Me and everyone it know bar one mixed fed

[RedCountryRoads]

I'm a first timer of a 12 week old. After a horrendous first 5 weeks I finally got the knack of breastfeeding. I was ebf for the first 5 weeks but also use expressed as well. I much prefer bf but it's handy to have the option. DH takes her one weekend morning so I can lie in, she ff then and if I get engorged I pump and freeze. I occasionally get DH to give her a bottle at tea time then she has a large feed from me before bed. She is a happy baby and on the 75th centile. I now really enjoy bf and find it so much easier than ff and will continue mainly bf as long as possible but just having the flexibility of ff makes life easier.

[freelancegirl]

I mixed fed for the first couple of months. DS was a very big baby and never satisfied. After we had got bf established however I ebf (with food of course from 6mo) until he was 13 months. I did feel bad that he didn't have a 'Virgin gut' which I've read about but he'd lost a lot of weight and clearly needed something more than I could give him. Yes it's a shame that more people don't know this is a possibility rather than giving up compeletely. Ok DS didn't have that pure ebf start but I am pretty sure it wasn't a waste of time and effort to then go on to bf until 13 months. He's very healthy with no allergies at 2 if that's any indication!

I would like to try to ebf the next one, due in January, but am also terrified about what this might do to sleep. DS pretty awful and boob dependent for a long time.

[MoreCrackThanHarlem]

I EBF for 2 weeks, but struggled with dd waking every hour through the night.
Introduced a bottle at 10pm against mw advice, she said dd would have 'nipple confusion'.
Continued like that for 6 months. No confusion...dd would suck anything, fingers, thumb, nipple, bottle teat, blankets...

[juliascurr]

I took advice to do both from day 2 to avoid refusal of either - worked out okay, took turns for night feeds, could leave dd for a few hours

[NoraRobertsismyguiltypleasure]

I found it quite hard to get going with bf and once we got the hang of it I didn't want to risk upsetting anything, so just did it all myself. Couple of times I tried expressing, but it was just a massive PITA. Never felt the need to share that part of having a baby with my DP, he bonded over a billion other things. Also, there was no pressure in going back to work or anything like that, so it was just easier to ebf.

[hollie84]

I think it's also worth considering that many/most women do not intend to breastfeed for a long time. Once you get to 3 or 6 months a lot of those women who have stopped breastfeeding have done so deliberately and happily.

[tiktok]

occasional convenience of night time formula feeding should read OR night time.....

[tiktok]

hollie, the data is not super-clear and some of the conclusions have to be inferred.

In the early days, we know that if a baby has any formula in the first week, the mother is three times more likely to be fully ff by the age of three weeks compared to the babies who have not had formula at this time - this is from Infant Feeding survey, and of course it is not pure cause and effect. The babies who are having problems bf are likely to be the ones who have formula and it's these underlying bf problems which precipitate the switch to formula, rather than the use of formula itself. Hope I have explained it ok!

If we look at the data showing introduction of milks other than breastmilk (so 'partial breastfeeding'), we see this gradually increases with the age of the baby (unsurprising). The number of babies not breastfeeding at all also increases with the age of the baby. We can infer from that that partial breastfeeding is strongly associated with earlier full formula feeding.

What we don't have is data showing the sort of scenario you describe - occasional convenience of night time formula - because all formula use is lumped in together, in the data.

Experience shows that this scenario - alongside a confident mother, who understands about how breastfeeding works, and who knows that several hours between breastfeeds will reduce her supply and how to manage that if she observes the signs - actually should not mean she is switching to formula sooner than she wants to.

So I should probably refine my statement about 'the majority of mothers' to reflect a sort of sliding scale :) Early on, partial breastfeeding is not likely to succeed long term (ie the mother ends up switching to formula quite soon). The later you introduce formula, and the more 'careful' you are about its frequency and volume, the 'safer' breastfeeding can be :)

[hollie84]

Yes, it can work out for some women, but the majority of mothers who use formula with the hope of continuing breastfeeding alongside it for more than just a short time find it does not work out that way.
Is that true? As I say, I know a lot of breastfeeders who did one night time bottle or occasional bottles when out or at work with no problems.

[tiktok]

The vast majority of babies are not exclusively breastfed - almost all babies have formula at some point. You can call it 'partial breastfeeding' rather than 'mixed feeding' - that's the phrase used in research when assessing who does it and what the outcomes are.

