How to successfully combination feed...

[Willow4987]

DS is 5 weeks old and currently 90% breastfed. He has 1 bottle of formula last thing at night

I’d only planned on breastfeeding for 8 weeks as I really don’t like it. However with what’s going on with Coronavirus I’m going to continue to hopefully protect him and also because of the panic buying I’m concerned about getting formula

With DS1 I started to try and combi feed from 6 weeks but it killed my milk supply, mainly because I think I was dropping feeds too quickly as I wanted breastfeeding to be over.

I don’t want that to happen this time, so is there a tried and tested method in order to keep my supply but introduce a few more bottles for my own sanity?

I'd give one of the BFing Helplines a call. I'm not trained and I think you need to speak to someone who knows which feeds are most important to maintaining your supply

Would Le Leche league be the best ones to speak to?

How do you feel about expressing? If you're okay with that then you'll be taking a similar amount of milk so supply will be less affected and can alter very slowly and also condence multiple feeds into one lot of pumping. But I wouldn't recommend if you dislike breastfeeding because of a cow feeling.

Otherwise it depends on how he feeds/sleeps currently so you might be better speaking to someone.

It’s partially the cow feeling that I don’t like so I’m not sure pumping is for me

He feeds roughly 2-3 hours. Usually bigger gaps at night and then smaller ones in the day

I successfully combination fed with 3 bottles a day and the rest breastfeeding and it didn’t kill my supply. I introduced one bottle at 6 weeks, the next around 3 months and the third around 4 months. I always breastfed at night and did the bottles first thing in the morning, lunchtime ish and as a dream feed. That may not be quick enough for what you want but that’s how I managed it.

Yes LLL are great, in fact I’ve called a few of them and they’ve all been really helpful