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Infant feeding

Get advice and support with infant feeding from other users here.

Can you mix expressed and formula milk?

4 replies

WaitingForWineOClock · 27/10/2015 08:12

We're doing combination feeding with our DS as we've never got on with bfeeding, but want to keep it going 'half and half' for a while longer. So at each feed he gets bfed then topped up with formula, which works fine.

However, we have a problem that at the late feed that my hubby does so I can get to bed earlier. He starts off with a bottle of expressed milk then refills that bottle with formula. However, during the refilling process DS sometimes nods off and refuses to wake up for any more feed.

Now, this is great for getting him back to sleep after this feed, however it's causing him to wake up a couple of hours later, whereas with his 'usual' feed which includes both breast and formula, he'll go for 3 hours (or even longer overnight).

I think that because a) formula fills them up a bit more and b) he's used to a mix of bmilk and formula, so he's just not finding this late feed satisfying enough.

So, we're thinking that the easiest thing to do would be to put a mix of expressed milk and formula in the bottle, so he gets the best of both worlds without that break in the feeding to refill the bottle that he tends to fall asleep during.

We can think of any reason why we shouldn't do this, as surely the bmilk and formula get mixed up in his stomach anyway.

But we just wanted to check if anyone has any similar experience or words of warning in case it's a daft thing to do that could cost us an entire night's sleep!

For info, he's on the ready made liquid formula, not powder formula, and is 9 weeks old.

Thank you.

OP posts:
BumWad · 27/10/2015 12:14

Can you not have 2 bottles in hand? Why are you re-filling?

You can absolutely mix however if baby doesn't finish the bottle you will have to throw all that hard earned breastmilk away.

I do the 2 bottle thing giving bm first then do a quick swap to the formula bottle which is ready made and on hand.

NickyEds · 27/10/2015 13:58

I'd do two bottles rather then mix too- so that none of your bm is wasted if your baby doesn't finish a bottle. However as pp said it's fine to mix ebm and f- we did it with dd when we were conning her into taking some f!

WaitingForWineOClock · 27/10/2015 16:35

Thank you. Stupidly, the two bottle option hadn't ocurred to me. Blame it on the baby brain Blush!

OP posts:
Caterina99 · 29/10/2015 20:52

Yep we mix them together. I couldn't be bothered with washing 2 bottles for every feed. But if you're just doing it once a day, then tiu don't have to worry about that. I did wait til he was reliably drinking most of the bottle though. Couldn't cope with the precious breast milk being wasted!

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