has anyone expressed for a week old or less?

[nappyaddict]

i am asking for a friend who wants to know if it is too early to express for her ds. i always thought you had to wait for 2 weeks but i may be wrong. if anyone has expressed for a week old or younger baby did they ever get nipple confusion or start refusing the breast or bottle at a later date?

I was taught how to express in hospital. DS was born via an emergency c-section and we had a few problems with jaundice, for which he had to go under a lamp for 24 hours. He didn't feel very well at all and they persuaded me to feed him formula to get his weight back up and out of SCBU.

I expressed, and expressed like there was no tomorrow over the first 6 weeks of his life. He had mostly bottles and had a terrible latch. I very unscientifically reduced his formula and increased expressed milk and kept putting him to the breast. I had a lot of advice from the wonderful mumsnet and now at 18 months he is still breastfeeding. I don't recall any bottle/breast confusion.

Expressing kept up my supply I think in those early days but these are just my experiences, I am certainly no expert and I think we got there by luck rather than design.

if she is expressing, then when the bottle is given,she needs to be careful that she is not going too long between breastfeeds, the newborn is far more efficient at removing milk from the breast than a pump, and if she goes to long between breastfeeds, tehn her supply might not meet the demand

I did due to problems with latching on (now thankfully mostly sorted). I gave a few bottles but due to nipple confusion worries we mostly fed our DD EBM with a little plastic spoon. We also tried a syringe and a cup, but the spoon worked best as she could kind of lap the milk off it and so control what she was getting iykwim.

I can't really advise on whether nipple confusion is something to be worried about, but I just didn't want to risk it. Now that DD is BFing well we've actually started giving her one bottle a day. It's early to have started but I've all this expressed milk and it's really a godsend to have DH give her a bottle sometimes so I can rest.

I expressed every feed for DD from the moment she was born until about eight weeks. She latched on beautifully, but used to be so happy she'd just fall asleep and nothing would keep her awake.

After the eight weeks she decided that she would breast feed each morning and had formula the rest of the time. She then stopped even taking that one feed at 16 weeks.

yes, both times and no problems. Books/counsellors will advise waiting 2 weeks though, think it depends on supply, i had tons!

I expressed and bottle fed EBM for the first week as DS would not latch on and developed jaundice. then I used nipple shields and eventually, after four weeks, he stopped using them altogether.

MissChief - how many days was your dd/ds?

I would be cautious about expressing at this early stage. It totally messed with my milk supply and my breast became engorged, leading to dreadful mastitis. Perhaps best to wait until her milk supply fully established and her baby is in a good routine?

1st time, 3 or 4 days, 2nd time 2 days. It really depends on the woman's supply tho, imho. I wouldn't want to say for sure that this would work for someone else but i found it a godsned as a) I was v sore b) dh could do a feed

And your dd/ds took the bottle at 2 days with no problems?

er yes, from dh (not from me). Probably depends on the baby too but imho, if they're hungry, they're going to take it. Many will disagree but that's been my experience!

she's got very sore nipples atm. will expressing make them more painful?

in my expereience, no, not at all. That's precisely why it's a good idea, or was for me anyway. It buys you time to recover.

i will tell her to give it a go then. thankyou all