I am currently very successfully exclusively breastfeeding my 5 month old. Unfortunately despite trying various pumps (Manual, electric, Hakka, various brands etc etc) I am not able to express much at a time, so much so that it takes me several sessions over a few days to be able to pump enough to leave for 1 feed. This has been fine so far for the odd bottle every other week when leaving baby for a few hours at a time with dad/gran however next month I am returning to work.
At the moment baby sleeps 8-8 and half the time goes through until 3am with a quick feed the rest of the time also feeds at 11pm.
I have read that night time feeds are the most important for milk production.
I plan on breastfeeding in the morning and evenings and night time when needed however will need to introduce formula during the day for example maybe 2 feeds at 11am and 3pm or whatever schedule there or thereabouts she will be on.
Feeds are pretty predictable at the moment every 3 hours.
I’m really enjoying breastfeeding and in an ideal world would leave expressed milk but I just don’t think it’s going to be feasible.
By giving formula whilst at work am I going to have to resign myself to the fact that breastfeeding will gradually diminish as my supply won’t cope? Especially as we don’t always feed more than once in the night?
Another point to add is she has never actually tried formula (though takes a bottle fine) so all of this is assuming she will actually accept it!!
It sounds sad to be so worried but I never expected to get this far with breastfeeding so this ‘problem’ makes was never on my radar and now it’s really stressing me that I won’t be able to keep up supply.
Please tell me it’s possible!!