Best Way to Switch From Breastfeeding to Formula

[newmummy2508]

My little one is seven days old and after attempting breastfeeding since birth I have really struggled and taken the decision to switch to bottlefed formula. However, I am unsure of the best way to do it. Should I simply stop breastfeeding and start bottlefeeding or should I be doing it in stages? Can anyone else who has gone through this provide any advice on how they did it please?

Firstly, well done for BFing in the first place. It is hard.

I switched at four days with DS1 and went straight to bottles. No problems at all. We didn't phase them in or anything; my nipples were bruised, cracked and bleeding so I simply couldn't do another feed. We never looked back.

I switched at six months with DS2 and this required a more gradual approach as he was so used to boob. I started by giving him a bottle at bedtime, then slowly swapped other boob feeds for bottles.

Maybe start by giving a bottle before bed and see how you get on? Good luck

Thank you Nutellas. We've decided to go for the combined feeding approach to see how that goes, cutting back on the breast feeding and adding in some bottle of formula. Early days (second day) but it seems to be going OK so far.