will bfeeding just twice a day be a disaster?

[olivhohoho]

my dd is 4 months old and has been bf with the odd bottle of formula at night for the last two weeks. I was originally going to switch her to all fomula but part of me would like to carry on bf for a little longer. if i gradually cut down to just 2 bf a day, say morning and evening, would my supply readjust itself to provide enough milk for these? dont want to do it if there wouldnt be enough milk there for dd to be satisfied by it.

[daisymlaisy]

Sorry for the mis-understanding, I wasn't answering in general, I was answering to Olivhohoho, who was only going to be feeding twice a day and whose baby is having a bottle of formula at night. Unicef obviously does everything we can to promote breastfeeding, however we try and explain to mothers the importance of exclusively breastfeeding, as sadly alot of mothers are still getting alot of bad advice from in-laws, poorly educated health professionals who are telling them that they don't have enough milk, and their baby is hungry and you should offer a top-up of formula. Then the health benefits of breastfeeding are lowered and unfortunately yes, seriously so if you are only offering only 2 feeds out of 7 feeds, or say topping up after every feed.

[daisymlaisy]

Sorry for starting a controversial debate, as a professional I was just trying to help a lady out.
Unfortunately the truth isn't always what people want to hear.
As I said before we want to encourage every woman to breastfeed and our job in the community is to inform mother correctly of all the health benefits from exclusively breastfeeding and the loss of benefits if you introduce top-ups. To try and discourage top-ups, as with the right help and support most women can successfully exclusively breastfeed.
I will go away now, and leave the advice to the unprofessionals!

[daisymlaisy]

olivehohoho if you have any more questions you can cat me, as I know how important breastfeeding support is, and I only wish I could help more people.

[crunchie]

Actually Daisy I read it that same way and was a bit suprised, it sounded like you were suggesting that one bottle of ffhas a negative effect, and cancels out the good effect of BF. Personally I think that is a load of rubbish. Yes I understand exclusive bf is best until 6 months, however the formula wll not negate the positives gained from BF which is what you implied.

Back to the OP. I bf fully for 5 or 6 weeks and then gave one FF a day, it meant I could let someone else feed whislt I looked after DD1. When I went back to work I had weaned myself and DD2 of the full time BF to 2 times a day, and the other bottles. I did this over about a month, I started with one bottle mid morn (that was the original bottle) then I added in one mid pm. So I BF am, lunch, pm and night, with 2 bottles, I then dropped the lunch feed and replaced with a bottle. Whcih meant bf for 12 hrs (am pm and night and ff during the day.

Once I actually went back to work I found the am feed didn't work for me, I had to leave the house at 7.30am and didn't have time as DD2 didn't wake until 8am ish. SO I ended up doing last thing at night an in the night if needed. However I think this lasted about 3 months until she was 9 monhs when she stopped wanting to BF.

So it can be done, you can keep up your supply, but I would feed at night anbd do teh bottles inthe day as that is when you will be away from her.

[crunchie]

Please don't do and leave this thread as MN needs professionals like you. I think the suprise was that you seemed to say FF is negative, when what is really true is that some breast milk is still better than none, and of course we all agree exclusively bf is the best if it is possible.

[hunkermunker]

Daisy, I'm sorry if you felt I was having a go at you - I am of the school of thought that no formula is ideal, but some breastmilk is better than none.

Ironically, I've just posted about the importance of not giving any formula and the importance of the virgin gut on another thread, so I think we're singing from the same sheet here!

[daisymlaisy]

sorry that my messages have been mis-construed it is easy on here for that to happen. Although re-reading I do say the FULL benefits of breastfeeding are only gained if you EXCLUSIVELY breastfeed, and that once you begin to introduce formula FEEDS then these are lowered.
Any breastfeeds are better than none, however be aware of loss of benefits. Sometimes people can jump to conclusions of their own and its hard on here to state facts, without the use of emotions.

[motherinfurrierfestivefrock]

I fed DD1 morning and evening from four months with absolutely no problems, for about six months; but in between she had bottles of formula in the day.

[olivhohoho]

sorry for starting something that has possibly proved to be controversial but thank you to all of you for your help. daisy , thanks for your CAT offer, i really appreciate it and may take you up on that!

i've had a good think and for now, i'm going to stick to bf most of the time with the odd bottle of formula to allow me a little more independence. will see how its going just before i go back to work (i dont work in uk so different rules about break and lunchtimes - i get some but not all!) but will prob give formula in the day at nursery and bf when at home.
thanks again

[Twinklemegan]

"once you begin adding formula feeds to the baby's diet, the health benefits are lowered considerably, and almost cancelled out if your only giving 2 feeds a day."

Sorry if this one's been done to death, but I've just seen a reference to this thread. I just wanted to say that this is precisely the kind of unhelpful comment that I have objected to previously on b/f threads. If I had seen advice like this whilst I was still struggling (as in being in agonising pain for the whole of every feed) to give my DS at least some breastmilk, I would undoubtably have given up thinking it wasn't worth it. In doing so I would have deprived my DS of 4 months worth of breastmilk, even if it was only about a quarter of his total intake.

