Purely breastmilk or mixed feeding for longer....what is best?

[Pepperwand]

Due to latching issues at the start with DS2, I decided very early on that I would express my milk for him and have done that since he was a week old. He's now 5 months and I am so exhausted and done with expressing, I'm now weaning off the pump with the aim of being stopped by 6 months.

I've managed to build up quite a stock of milk that is in my chest freezer so am now just wondering how is best to use it. I could keep him on purely breastmilk for about another month after I stop expressing with my freezer stash ... Or I could use half breastmilk and half formula and keep that on for two months ... Or I could switch him to formula but give him one breastmilk bottle a day and do that for much longer. It's in a deep freeze so lasts for 12 months so it going off isn't an issue.

I'm really struggling to decide what is best for him and best to do and I can't really find any research out there! Maybe it doesn't really matter in the grand scheme of things but expressing has been a slog so I want to feel I've done the right thing with the fruits of my labours!

Give him the pure breast milk until it finishes then you can use formula or cows / goats milk if you want.

Well done for exclusively pumping for so long!
You might find that once you start weaning at 6 months, the importance of breast milk feels a bit less of a pressure (not a judgement at all, this was my experience). Personally, I'd wean onto formula gradually over the two months by which time (8 months) you might find your LO eating pretty well and dropping feeds anyway. I know it really varies but in my situation by 8 months we were on 3 feeds in a day, which was 2 by 9 months. By 12 months you can wean onto cow's/other milk anyway so although that must seem ages away at the moment, you're only really looking at 6 months of (reducing) milk feeds.