Is it difficult for others to feed a breastfed baby?

[Ihatechoosingausername]

Hi my baby's due in 11 days and I have a question about breastfeeding.

Say I wanted to meet up with friends some time after she was born. How would she be fed best by someone else? (Cup? Bottle?) Would it be difficult/traumatic for her? How should I approach this?

It largely depends on the baby. Mine absolutely will not take a bottle despite me buying every available brand on the market. So I can't leave her for more than an hour or two during the day. That said, she goes to bed at 7pm and sleeps until midnight/1am so I can go out in the evenings. She's 4 months old.

Other babies are happy to switch between bottle and boob. Other babies cluster feed in the evenings and need their mums.

It does depend. With both of mine, they were happy to take a bottle from someone else as long as I wasn't there. If I was there, they would cry for me.

Depends on the child but in my experience of about 20 babies from breastfeeding group only about 4 would accept happily. Some would only take if mum was/wasn't there, some would only take from a spoon/syringe/cup/bottle but mostly they refused anything but breast.

My DD took a bottle every now and again to give me a break but I had to leave the house, once she hit 8 weeks she refused point blank to take anything.

How soon should you introduce a bottle if you plan to express?

I think the Kelly Mom website advises introducing a bottle around 6 weeks old?

Again it depends on the child, generally they say not before 6 weeks as it can cause nipple confusion which could hinder breastfeeding especially if its a regular thing but many people do so before this and manage fine.

Others introduce it earlier (myself included), in fact DD had a bottle at 6 days as I had to register her and was too nervous to breastfeed outside without issue but she did refuse after 8 weeks anyway so it made no difference.

I started expressing and my DD took it from a bottle from 3 weeks without any problems.

My son was BF. Flatly refused bottles until 3 months old. Finally got him to take Dr Browns bottles at 3 months but he much preferred boobs!!

I found my friends all wanted to see the baby more than me anyway...

DS1 is 10 weeks and we started giving him a bottle at 3 wks. It's taken a long time to get him comfortable with it, I've been through every bottle, every teat, timed at different times of the day and only now is he taking a bottle from DH at night. You have to persevere with it unless you're lucky enough to have a baby who takes it first time. My baby will take it from me though.

We introduced a bottle at 4 weeks which is earlier than all the advice but I'm glad we did as she happily takes a bottle now meaning DH can do one feed each day while I have a rest and I can go out without worrying. We've always used expressed milk but she has had the occasional bottle of formula lately (she's 7 months) and she's been fine.

Dd took to a bottle quite happily at 6 weeks and even though was v rarely used has no trouble swapping between breast and bottle. So it's not an issue for all babies.

It does take her aaages to take a bottle compared to bf though as she's not used to the technique.

I'd also recommend ignoring people who say don't give a bottle before 6 weeks because of 'nipple confusion'

Friends of mine who listened to this advice ended up with babies who wouldn't take a bottle at all whereas mine would happily drink from whatever was put in their mouth whether that was my nipple or a bottle and whether it was breast milk or formula. I started giving one expressed feed from a bottle each evening from around 3 weeks. My DH would do it at about 11pm which meant I could catch up on much needed sleep between feeds.

DS1 took a bottle from 4 weeks and DS2 from 8 weeks with no issues.

I started to try bottles with expressed milk at 4 weeks. The important thing is baby will have to learn (so do it after they're ok with the breast a few weeks) and to try different bottles.
Mine rejected Avent, but loves Lansinoh. Another friend has a baby who only takes 89p Tesco cheap bottles! Others only take a cup.

Also expressing may not come naturally at 1st. 1st go, it took me an hour and a half to get 2 oz (a small meal for baby). Now I can squeeze that out by hand in 15 min!

It helps if you always express at the same time each day so your body gets used to it.