too young for expressed milk?

[LuciaM]

My ds is nearly 3 weeks old and i fancy having a go with expressing some milk (am bit fed up with boobs out all the time!). Have got the impression though that 3 weeks is too young to try a bottle. Also how much milk should I express at any one time. How much do breast fed babies eat anyway?!

Both of mine had ebm or formula from a bottle from about 2wk. No harm done whatsoever. I usually expressed a bit now and then throughout the day, and dh gave the baby 2-3oz after I had fed him or her at about 10 or 11ish, just before I went to sleep. That usually gave me my longest stretch of sleep because the baby would generally go about 4h after that feed, rather than 2-3h.

Ds was mix-fed from 2weeks, dd was fully breastfed with ebm top-ups 3-4 times a week and occasional bottlefeeds. Neither had any trouble with 'nipple confusion' (is that what it's called?). I used the Avent bottles and made sure that the baby took as much of the teat as possible into his or her mouth, mimicking the breastfeeding mouth-position.

HTH!

Ds had some donated breast milk 12 hours after birth in a bottle - no problems. Maybe not ideal that young but I personally feel it helped him get the idea of feeding!

I struggled to get very much out while expressing but this doesn't necessarily mean a supply problem - babies are better at getting it out, or your brain is better at giving it to them. Anyway I understand there are all sorts of tricks to try and increase expressed output - I'm sure lots of others will advise.

my 3 all had ebm more or less daily from a week or two old. They'd take no more than 2 or 3 oz at a time at that time, and that would keep them going for several hours. it's a good time to start if you don't want them to reject the bottle, many get fussy at about 6 weeks.

By all means give it a go - provided the baby is getting the bulk of its feeds from the boob there shouldn't be any problem with nipple confusion.

Personally though I'd have found expressing far more hassle than it's worth at that stage! Just breastfeeding is far easier than having to sterilise all that kit, and then sitting around expressing. And remember that if you start skipping feeds you may affect your milk supply. Doesn't matter so much when your supply is established, but 3 weeks is quite early.

The bonus of giving a bottle early is that they get used to it - but you do have to keep it up. We gave dd a bottle at 5 weeks, she took it like a dream, then we didn't bother again until 8 weeks and the blighter wouldn't have anything to do with it and it took weeks of battling with her to get any bottle milk down her again. That's a very common problem!

The sluglet was on expressed milk from the day she was born, due to being in the SCBU. I have vivid memories of the midwife collecting my colestrum in a syringe, one drop at a time. I can't understand why there should be any problem.

If she's slurping away happily at the boob, no problem I'm sure.

I think the advice is to wiat until b/feeding is established as expressing can slow it down a bit (as not as energetic as baby's sucking).

I had to do it from week one because of extremely sore nipples anyway and had no problems.

You can give it a go and not overdue it to start with

DS was in Transitional Care and switched from breast to bottle to tube and back with no problem from the very start. Even when home he often had a mix of boob & bottle.

ds is only 13 days and I've been expressing after his early morning feed since we got home (7 days) so that dh can do one night feed.
I find in the morning I can manage 4oz without too much trouble and having the odd bottle hasn't affected his interest in the boob.
If you find it helps you then go for it I think.

Hi
I started expressing and gave the odd bottle when dd was about 4 weeks old. I wanted to get her used to a bottle so that my mum could babysit. I think we started with 3ozs and if she finished the bottle I used to increase how much I expressed each time.
We use the avent bottles.

Thanks for the advice everyone! Relief to hear that 2 - 3 oz is enough. Somehow I had visions of baby drinking half pints!