Anybody out there combination feeding? What have you most struggled with?

[mommybread]

I'm combination feeding my LO and I've had so many ups and downs with it. It's mostly just the guilt of not breastfeeding exclusively that gets to me.

Just wondering how other people have found it!

My ds is 5 now so this is going back a bit, but I combined breast and bottle from 2 weeks to 10 months. Mostly I found it was great to have the flexibility to choose whichever was most convenient at the time. He wasn't really a routine-led baby but I usually gave bottles at a regular time each day, and breastfed on demand in between. It worked really well for us and my only regret is that when he started dropping feeds after weaning, I should have dropped one of the bottle feeds and carried on breastfeeding more. By ten months he was down to one breastfeed a day which wasn't enough to maintain supply at that stage. I think, though, any amount of breastfeeding for any length of time is better than none so just keep on as long as you can !

I'm doing both - it's brilliant. Baby happy and full, and getting best of both worlds. I can breastfeed him extra when he's super hungry or in the middle of the night so I can settle him quickly without the faff of making a bottle and disturbing him more, and if I need to leave him for a few hours or am somewhere I don't feel comfortable breastfeeding then I can give him a bottle. He is perfectly happy accepting both.
Lows are other mums criticising the fact that I'm not breastfeeding exclusively - that's about it - but one look at my gorgeous baby and their frowns no longer matter!

You have absolutely nothing to feel guilty about. And if you were just formula feeding, no guilt needed there either - as Lund says, you're still giving baby breastmilk, so if it's working for you & your little one, happy days.

I've mix fed both of my babies but in different circumstances.

With ds he was jaundiced, sleepy and tt. Bf was awful, nipped shredded and he was still losing weight at 11 days so we introduced f top ups. Persevered with bf and fed to 6 ish months when I gave up to ttc but never lost the f top ups for a lot of his feed. Benefits; It gave me more time away when I needed it, he thrived on it, he wasn't a fussy ff (he'd take it any temperature etc). Downsides; I felt like a total failure for a long time. I hated myself for enjoying the freedom it gave me and felt guilty that,mix feeding suited me. When ds got eczema I blamed myself. I regret that I was so ignorant about bf before I had ds.

Dd. Took to bf very well. It was easy to bf her, much easier than full on ff. I still wanted to mix feed. I've watched several of my friends ebf and regret it when their babies got older, every one of them would mix feed if they could go back. I've also faced the fact that perhaps I am a bit selfish. I can not be responsible for every feed, I just can't. We started introducing a small bedtime bottle at 4 ish weeks and she had a bottle at 10-10.30 every night but no other f (bar one single bottle when I was car sick!). We moved the f to 7.30 at 5.5 months when we felt she needed to have a bedtime (rather than just being downstairs with me).
Benefits; I've been out once a week in the evening since she was 3 months old. I used to be able to put ds to bed and I could also get an early night and let dp feed her.
Downside; Only one, she's only 9 months and we stopped bf at 8 months. After weaning she just reduced feeds at an unbelievable speed and now I can not get milk down her. She still has a bedtime bottle and we now try to get another few oz into her at 10 ish but it's hit and miss. Stopping has been very difficult emotionally for me but I do think dd is unusual in giving up bf (and milk generally)so very readily. I still feel guilty though, there's no physical reason why I didn't ebf dd, it was purely selfish on my part.