Exclusively express or breastfeed & express? How?!

[louthomas]

Hi,
Hope someone can advise!

I'm 31 weeks with baby no.2. DD1 was breastfed until 18 months but this time round I plan to go back to work pretty quickly and want partner to be as involved as possible with feeding.

I initially intended to exclusively express breastmilk but I've read that this can be difficult and takes around 3 hours per day of expressing. Also, can you express milk before the baby is born to give as first bottle?!!

Would I be better off mixing a bit of breastfeeding with expressed BF bottle feeding? Does this cause issues with the baby preferring one over the other? If not, is it best to start with BF and then bottle feed? Or alternate every feed? I just don't know!

A friend exclusively expressed for 3 or 4 months and it was a total nightmare. I wouldn't do it myself. Can't you just breastfeed and express or give formula when your DH wants to?

I breastfed and then expressed so that someone could feed DS when I wasn't around. We introduced the bottle at 6 weeks and tried to do one bottle feed a day.

I only expressed once a day and not always everyday. I would usually take 2oz out as fresh and freeze the rest. If I knew that I would be going out then I might hold back more.

I found expressing much, much harder than direct ebf. But a friend found it relatively easy.

You are unlikely to be able to express the first 'bottle' as it will be colostrum, and only a very little bit in volume, until your 'milk comes in'. You baby won't need more than this.

I'd bf as much as possible at first until your supply is well established, as a baby is better at stimulating boobs to make milk than a pump is. How old will your baby be? I've read lots of conflicting information on when to introduce bottles to try to avoid having a bottle refuser

I went back to work when ds was 10 weeks. Dh gave him a bottle of formula at lunchtime - he took the MAM bottles no problem.

When do you go back to work? The recommendation is to wait 6weeks before expressing to establish your supply.

Thanks for replies so far. Intending to go back to work after 11 weeks (part time).

If I were to combine BF and expressing, what's the best way to do it for best results (convenience or milk flow)? Would breast feeding during the night and expressing & bottle feeding during day work? If I'm at work for 8 hours, how often will I need to express during that period at 11 weeks?

So once you are at work, bf evening, night, morning. When you are at work, express when you need to. Once or twice. If you can store it use the next working day.
When you are not at work, eg weekends, you are keeping to the same pattern, most of the bf outside working hours.
You have 11 weeks to get into this pattern, so you can ignore it when you have a newborn..

Exclusively expressing is very hard work. Pumps aren't as efficient as babies, so at the start it's much better to feed, as otherwise its hard to build up supply (8-10 times daily pumping recommended for the first few weeks .... And even then my supply was a bit short!).
Feed normally until you have to go to expressing and then get a really good double pump with a hands free bra. Good luck and enjoy motherhood!