Breast and formula feeding

[amberlie]

Can i breast feed and sometimes formula feed? my lg is 2 weeks and my mum comes over so i can rest can she feed her cow and gate? im struggling to express or is it bad mixing the 2? if its not is there a limit how much a day? no nasty comments :( thanks mummies xxx

the problem with trying to do both is breastmilk works on supply and demand (sure youve been told countless times haha) so the risk is if you miss a feed and replace with formula you will produce less and start to struggle.

I managed 6 weeks with my DS, and then started having serious problems because of stress and his tongue tie, one feed i got so exasperated my dp went and got formula and after that tbh my breastfeeding fell apart and i just dried up so you'd have to be a bit careful if you definitely want to continue breastfeeding.

haha yeah, heard that a lot :) will it upset her tummy if i do combine formula and breast? im just really struggling atm so got to try, id rather do both than just formula even if it doesnt work out x

It is possible, I did it once DS1 got to 12 weeks but it was just one feed a day. It shouldn't hurt her tummy. The issue we encountered was less of a supply one and more that he ended up preferring the bottle which inadvertently turned into a supply issue as I had to resort to the bottle more and more. But a lot of people successfully do both. Just worth thinking about.

I'm not entirely sure maybe look it up or ask one of the breastfeeding support nurses or even labour ward i rang them a couple of times for breastfeeding advice. I did have a quick google and it said it's fine but if you do it before the baby is 8 weeks it can affect milk supply/

It is really hard I'd just be worried that if you're struggling to start then introducing formula will probably give you more breastfeeding problems so it's worth considering first how much breastfeeding means to you ie would you be devastated if you then had further problems with milk supply after introducing formula.

My current plan as I'm about to have my second is that If i really struggle again I may use formula occasionally but if i do i'll try to express to maintain my supply.

thank you both so much, its so nice to actually find a site and mummies who are nice and actually help, most sites im on just ignore me :( i will have a long think about it all xx

It won't hurt his tummy to combine. You might find you get very full from missing a feed though which can be uncomfortable and potentially lead to a blockage/mastitis if you're not careful.

Basically there's not one fits all answer:

Some people successfully combine breast and bottle from fairly early on and find it works well for them.

I was unable to do it (although I gave bottles with expressed milk from very early on) because I had a very high supply and skipping or even delaying a single feed made me very sore. It meant that unfortunately even replacing a feed with expressed milk meant that I still had to express while ds1 was being fed by dh.

My friend was unable to do it because she found her supply dropped very quickly without regular feeds and she ended up fully formula feeding by 4 weeks. However some of this was that she lost a lot of confidence in her ability to fully bf and with better support might have gone on for longer by gradually cutting down the formula (if she had wanted to).

We mix fed ds from 10 days until around six months, it wasn't initially by choice but it worked really well for us. I think that the worry is that you give a bottle one day, then again everyday for the next few days, your supply drops and so you give another bottle and gradually the bottle phases the breast out IYSWIM. It's fine as long as it's just the occasional bottle to give you a rest- if you wanted to make it a more regular thing I might be tempted to give it a few more weeks to properly establish your supply.

Perhaps you could do a small formula feed to start with? Just 3-4oz to start with. That would mean just delaying your next feed not dropping one altogether.

I agree with the advice here. I started a nighttime formula bottle at 1 wk as I was finding bf too stressful, exhausting and painful on the nips. One bottle lead to 2-3, and now lo prefers bottle snd gets frustrated with breast as it doesn't flow as quick. Bf has become a nightmare of stress so I'm expressing instead alongside formula. I feel less stressed now but a bit sad bf has worked out. I'd say occasional bottles are fine but beware it can be a slippery slope, wish I had known and understood that before I started.