Supply question - feeding at night only

[ClammedupClam]

I have an 8 month old. He is BF but has been given a bottle of formula by DH every night since he was tiny. He also quite often has a bottle of expressed milk during the day at the weekend.

I am going back to work part time in 6 weeks. My DH is doing 6 weeks shared parental leave and then he'll be at nursery. So I would like to gradually move him over to formula in the day. For various reasons anyway, I think I am done with breastfeeding in the day - I am not massively enjoying it anymore. And I am certainly not planning on expressing for day feeds once I'm back at work.

However, I would really like to carry on feeding him at night. It's a totally different (and much more enjoyable!) experience when he's sleepy, and it's the easiest way to get him back to sleep.

My question is will my supply cope OK with feeding just at night? I know parents of toddlers do it, but I didn't know if it was more for comfort than nutrition at that age. Where as he still has proper feeds at night and I really don't want to end up topping up with formula at night.

He has taken to solids pretty well so has cut down day milk anyway. He usually has 4 BF during day, bedtime bottle, and 2 overnight BFs.

Any experiences of night feeding only in a baby around this age would be very welcome!

Your supply will be more than established by now. If you just want to feed at night I'd go with it.

Thanks! I wasn't really sure how it worked and or if I went big chunks of time during the day, I was worried my body would stop producing milk properly.

At 9 months I didn't feed in the day for big chunks of two days a week but did die the other five.

I'm convinced my body just got used to it after two weeks.

That's interesting. There would be the odd time (like if we can ever go on a day out again!) where it would be easier to BF in the day than faff around with bottles. I had assumed it wouldn't really be possible to do the odd day time feed if I was otherwise only feeding at night, but maybe supply is less rigid than I had imagined.

At 8 or 9 months I think that as long as you have regular feeds, like the night ones, you can add extra feeds in when you like

Yep it'll be fine. I did the same at this age (8.5 months). DD ate good solid food meals and so just had a small beaker of cows' milk during the day (or water - she didn't drink much milk at this stage during the day so I didn't see the point in introducing formula). She had her first and last feed of the day as breastfeeds. My supply was fine - I could even give her a morning snack breastfeed on my day off or at the weekend without it causing an issue. Just remember to wear breast pads for the first week or so when you drop the day feeds .

Yeah it will be fine, my baby is 8 months and I'm just feeding her once myself at night and just before bed and my supply seems fine, reduced slowly down from ebf to this over a couple of weeks. She has 2 bottles in the day, occasionally 3 but now she's eating a bit more she doesn't usually want the mid morning/lunchtime one. Didn't have any problems with reducing down the day time feeds in terms of leaking etc, it works much better for me this way now as I have a 4 year old too and it feels like I'm constantly cooking and feeding them both!!