[Rochwen]

I bf exclusively until my dd was 4 and a half months and then continued cutting down the feeds until I only bf twice a day. It worked really well. I felt I always had enough milk on both of those feeds and I certainly satisfied dd. I think boobies are very smart, my milk came in right on schedule. Brilliant !

I know daisy you are a bf counsellor but what you have just said is completely the opposite what all the mw's hv and the bf councillors of the NCT adviced me. They said that the baby will get all the anti-bodies from even just one or two feeds a day, so they strongly advicse me to contine feeding even just for a two feeds a day. Their argument was that some breastmilk is better than none. I do think your information is not quite accurate.

It might be true for third world countries where there are problems with getting clean water and thus feeding a bottle of formla really wouldn't be a good idea but here in the WEst we do have access to safe water, sterilised bottles and good quality formula.

This is a genuine question, apart from the mother's antibodies what exactely does breastmilk contain that formula doesn't?

Really, we should encourage mothers to breastfeed not scare them. I think there is a good chance that this 'all or nothing' approach puts women off breastfeeding rather than encouraging them.

[hunkermunker]

Rochwen, only Daisy thinks she's a breastfeeding counsellor.

[hunkermunker]

See this thread

[clairemow]

hi oivho - we had a bit of a chat about this a couple of weeks ago on another thread I think. I was in the same position as you. I was feeding am and pm, and expressing am and late evening as well. I dropped the late evening expressing just before Xmas. Then I found that my supply dropped off massively, so much so that after a week, DS was still hungry after feeding from both sides at bedtime, so I had to top him up - the night he drank 5 oz after feeding from both sides for 45 mins, I had to admit defeat. Now he's almost totally formula fed. I do feel quite sad about it , and wish it hadn't happened.

Question, at risk of opening up a can of worms like the other thread... - surely two feeds a day of breast milk must be better than none? For a baby on say 4-5 feeds a day, that is 40 - 50% breastmilk. How can the benefits be cancelled out? I have a lot of bm in the freezer and am gradually using it up for a couple of feeds a day at the moment so that DS still has breast milk - am I wasting my time?? This was what was making me feel ok about having stopped...

[tiktok]

I don't know what else I can do to knock this myth of 'cancelling out' on the head, claire - have another read of what I posted and follow the suggestions for further reading and maybe that will help

You can think about going back to breastfeeding, if you want to. Sometimes, supply does drop a bit too dramatically when you start to intro more formula; when that happens, you can apply the 'feed frequently to make more milk' thing, which you could still do. Problem can be that the baby doesn't always want to co-operate enough, which is why it's best to get in quick to restore milk as soon as you suspect a drop. But if you are sad, and want to bf again, then you may be able to do so

[ProfYaffle]

In answer to the op, I bf my dd til she was 6 mo and then switched to 2 bf am and pm with formula inbetween at nursery, I continued with this mixed feeding for a further 7 months. Obviously my dd was older so that may have made a difference but I had 2 friends who did mixed feeding from an earlier age and had no problems.

One of the main benefits of continuing with mixed feeding was that I was able to bf dd when she was ill. On a few occasions she couldn't keep formula down but could cope with bm. My supply seemed to be flexible and kept up with her increased demands. It was also useful for getting her back to sleep if she woke up in the night or needed ad hoc comforting for whatever reason.

[olivo]

thanks again for all your words of wisdom and experience. this thread has given me lots to think about, good and bad!! for now, i am giving dd 2 ff and the rest ( 4 or 5) bf with a view to changing one more of the bf to ff but i will keep an eye on my supply (as far as you can) and bf more often if she seems to need it.

[Twinklemegan]

Rochwen - "Really, we should encourage mothers to breastfeed not scare them. I think there is a good chance that this 'all or nothing' approach puts women off breastfeeding rather than encouraging them."
I couldn't have said it better myself! I've been banging on about precisely that ever since I joined MN!

[clairemow]

Thanks Tiktok, glad it's a myth! I know I could have rebuilt my supply back up, I debated with myself for a couple of days but I'm afraid I went for the easy option. I struggled to deal with a 2 year old and feeding DS2 at the best of times (cue tantrums in normally cheerful, independent toddler....!), let alone trying to feed DS2 more often to build up supply again... Still, he had 3 1/2 months exculsively and 4 months mixed.

Olivho, good luck, I really hope it works for you like it did for Rochwen.

[macneil]

"Really, we should encourage mothers to breastfeed not scare them."

Yes, I also find a lot of what is billed as 'full information to make an informed choice' to be more likely to frighten women who want to breast feed. If your kid couldn't get the hang of maths, you wouldn't say to him 'You know, children who have no maths qualifications are statistically more likely to earn below average wage and end up divorced, you may even never get a job.' You'd say, 'A lot of people find this very hard at first, it's not just you: but if you practise there's a very good chance you'll get the hang of it, and when you get the hang of it you'll find it gives you all sorts of advantages'. Whereas a day's paranoid trawl through the internet (for instance, I'm trying to find out whether it's better to give all my EBM in one sitting rather than in the small amounts I can make before each feed then top up with a much bigger amount of formula) just pulls out article after article about how formula feeding increases the likelihood of infant death. I've found links to dozens of those articles here on mumsnet.

[macneil]

Oh balls, I should also say I've found the most wonderful advice and encouragement in much greater measure here.