Breastmilk vs formula

[junebug121]

Hi ladies, I'm hoping some of you will have some experiences which can help me make a more informed decision.

My little one is 12 weeks today but was IUGR, born 3 and a half weeks early and in neonatal for 3 weeks. He didn't get on with breastfeeding so I have been expressing. Ever since birth he has had some formula, mainly the Aptamil 1 pre-made bottles.

Up until about 3 weeks ago he was getting about 70% breastmilk and 30% formula but now he's more awake I'm struggling to find time to express so we've slowly been shifting to 50/50 and now more formula than breastmilk.

Obviously those little bottles are expensive so now we're using more we have bought the powder. He is a very colicky Baby and had been screaming through feeds so we tried gavsicon but it bunged him up which was worse. So I then decided to try Aptamil Comfort but despite it apparently being good for constipation he is so unsettled on it, straining all the time and struggling so much with wind.

I just don't know what to do for the best. I'm wondering whether just the odd breastmilk feed isn't helping and it's confusing his digestive system. Does anyone have any experience? I'm thinking maybe I should just move completely to formula but obviously know the value of breastmilk.

Ultimately though I would like a happy baby and at the moment he just seems to be continuously in discomfort and I'm feeling like a crappy mum

Any advice would be really appreciated!

Personally, I wouldn’t think that the BM is confusing his digestion. I’ve never heard of that happening, but I’m not trained either. Perhaps it might be best to speak to a fully trained BFC. Have you got the helpline numbers?

If he is very colicky, screaming and straining it might be worth reading up on CMPA. Have a read of this and see what you think

I doubt it's confusing his system. It's possibly helping and giving his system a break with some more easily digestible breast milk in between the formula? I exclusively expressed too, so was giving varying amounts of breast milk and formula from 100% EBM at a few weeks to about 50% by six months and the only difference I noticed was he was slightly more likely to posset formula. Having said that, we didn't have major colic issues, so it's probably best to speak to the nhs about if they have any suggestions as to how to deal with the discomfort in general.

You could store your milk for a few days and then you can compare two days of just formula and two days of just EBM and see if the colic problem is the same with either milk?

Good luck with expressing, it is time consuming and it helps if you can get family round to give you as much support as possible. Also at 12 weeks you'll probably find you can drop down to fewer expressions, but get a similar amount of milk overall as your supply will be 'established' which helps. Good luck, sounds like you are doing really well and I hope you find a solution to reduce your baby's discomfort.