when to express? morning or evening?

[Gemmitygem]

My son is 2 weeks and I would like to introduce one bottle a day for the late evening feed. But should I express in the morning or evening?

Also, how do I heat up the EBM for the evening feed? Obviously not microwave, but how?

(can't you tell I'm a complete novice!)

any tips appreciated

whenever you think you have most - many people it is first thing in the morning. You might need to express twice in the day to get enough for one feed.

To warm it up just run the hot tap over the bottle while shaking it, or stand it in a jug of hot water for a while. If you can get him used to cooler milk it is easier.

I didn't manage to express successfully with both dd's until about 6 weeks so don't be disappointed if you don't manage it yet.
I also found 4am was a great time to express when you are building up your milk supply!!

i just heated the milk up in a jug of boiling water. doesn't take long with expressed milk compared to formula. Definitely try to vary the temperature you give him milk otherwise he will become super fussy like my dd1 was!

I found it best to express in the evenings. I got into a routine of always expressing while watching the 10 o'clock news, then dh would give ds a bottle feed at about 10.45pm. I never bothered heating up the milk as it was still warm, and didn't need to think about hygienic storage either - 2 big advantages. Also, at that time of day it was about 3 hours after my last feed at 7pm, so my milk supply was ready.

Most women do have more milk available in the mornings, but you will probably need this for breastfeeds!

I really liked the evening expressing routine and will do it again next time. It let me go to bed earlier, and gave dh some bonding time with ds. Also, it meant ds would always take either breast or bottle (we started at about 4 weeks) so we didn't have problems persuading him to take a bottle months later.

thanks for the tips: I'll try tonight and see how it goes!

hi gemmitygem. I've been expressing twice a day (roughly) and storing the milk. Sometimes I use it and sometimes discard it but I am planning to store milk rather than just replace a feed.
If you only want to replace the evening feed with a bottle then I'd express at about 9pm just for that feed.
Expressing only in the morning will leave you with less milk for the lunchtime feed and big sore boobs in the evening.
I warm the milk by placing the bottle in a bowl of boiling water for a few minutes.