Has anyone successfully breastfed during the day and FF at night?

[Plout]

My little one is 8 weeks old and has terrible reflux like his older brother. As such, he's constantly BF for comfort. It's exhausting and my nipples are in constant agony.

With DS1 I martyred myself and fed every 30 mins day and night. I told myself I'd never do that again and I'm sticking to it.

Currently I BF once in the night and DH does formula bottles for the other feeds. The formula sends him into a deeper sleep and allows me and my nipples to get some much needed rest.

I'm just worried this will inevitably affect my supply. Although I'm hoping my body is smart enough to know that the demand is mostly during the day and adjust accordingly?

He's putting on weight beautifully and has plenty of wet nappies so supply is fine at the moment.

If I can get away with it, I'd love to just BF during the day, and leave my lovely DH to do the feeds in the night with formula only. Has anyone done this successfully? I know theoretically it could have an effect on supply so any actual experiences would be really useful.

Bump

I've not done it. When's the feed you're going in the night? Is it in the early hours?

I haven't done it.

I'd be a bit concerned because it's still early days that you might risk mastitis if you are going 8-12 hours without feeding or expressing. I don't think it will cause a negative supply issue as long as you get plenty of skin to skin during the day, your body will adapt but I'd transition slowly over at least 2 weeks before dropping all night feeds all together to avoid engorgement and mastitis risk.

Appreciate the nipple issue though, have you tried nipple shields? Your nipples shouldn't really hurt at 8 weeks though so I'd be looking at the latch position as well it sounds like he is partially coming off a deep latch which causes nipple pain probably as he transitions from active feed to comfort / sleepy feed, so stealthily replacing breast for dummy for comfort can help with this

It's worth knowing that breastfeeding impacts the quantity of sleep but improves the quality of it so you go into a deep sleep faster, not sure if this continues to happen if you aren't BF at night so may lose that benefit.

Another thing to consider is depending on DHs job is it safe for him to do all night feeds? If he is an office worker and working close to home it's not an issue and of course he should do his part but if he drives long distances or operates heavy machinery, where he could put himself or others at risk Id consider a different split of duties.

Please get your latch checked. Your nipples shouldn't be that painful and sometimes reflux can be helped with a better latch as babies can swallow much more easily when in a good position and attached properly.

It would be better for your supply if you could get your husband to feed baby in the late evening and you do the middle of the night feeds.

Thanks for the responses.

Re latch, he was tongue tied for a few weeks which caused him to have a bad latch. It was corrected but he never adjusted his latch. The TT has not reattached. Ive seen two breastfeeding practitioners and he just won't maintain a deep latch.

Luckily for him he still transfers milk really well. He clicks on the bottle too so it's not just a breastfeeding issue. It's a general feeding issue. He has terrible wind as a result but not much else we can do.

My dd had a terrible latch, I switched to nipple shields to give me a break so I could recover, then once she was bigger I stayed home a couple of days and we worked on latch. Good latch I left her on, bad latch I took her off and tried again. As she was bigger and I wasn’t in pain (so I had the headspace to do this) we eventually got there! It wasn’t easy and there were a lot of tears both sides, but it was worth it for me. Obviously I appreciate that may not work for everyone but just my experience in case it helps.

re your actual question, I didn’t do this but I did have dh use a bottle of expressed in the night so I could have a longer chunk of sleep, in those first few weeks. It was absolutely fine re supply, but that was only one bottle. Maybe if you split the feeds so dh does one then you do one then he does one, you’ll be a lower risk for mastitis and supply drop then id have thought

Sounds very similar to DD2. Is the night feed you are doing between 2am-4am? I was told that's when prolactin is highest so to help maintain supply, keeping a bf at that time can be really beneficial.

Is the reflux medicated? We found DD2 got a lot better once we starting on infant gaviscon. We did a half dose and that settled the reflux without causing too much constipation. We were also offered omeprazole, but actually the gaviscon worked very well in calming everything down.

I'd also recommend speaking to your HV if you haven't already. DD2's latch and bottle drinking was still dreadful 6 weeks after her TT was released. HV referred us to the speech and language feeding team, who were able to look at bottle and breast feeds, and gave us some good advice, including different bottles and teats to try and see if there was any improvement. We never really cracked the bf latch, but we did get better on the bottles, which at least helped matters a bit. We made it to 6months bf in the end.