How do I switch from breast to bottle?

[Eminybob]

DS is 7.5 mo and was EBF until 6 m and now has a bottle of formula at bed time.

The time has come for me to move away from breastfeeding for various reasons, not least because I have started to feel his teeth!

But I have no idea where to start! His breastfeeds are so erratic, he has no real pattern, tends to snack a lot rather than big feeds and bf's to sleep (apart from last feed). This was the reason we started the formula at bed time, he would only have a little feed then wake after a couple hours as he was hungry again, with a bottle he will take 7-8 oz usually and sleep longer.

So how do I introduce a bottle schedule? And I'm so used to feeding to sleep for night wakings and naps, even when he isn't hungry that I don't know how else to get him to sleep.

Weaning is going well (BLW) and he has 3 meals a day, so need to fit in around that also.

I just haven't got a clue, please help!

Bump anyone please?

Hi, I had this when my lo was 8 months I started to try and feed less from boob for week or so - only morning then twice in day and before bed did this for bout 2 weeks to try get a pattern then replaced a feed with formula for 2 weeks them replaced another etc.. I'm down to just morning feed now - my lo also feed to sleep and she still will with a bottle some nights tho she can self settle too. In night if she wakes I just give her 3onces of milk as I always just boobed back to sleep. Hope this helps x

Not judging or wanting to sound patronising but just wanted to flag up that it's absolutely normal to contribute bf even if a baby has teeth! Assuming that that's not the main reason for your anyone to stop, however, I'd suggest dropping one feed at a time - ie., make the first feed of the day a formula feed, as well as the last one. Does he feed overnight? If so then maybe try ff for that. But to be honest I think the only answer is trial and error - good luck :)

Contribute = continue!

Thanks both of you. I guess it's trial and error I can imagine there will be lots of wasted formula at first.
It's the feeding to sleep thing I need to get my head round most. I suppose I can time naps and bottles so they coincide?

Laquila I meant that his teeth are starting to hurt me now (he's had them for a couple of months but I hadn't felt them while feeding until recently)

We're just doing this now. I just started by introducing a 10am bottle, then when my boobs had for used to skipping that morning feed, a 2pm one, then an 11pm dreamfeed. I now only bf at 7am, 4pm and 7pm (all times are rough, as they shift slightly depending on dd and what we're doing) and will start to replace the 7pm feed with a bottle this week. For the first couple of weeks there was a lot of waste but now dd loved her bottle and you can see she takes comfort from it in the same way as the boob, so she'll feed to sleep as she used to. She's also started taking less from each bf, so I think she might drop those naturally now she's getting solids too. The key is just to keep upping the number of bottles and downing the number of bfs as and when your boobs can take it. Good luck!

p.s. meant to also say I wouldn't worry about a schedule, just feed on demand as you do with bf. I realise that writing down our rough feed times looks like I've scheduled it but I just feed when dd gets hungry

I'm having the same worries! My DS won't drink from a bottle so I'm praying he'll drink from a sippy cup,does anyone know if you can then start swapping some bf for milk in a cup? I'm going back to work and DS will be in nursery and the nursery manager said some mums go in to bf! I won't be able to do this?

I started introducing formula at 6 months.
How I did it was every time I thought she might want milk I'd put a few oz of readymade formula in a bottle and give her that.
I offered formula for every feed first then breast if she was upset to get her to sleep etc.
I just kept doing that every day and she got more of a taste for formula. this took 2 months to completely change from bf to ff.
It was a bit of a stalemate at first because she really wanted bf but we got there.
I always bf to sleep so Regards the naps, once she had the bottle I just cuddled and rocked her to sleep while she had a full belly.
I did occasionally go for a walk to rock her in the pram if my back was hurting. I also introduced a dummy for sleep time which replaced her sucking me to sleep.

Thank you I'm going to try that maybe a little sooner than 6 months then so he can be use to no bf during the day.I thought it would be v simple just to switch at exactly 6 months! It's actually quite hard to stop the routines you get into..my DH see's the feeding as my area too which isn't good as he's starting to tell me what to feed DS when we wean him!