Yes, it can work out for some women, but the majority of mothers who use formula with the hope of continuing breastfeeding alongside it for more than just a short time find it does not work out that way.

The reasons for partial breastfeeding are to do with convenience, flexibility and plugging a nutritional gap when breastfeeding is not sufficient, for whatever reason.

The reasons against partial breastfeeding are these:

• Partial breastfeeding has poorer health outcomes than exclusive breastfeeding (for some good evidence of this, check out the Millennium Cohort study paper on diarrhoeal disease and infection pediatrics.aappublications.org/content/119/4/e837.short which was done on UK babies
  
  
• some mothers prefer to feel they and they alone (and their milk :) ) have 'grown' their baby
  
  
• introduction of formula milk affects the volume of breastmilk made, and this can be crucial in some situations, seriously reducing it, especially in the early days and weeks, so the switch to formula has to happen if the supply is not 'rescued' in time
  
  
• the convenience turns out to be spurious in some cases
  
  
• a few babies cannot tolerate formula
  
  
• formula use can affect confidence in breastfeeding, in some mothers

[hollie84]

If 35% of babies are breastfed for 6 months, but only 2% are exclusively breastfed, that would suggest a fair amount of mixed feeding going on.

[thatsn0tmyname]

I mixed fed my son as it took a while to establish breastfeeding. I also wasn't comfortable bf in public. However, it was chaotic bf, ff and expressing milk and eventually my milk dried up at 41\2 months. I bf my daughter for nearly 8months and avoided the pump and ff and felt much more confident the second time round

[Bakersbum]

I mixed fed (well one bottle a day) from the start and it worked really well for us, when he was very little I used to go to bed at 9pm, DP would stay up with DS and give him a bottle at 11pm and then bring him up to his crib, it meant I got a nice big chunk of sleep before the 3am feed and he got a bit of bonding time too.

[Ilovenicesoap]

Agree Castle
I couldn't be bothered with faffing about with bottles .

[MrsAtticus]

I think people get told that if they give a bottle the baby might not want the breast, which puts people off. I know lots of people who have done it though and this has not happened.

[Castlemilk]

It affects milk supply, so not a good idea at first.

Later on, it would be fine... but would think that most people who are still bf later, when milk supply established, would have little real reason to mix feed.

...because, contrary to popular opinion and seemingly every other thread this week :) - once established, breastfeeding is cheaper, easier, and more flexible than ff. As well as being better for your baby.

[Seeline]

DS was in SCUBU for the first week, and tube fed for the first few days. Due to a difficult birth, my milk didn't come in for a while anyway, despite trying to express regularly. However after a blood transfusion, things picked up and I was able to start BF, but never really produced enough for DS so mixed fed until 6 months when I switched to FF. It worked really well for both of us and I planned to do the same with DD. BUT she never took to a bottle or a cup, or formula, or even cows milk when she was older so I had to EBF until she was 15 months. I found BFing her easier than Ds, but it would have been nice to have had a break at some point!!!

[Mitchell2]

I'm bottle feeding with a mixture of formula and expressed milk. Have been for about 2 months as I did two weeks of bf and hated it. I'm going back to work in a month so the plan always was to mix feed, it just happened a little sooner.

I express to schedule, evening, middle of night and morning and get 2/3 feeds at the moment. I give her two and freeze one - the rest is formula.

I've had no problems with supply and have managed to increase it a bit. Will continue to do this as long as I can - hope to get to 6 months at least.

[NickyEds]

Most of the women I know who started out ebf started to mix feed after a few months, an 11.00 bottle or a carton when out and about. I introduced f top ups because of tongue tie/weight loss/shredded nipples/supply problems and gradually reduced them until he was having maybe a bottle a day but split into 2-3 top ups.

It depends on how you define "successful breast feeding" doesn't it? 50:50? 90:10? 4 months? 6 months? 2 years? I've had real upset about this. If asked if bf DS I always say "sort of" because I didn't ebf him. When my OH is asked he always says "yes" because I did

[ShadowStar]

I was told that giving a bottle of formula can affect milk supply. Also that giving bottles before breastfeeding is established can reduce the chances of successful breastfeeding.

And then, once I had got breastfeeding established, I found it easier to just do breastfeeding all the time instead of starting to take time out to prepare / wash bottles.

Although, worth noting that I'd have been doing all night feeds anyway (DH sleeps too heavily for that), and I've been able to take a long maternity leave, so less of a need to worry about introducing formula.