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Infant feeding

Get advice and support with infant feeding from other users here.

See all MNHQ comments on this thread

Original poster

can you do breast and bottle?

26 replies

alsoliviax · 14/12/2018 21:35

Any mums to be on here or mums that are planning / or doing breast and bottle? If so would love to know how you got on as I want to do both but not sure at the moment! let me know your thoughts :)

OP posts:
Original poster
alsoliviax · 14/12/2018 21:36

sorry just realised I have posted this on baby names lol!

OP posts:
Shushandpat · 14/12/2018 21:40

We did! Four weeks just breast, and then added one bottle each day in the evening. Great as it was very easy if I needed to be away for more than a few hours, DH could just give a bottle.

jenthelibrarian · 14/12/2018 21:50

I did alternating feeds with my second child, having BF my first.
He weighed ten pounds at birth, induced 2 weeks early I might add. He was always hungry so accepted the bottle fairly easily.
It worked well, to the point where if offered breast when expecting bottle and t'other way round, he'd not be best impressed but I was far less exhausted and my very sore cracked nipples recovered.

tablelegs · 14/12/2018 21:51

Did you feed both formula and breast milk? Did you pump the missed feed?

I would like to combo feed this baby

Original poster
alsoliviax · 14/12/2018 21:58

thanks everyone x

OP posts:
kenandbarbie · 14/12/2018 22:01

I did. Dh gave one bottle of formula in the evening from birth.

kenandbarbie · 14/12/2018 22:01

Didn't pump at all.

Whyareallthegoodnamesgone · 15/12/2018 01:06

I did both and didn't pump at all. I'd do it again too x

Shushandpat · 15/12/2018 09:22

Didn't pump the missed feed and have formula (HIPP) for the bottle. It worked for us.

birdybirdbird · 15/12/2018 11:21

I’ve done both since birth. Wasn’t my original intention but due to weight loss and my milk being slow and low in supply, we had to do formula top ups. We’ve just continued with this but moved towards some feeds being just breast and some just formula. I would recommend trying to do more breast at the start though to try and get your supply well established. Best of both worlds and I have a very content and thriving little boy!

MNHQ
AnyaMumsnet · 18/12/2018 13:47

Hi there everyone,

We're just going to move this over to infant feeding

Alyosha · 19/12/2018 09:57

We give a bottle every evening at 10 of expressed milk. Dh does the feed and I get some guaranteed sleep! No issues with bottle preference or nipple confusion, we started at 2 weeks.

CIT80 · 19/12/2018 10:00

When DS1 was born I became very ill when he was two weeks old and due to medication couldn’t breast feed - he was exclusively FF for two weeks while I pumped and dumped - once the medication stopped he went straight back the breast with no issues and I fed him till he was 15 months. He would happily take bottles if expressed milk or formula if I was out and he was being looked after by somebody. It’s definately possible to combine both

PickleMeThis · 19/12/2018 10:03

Combo fed too. Ds was losing weight on just bf so supplemented at 3 weeks with formula. Worked well for us and we continued that will til he was 1

CountessVonBoobs · 19/12/2018 10:08

You can, but you need to be a bit cautious in the first few weeks that it's only one bottle a day or so, otherwise baby can become used to not having to work for the flow and start rejecting the breast, and also so that your supply isn't impacted if you are giving formula rather than EBM. Lots of people do it successfully. BUT the first 6 weeks are critical for establishing long term milk supply and some people are more 'sensitive' to having their supply shut down if not enough breast milk is being extracted.

brookshelley · 19/12/2018 10:12

Yes it's possible. I went back to work at 4-5 months with my children (crap mat leave in my country) and they took bottles from about 6 weeks, one a day to get used to it and then when I was at work all feeds during the day were expressed milk in bottles.

The only issue with combo feeding is make sure you don't substitute formula feeds before your supply is established. A lot of women get into this cycle where they give a bottle of formula but don't express or replace the feed somehow, body gets signal to make less milk, then baby gets fussy at breast frustrated at less milk, so they give more formula, and then end up inadvertently sabotaging BF. But if you take it slowly it can work.

PaperHalo · 20/12/2018 07:42

For the ladies that have successfully managed to do this - what bottles are you using? You hear a lot about nipple confusion...

PickleMeThis · 20/12/2018 07:52

I used NUK bottles. You can buy latex teats for those rather than silicone which seemed to help.

CountessVonBoobs · 20/12/2018 08:02

I've used Tommee Tippee bottles mostly and been fine - EBF twice with the occasional bottle of expressed when I'm out. And I successfully got my 5mo back onto bottles with a lengthy break by using Minbies, then once he had accepted the bottle again we went back to Tommee Tippee as the Minbies are pricey.

Alyosha · 20/12/2018 08:12

We used the bottles that came with our breast pump, medela calma. The baby has to create a vacuum to suck out the milk so it's hard work!

CountessVonBoobs · 20/12/2018 08:24

@Alyosha evidently both my babies had quite a powerful suck - they hated the Calma because it drowned them in milk Grin So the theory doesn't always work.

I'd go with fairly cheap bottles to start with and then adapt based on need.

SnuggyBuggy · 20/12/2018 08:27

I used to do one bottle in the evening so I could get 2 hours sleep. Lots of people seem to do this. It was either expressed or formula.

cr1479 · 20/12/2018 08:34

Yes I have. My DD is 6 weeks now but she has been combi fed since she was 2 weeks old.
I was exhausted and couldn't cope with feeding her every hour!
Now my OH will give her 2 bottles in the evening so that I can get a good chunk of sleep.
It's been a life saver for me as I was really struggling to cope before.
I don't pump the missed feeds as that would be pointless because I'm doing it so I can get uninterrupted sleep. As of now it hasn't affected my supply and means that when I do feed her after my OH has had her, she gets a really good feed.
But if it dose start to affect my supply then I will have to accept that because there's no way I could go back to doing every feed.
She can switch from bottle to breast really easily, sometimes I have taken her off the bottle mid feed and fed her myself and she's been fine. As if she didn't notice the difference.
I use MAM anti colic bottles and they have worked really well for us.

MiniDoofa · 20/12/2018 08:41

I did this successfully with all three of my kids. Used a variety of bottles over the years. Only one child was fussy about which bottle and he preferred avent. Starting with one bottle of formula in evening def gives you a decent break.
I also found that by evening my supply was so so low it was good to give formula as at least baby was settled properly for evening and then supply had time to build up by night time feeds.
Good luck OP.

brookshelley · 20/12/2018 08:47

@CountessVonBoobs DC1 was the same, using the Medela Calma she'd chug down 100 ml in under a minute! Tommee Tippee were much better.

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