Switching to formula from breastfeeding

[TOJ123]

Hello,

My baby is nearly 10 weeks old and I’ve made the decision to stop breast feeding and move on to formula as the breast feeding has been constant and it is getting me down as she also uses me as a dummy. Happy mum = happy baby :)

Can anyone please advise on the best way to do this? And also, baby uses me as a dummy for going to sleep so not sure how to then stop this habit too if I’m going to be formula feeding? She won’t take a dummy BTW.

Any advice is really appreciated! xx

it’s not as constant in the day as she’s asleep a bit more but unless she’s napping

It could be normal what you are experiencing OR
it could be that she is catching up with feeds OR
that she is filling up, so after the witching hour of monster feeds your baby then is able to settle.

Every baby is different but keeping a log may explain lots... what we do know is that you are still surviving and getting to 10 weeks is a real achievement and whatever you choose going forward, you have done well to get this far

Sorry I just saw that you had your baby checked for tongue tie. Was it a specialist who did this? We had our baby checked initially by a midwife and she said he didn’t. We then had it checked by a specialist lactation consultant and she spotted it as it was posterior so harder to see

So the way I’ve done it twice now is to gradually introduce a bottle. So I’d start with the last feed of the night as the bottle. Then a few days later would introduce another one (maybe mid morning), then another (maybe mid afternoon) and so on

The reason I did this was to spread out the bottles so my breasts didn’t get too engorged while my body was adjusting

It takes about 2.5 weeks to completely switch doing it this way but reduces any pain for you.

My DS’s both used to comfort feed but to be honest the more bottles that were introduced this naturally just went away

It might be worth getting her checked for tongue tie again with a lactation consultant, they’re often missed by midwives if they’re not really severe, but they can still cause a problem