Combining breast and bottle from the start?

[Essie3]

I'm well confused.
I want to bf, but I have a job interview soon after baby will be born. My Mum (seventies mother!) suggested today that bottle would be easier for all involved! (Please, don't judge her!). Saw midwife, though, and asked about combining, and she said no, not possible. Best to leave it, and eventually introduce a cup. She may have misunderstood?

I'm talking about combining breastfeeding with the occasional bottle of expressed milk (not formula!) when necessary i.e. to have a night off for a job interview. My thought as an intelligent person was (a) get 'closer to nature' bottles (I have already!) (b) start the occasional bottle feed early rather than have the baby get a big shock when I have to be away, and (c) keep my milk flow going as long as possible and give him the benefits.

Has anyone managed this? Why won't it work? Surely a baby won't get so confused that it dies of starvation??

Uncertain - er, that's the first question!! - might be 2 weeks or so. I have another event as well, but that's a bit more flexible.

It is my first. This is all assuming that I actually manage to bf, of course, but I'm determined to try!

When DD was born, the HV I had was quite elderly, and suggested that I give DD a bottle at night, as she wasn't sleeping well and was always hungry. She also suggested that it was best to do this before the age of 3 weeks so that she would be used to breast and bottle. I have to say this worked a treat - DD slept about 8 hours a night and everything was fine. I did feel a bit guilty though, so when DS was born I stuck rigidly to BFing. How I wish I'd given him a bottle. He rarely slept more than 4 hours at a time, and now he's 5, he still only sleeps for a few hours and then wakes (and wakes me too). I really do think that if you combine the two, then you really will have much more opportunity to do other things when necessary. Also with my DS, I couldn't express much, and consequently didn't leave him for the first 6 months, which I have to say was quite wearing. It entirely depnds on what your life is like, and what you want. Even if you entirely bottle feed it's fine - most people of my generation were brought up on bottles and don't seem to have suffered too much. Hope this is some help and good luck. My friend's just had her first baby today (aged 40) and I'm very excited for her.

Thank you, thank you, surprise. My gut instinct is to combine from the start, on the basis that babies are quite intelligent and they adapt to whatever they get! Combining with my milk means all the benefits plus some for me, surely?
Also DH: he really wants to be able to help out from the start and says he's better with disturbed sleep than me so could do night feeds if a bottle is possible! Bless!

I'm only in the early stages of doing this (nearly 3 weeks now), but so far it has worked very very well. My DS is 4 + 3 and we introduced a bottle of formula for his last feed before bed at 1 + 5

A few reasons:
a) low supply (lost a lot of blood and am anaemic) meaning he was completely unsatisfied from about 3pm and I wanted to be sure he got something in him as I hated seeing him so hungry
b) friends who waited until 6 weeks all had problems getting baby to take a bottle (some of their babies never took bottles so they could never leave the baby) whereas friends who did it at 2-3 weeks all had no problems and all continued bf through at least 6 months
c) DS was feeding so much in the evening that I was getting exhausted and upset and found it way too intense - the bottle saved my sanity and if I'd gone any longer without doing this I might have completely given up bf so I actually think my baby is much better off with this routine as he is a breastfed baby apart from just 3oz per day

I'm happy to report that my baby has had no problems. He feeds well from a bottle (Avent actually work better for him than Closer to Nature so I would remain open-minded) but there have been no implications for his breastfeeding - he was checked just yesterday by bf counsellor (who I was seeing about my supply issues) and his latch is brilliant apparently, and he seems efficient and happy on the breast to me so it seems there is no nipple confusion.

I've managed to get my supply up in the past few days by combination of baby's growth spurt and watching my diet and rest more carefully, so formula at night hasn't impacted supply. I am starting to express and so do a mixed EBM/ff bottle when I have EBM available, but I'm trying to freeze most of my EBM so that any other bottles he needs (if I'm away from him) can be breastmilk so he stays with only one ff a day which is what DH and I are happy with.

My DS is happy and finally thriving after a bad first couple of weeks (low supply = hardly any weight gain), and I am starting to feel like I can carry on bf this way for much longer than I thought just a few weeks ago. DH enjoys feeding him and it's an important part of his day - he only gets a few hours with the baby in the evening and it's nice that he can be this involved. I get a small break from bf at a time of day where I have never had much milk to give - so DS is therefore much happier as well as he goes to bed with a full tummy. We are still on only one bottle a day and I don't see a reason why we would move to more than that now my supply is much better. So it's working brilliantly for us.

Having said all that, I know that bf counsellors would generally say that nipple confusion may arise or it may have supply implications, and I wouldn't want to imply that because it hasn't been a problem for my DS that it won't be for you, but it sounds like you are aware of that risk.

It's so difficult trying to decide to do this as there is hardly any information/support available - bf counsellors are naturally worried about potential implications for continuation of bf so don't advocate it so it is difficult to get decent advice on it - so I just wanted to give you my story which is so far a success. Hope it helps