Transitioning from formula to Breastfeeding

[Ninabd]

hi all,

I have a 8 days old baby at home. i had some problems with BF at the start which led him to be formula fed for the first few days but now we want to transition back to breastfeeding. I’ve had a lactation consultant coming over, who helped me with the latch and advised me to do lots of skin to skin and offer the breast as much as possible, besides of pumping. I can see that my supply is increasing little by little. The problem is that my baby seems hungrier each day and is now taking 90ml of formula at each feed besides of breast milk. I feel like I will never be able to catch up with BF at this pace which is making me really frustrated. Any advice ??

The more you feed the more milk you produce so you need to reduce the amount of formula you are offering otherwise you won’t produce enough.

It's a supply and demand game so the more you feed the more you will produce. It can take a little while for your supply to keep up but it will happen. I'd be wary of topping up with formula because it means your baby is getting fed elsewhere and so is not stimulating your supply as much. Breastfeeding isn't easy but if you are determined to try it then just put your baby on the breast whenever he's hungry and keep doing it. It can feel relentless. Eventually it should come good and you can phase out the formula. Good luck. Btw I say this as a mum of two who found it really hard with my first baby and ultimately moved to formula, but second baby I managed to get it working.

That is a lot of formula to be giving to an 8 day old baby. Even when on a feeding plan which did include formula top ups it was never that amount. What are you doing with the pumped milk?

I had a similar situation: BF didn't get to a great start so my baby was formula fed the first few days, then I started exclusively pumping. It took me a good 5-6 weeks before my milk supply could meet his needs.