can someone help me with this feeding pattern?

[Questionsagaintoday]

I'm at my wits end with my 5 month old baby who will shortly begin to go to childcare as I return to work.

The intention is to retain a morning and night BF and bottles the rest of the day.

This is how each day is going - I am ready to explode out of my head and am actually in tears.

6 am: baby wakes up after sleeping through the night and I offer a BF. Baby suckles for 2/3 mins on one Breast and comes off while milk still coming out and not yet the fattier milk. Blows raspberries giggles etc

Plays and then falls asleep by 7:30 am

(At this point I am confused if those 2 mins was THE morning breastfeed - as I do want to retain the two proper feeds)

8 am: awakes and roots for food. I tentatively offer the first bottle of the day. Has 1 ounce. Then comes off and blows raspberries at it bends the other way irrespective of dark or active room.

Plays etc

10 am: roots - I have now had to throw out the remaining expensive formula and quickly offer another fresh bottle. Has 1 ounce. Then starts pushing it out.

11 am- we go out. I am aware he has t eaten and his tummy is very flat. The moment we get into a cafe he roots. I am compelled to offer boob. He suckles for 1 minute and goes off. Giggles

12:30: back at home roots. I have now thrown the previous uneaten bottle away. Give him a new one. Has 1.5 ounces and then pushes it awa

I could go on. I am going mad. This will end in a frenzy of crying at bath time and then a sleepy breastfeed and bed.

This will end in no weight gain to 1 ounce over a fortnight.

I go to work in three weeks. I am ready to give up. But what can I do

Varying amounts of expensive formula offered all being chucked out the drain now

Breasts were last suckled on for 2 mins twice today

I truly can't do this

Sounds really stressful, no wonder you are pissed off :(

Can you give one of the BF lines a call? It's hard to work out what's going on without more history of weight gain, feeding issues and so on.

Feel free to share more info - I think it would help.

Yeah have called the NCT line many times. Nothing seems to emerge out of anything. Some days hints improve and again back to square one.

He's taking in enough to be crawling along the space between 9-25 centile lines as always. So no HCP is concerned.

Yet this "result" is the outcome of every.single.day being a madness of this kind. Just called the HV who said its normal for five month olds to eat like newborns. I almost starts crying at the patronising.

It's all been slow. He simply doesn't wish to eat (1) enough to have anything less than 18 feeds a day (2) or enough to gain more than 1 oz a week.

Wherever the milk comes out of breast or bottle.

Had 3 oz an hour ago, spat out loads. Then napped and cried and rooted. Had no more bottles left so was bound to offer boob. Had ten minutes of watery milk as that boob was unused since yesterday and when he came off there was watery milk coming out. Because the boob is now meant to be used only morning and night

But I keep going in circles I dread waking up to another day of this. I can't explain this to anyone

I just want to say this is my 5 month old baby. He has X number of feeds a day. They are roughly about at these times.

The whole confusion starts at 6 am when "THE MORNING BREASTFFED" ends up being a quickie suckle and then rejecting he breast. I don't know what to offer next how much when. And then t knocks on.

At the end of the day my DH throws out bottle upon bottle of unused formula and I sit there dreading the next day.

Oh bless you, I couldn't read and run. I just wanted to give you a virtual (((hug))) and tell you its going to be ok.

Firstly, you are doing brilliantly. Is he your first baby? I have 2 DSs myself (3yrs, 1yr), and BF them both. With my first DS I found feeding SO FUCKING WORRYING. I was constantly worrying about whether he had had enough milk (because when you BF you never really know how much they have had), whether he was going to be hungry if I went out, when he was next going to want feeding, if he had taken enough milk at bedtime etc etc etc...

The main things I have learned from having 2 babies is that if they are really hungry, they will let you know. If you offer boob/bottle, and he doesn't take that much, he probably just isn't that hungry. He could just be going through a not-that-hungry phase. Or he might be teething, so sore gums and not too keen on feeding at the moment?

You could try spacing feeds a bit further apart to see if he will then take more milk at each feed, if you think this won't make him too upset. He's your baby, so you know best what will and won't be possible.

Try not to worry too much about weight gain. As long as he is doing wet and dirty nappies he is fine. My HV actually advised me only to weight DS's once per month, once every 2 weeks seems a bit often? (This was literally the only bit of HV advice that I ever found remotely helpful!)

Keep at it. It gets easier once they start eating solids, as you can get into a bit more of an established routine with feeds.

Thank you yes I know that's the issue with breastfeeding - but personally in finding this mixed feeding business far far more tricky than exclusive breastfeeding

I'm returning to work in a few weeks and trying to retain the morning and night breastfeeds but the rest of the day has reduced me to absolute tears

Another feed has just happened - 2 is from a bottle then back to breast. No idea what my supply is like right now the way it's being messed about with I'm honestly surprised that here's still milk and he still glugs it from my breast.

However this isn't helping me. I need to have him on the bottle over the day, he's only five months the not like he's going to be one of those older babies who just feed when mum is around.

Have you got a local lactation consultant or La Leche League group nearby? Maybe speaking to to a specialist face to face could help? Hope things get better soon

I'm not breastfeeding except the morning and night feeds anymore and this is more about formula feeding really so Lactation professionals wouldn't really be able to or willing to help with the baby taking a bottle.

When i returned to work after DS2, I tried initially to keep the morning and night BFs. He was happy to take a bottle of formula in the daytime. He was about 10 months when I went back to work. However, he just wasn't really that interested in BF anymore, and I also found that my milk supply dwindled pretty quickly so it seemed pointless to continue, so I stopped and just did formula from then on.

DS2 wasn't keen on taking a bottle at first. I first tried introducing it at about 10-12 weeks (?), so he would get used to it. I had awful problems getting DS1 to take a bottle as I BF him exclusively until 6 months plus, without ever giving him a bottle of breast milk/formula/anything. That was a mistake, because when it was time to go back to work (and therefore needed to take a bottle) he refused for ages.

Anyway, to get them to accept the bottle, I would express 1oz breastmilk and put it in a bottle until they got the hang of feeding from the bottle, the increased the amount of breastmilk in bottle gradually, then swapped it to formula once they knew what they were doing. It seemed to work ok, they took to formula no problem.

Do you think he is pushing the bottle out/not feeding because he doesn't get how to use the bottle yet, or just not hungry, or just fussing? If he doesn't quite get it yet, keep trying, he'll get the hang of it soon.