What did you find easier. Breast or bottle?

[sharond101]

Dd 7 wks had tongue tie and now struggling with latch. Feeds for over an hour and can look for more soon after. I have a toddler and feel I have no time to spend with him. Have had help with blatch problem, apparently just needs practice. Right now ff seems attractive but will it be eben harder?? Dd has reflux too which may be a problem with formula?

Don't know anything about tongue tie, but with hindsite wish I'd had ff dd, now 4 from the start.

Bf from start but had supply issues and dd, had head injuries from forceps delivery so didn't like/couldn't be cradled. Then fed expressed milk until 7 weeks so I was either pumping or feeding all the time, introduced a bottle of formula at 7 weeks by 12 weeks was solely ff on hungry baby milk and early weaned at 17 weeks.

I feel as though I missed out on so many cuddles because I was always preoccupied about bf. It also meant at night I never slept as dd fed every 2 hours and then I pumped for an hour for the next feed. Once on ff. dd went longer between feeds and was much more settled. Might be nothing to do with feeding, even at 4 she is a rubbish sleeper, but certainly the pressure to bf above all else didn't do either of us much good.

I mixed fed from 6 weeks. Was, in my opinion, the best of both worlds, and it worked for us.

If they wake in the night, latch them on and away you go. We used formula at bedtime so DH could help get DD to sleep. Pumping was the devil's work, as I could never get anything out. Once I relaxed and realised that formula was fine we were all a lot happier!

DD is now 10 months and still has a BF first thing in the morning, which is a lovely way to start the day. I would say, don't beat yourself up over the decisions you make, you don't have to justify them to anyone.

Feeding a baby is hard work however you do it. Both have harder stages and issues to deal with.

To me, from an external point of view, you're almost over the hardest part of breastfeeding which is establishing a good supply, latch etc. As time goes on it should get quicker and easier to feed. You won't need any extra equipment to go out, or do any prep to prepare a feed. Of course, only you can do the breastfeeding, but you could do a bottle of formula (or expressed milk if that works for you) once a day to give you a break.

When you break the back of it I found breastfeeding easier, especially at night.

I breastfed DC2 and it is hard at first especially if you've had trouble with latch and they do feed a lot, in that respect in the early days formula was a little easier as I found it just took less time to feed, but then you have bottle prep bottle washing and making up formula to factor in.

I think you've more or less done most of the hard bit.

I also introduced a bottle of EBM to DC2 for those times when I just couldn't sit for ages and feed him - but I didn't have any issues with him switching as he'd been in SCBU.

Once the bloody dreadful stabbing pain eased, I found breastfeeding much easier. DD had tongue tie, which we got snipped at about 12 days. However, due to her strong suck, & the damage from the TT, my nipples were so damaged, I needed time to heal, so we mixed fed fo a bit. I managed to get back to fully breastfeeding by 6 weeks, but had to give up around 5 months when DD got her 2nd tooth (determined biter). Bottle feeding while out & about, or in the night, is a total pain.

FF without a doubt. BF is hard and very tiring ! I was really struggling with BF, stressing out on no sleep and she wasn't getting a lot of milk when I gave her a bottle of formula and she slept for 5 hours straight ! Mind made up am pregnant with DC2 now and I will definately be FF

It is annoying making a bottle in the middle of the night though. Tommy Tippee Perfect Prep is a godsend for that as heats bottle to the right temp in 2 mins.

Bottle feeding so I expressed. Every time my son latched on it will hurt so much. When you are tired it was too much. So I started expressing before I then put him on formula when he was a couple of months old.

I mixed fed for over 2 years - bottles while I was at work and breast when I was around
Pros of formula were I didn't have to be about but cons....washing up and sterilising
Breast feeding positives I could feed her whenever necessary and it got her off to sleep and stopped her crying.
Anecdotally she was never ill.

I have a reflux baby. I tried to BF him but he really didn't ever want to latch and I found it incredibly painful we lasted a fortnight so you are doing amazing to still be going. The upside to FF is that I can easily administer the gaviscon, I give other meds by syringe those no diff really. If you have some spare money / club card vouchers / boots points the the tommee tippee machine is a godsend- imo worth every penny and they make good money on eBay when you are done with it. Also make sure they formula you buy has an option for cartons for out and about. (We use Hipp, aptimil made the reflux worse and the sick STANK!) sterilising isn't a huge faff - if you have 8 bottles you just do it once a day.
In all honestly I still feel a bit upset that BF did not work out for us so I wouldn't take the decision to give up lightly, maybe express milk for baby to keep supply up and try a couple of days bottle feeding to see what effect that has on reflux as that might help you decide.

Like Memphis we mix fed ds and really liked it. The best bit (for me) about bf was sitting on my arse, watching tv whilst feeding-we're talking Orange is the new Black, House( -about 8 seasons!). The first feed in the morning was nice as we didn't have to get out of bed to sort a bottle out. I'm nervous about bf my next baby as I won't be able to do this.It was also cheaper than all of the cartons we got through.
The best bit about ff was that it was much quicker, dp could do it and it never once made my nipples bleed (ds also had tt).

Argh - depends!!!

Went through the agony of one that never latched well BUT having bottle fed my eldest from birth and then breastfeeding the next 3 - breastfeeding was far easier/convenient, no getting to bed and remembering that I needed to sterilise bottles etc.

Then again if you need to get medicine into a breastfed baby for reflux (been there too with gaviscon) was much easier when I switched to bottlefeeding at 6 months...

Yes I hate the gaviscon. DD hates it too and spits it out all over me. However I must thank you all for your opinions. Really is food for thought. My only issue I think is the time to feed. I love getting out and about and thrive on routine which I don't feel we are establishing well on bf. How do you do the combination feeding without your milk drying up? It sounds very appealing.

BF, once it was established. DS never really liked the bottle (expressed milk or formula), and I hated the faff of sterilising etc. He's been ebf since about 4 months (now 11 months) and it has worked really well for us.

to start with i only gave expressed milk so I would express one feeds worth in the evening to use the next day, my supply was fine.

FF has been by far the easiest for us. I did ebf for 6/7 months, then mix fed to transition to ff. It seems to suit DD much better too, which was something I worried about as she had extreme reflux. If you want to mix feed without your supply drying up you could start by trying a bottle of formula a day at a consistent time. Your supply should adjust so you don't produce milk for that time of day but you'll be able to for the rest of the day when there's usually a demand

Tried a bottle of formula today but she only took 2ounces. Don't know if it's just down to it being formula though as she has been fussy with all her feeds today. Will try again tomorrow.

Breastfeeding. Because was you've established it, you can just pop baby on as and when. No other effort needed.

once not was!

I have friends who breastfed with ease and I can totally see how wonderful and convenient it is for lots of people. I particularly think that when on flights or other journeys where mums are able to instantly soothe their crying baby by whipping out a breast .

I found BF-ing horrendous, though. All the help in the world (midwives, BF counsellor, La Leche, my mum, supportive DH etc etc) couldn't make it bearable. So for me, FF was a breeze in comparison. I used those little cartons of formula a lot. Life savers.

Breast was way easier! All that fannying about with sterilising, boiling, cooling, mixing, storing, warming and temperature checking. With breast all I had to do was point it at him and away he'd go.
I changed to formula as I really struggled to produce enough to pump and feed when I went back to work full time. But I regretted it.

Breast, once we were up and running no comparison. Cartons still had to be warmed up.

Boob, All done and dusted from the comfort of my own bedroom.

However I also pumped and fed, that was the devils own. Nothing so demoralising and exhausting. All that work plus washing and sterilising.

I bf ds1 for 14 months because he absolutely refused to take a bottle (all bottles and made no difference whether it was ebm or formula).

Ds2 I bf for 8 months and then he became a biter so switched to ebm and then formula.

Ebm is the worst option. Pumping and feeding is time consuming, a faff with sterilising etc.

Next is formula. Getting bottles ready, having to consider whether the milk is still good if they refused a bottle and to you're reoffering it. Night feeds are a pita. Having to take so much stuff with you when leaving the house.

Bf was easiest for me but you worry about supply and how much have they had. And breastfeeding in winter is a bit draughty.

Im expecting dc3 and plan to breastfeed.

I exclusively used ebm with DC1 and will never resort to that. I don't know if I am actually imagining there to be a bigger problem than there really is and that moreso the problem is actually me missing spending time with my DC1 and that regardless of how I feed DC2 this is still going to be an issue. Feeds are taking around 1hour to 1 hour 30 minutes. With the help of a dummy I have managed to space feeds out more so generally we are bfing;

6.30am and going back to sleep until around 8am.
9am
12 noon
3.30pm
6pm
8pm
1/2am

What are your opinions on this?

My dd2 struggled to feed at the breast (not tongue tie just other issues) and so I express and also use formula and the sterilising (we go through about 10 bottles a day as dd2 can only manage little and often with her feeds) is an absolute pain in the rear.

At almost 5 months I am still trying to move over to breast fully(she does take some feeds but sometimes appears to prefer the bottle ). If i could go back I would continue with spoon feeding until we managed bfing (the first week was fun )and trying to prevent bottle use (hadn't realised about bottle preference).

Does your baby have a dummy? if so you can buy a medicine dummy - you can mix the gaviscon and place in dummy and then baby will suckle or you can use the syringe plunger thingy at the back of the dummy to aid administration. Boots sell them, they are £7 but we found it helps with administering dd2's medicines.

It sounds good op. Are you happy with it? I don't think switching to f would reduce the number of feeds at all but it might speed them up. This could (and most likely will) happen with bf over the next few weeks. I reckon that if you maintain bf like this for another month or so it will give you greater flexability to mix feed if it's what you decide you want to do. The more robust your supply the more it can "cope" with the occasional bottle when you need a rest. I didn't fully establish bf with ds (he had some f every day from 11 days old) which was fine but it is probably better in the long run to have a good supply so you have the choice.

I'm 38 weeks pregnant at the moment and have no idea how I'll cope bf with a very lively 18 month old. It sounds like you're doing really well.