Does giving a bottle of EBM at night affect supply?

[baltimore97]

This is my question - DD is just over 3 weeks, and I want to start introducing a bottle of EBM that DH can give at 11pm feed so I can sleep a bit more.

Will it affect my supply? I read somewhere one should do ALL the night feeds to ensure supply stays up. I intend to express every morning.

We give dd ebm once a week and I always express at the same time as the bottle is given to try and ensure that supply doesn't go.

I express 1st thing in the morning and keep it in the fridge so my DP can do a feed at night time. My dd is 6 wks and I started doing this around wk 2 and have not noticed any problem with supply. I also sometimes express in the day when I get chance as well as the morning and have not had any problems.

I know that as a BF counsellor we were told not to recommend expressing too early, but to be honest I think I started doing it in the first week or so, for the same reason, and we BF successfully for a year.

I reckon it would be ok, but if you notice supply dropping off you can always stop until you get it back up again.

The main issue is the gap between feeds that you create if you don't express that feed - you could end up with an 8 hour (or longer) gap between feeds, which isn't ideal in terms of sustaining supply when you start doing it early.

I BF both DC until nearly a year - for the first 3/4 months I always used expressed BM for the 1030/11pm feed........Hence in the early days I BF about 630/7ish pm, DH gave a bottle at 1030/11pm and then I fed in the night 3/4ish.....

Once they were going through I would BF at 7pm then go through to 630/7am no problem with my milk........

DOes that make sense?! AM PG with 3rd DC and getting very confused!!!!

Oh and I expressed after th first feed in the morning!

HTH

It probably won't because most women start with an oversupply. But if you have been having possible supply issues, see a professional/speak to one of the helplines for advice over this.

I am having supply issues, and expressing has helped me, but you have to get the timing right.

I think crucial supply replenishment time is early morning. So, given that you're still producing milk for the bottle, as long as you're still doing later night/early morning feeds yourself, the hormonal cycle should be fine.

it may affect your supply - lots of people will post saying it worked for them but, as they say, your mileage may vary.

CMOT is spot on re the long gap between feeds

As has already been said, everyone is different but my experience was this - dd slept through, 11-7 from a really early age* and I found that the long gap didn't really affect my supply. What I did find though was that I had norks like inflated beachballs by the morning

• no jealousy needed ladies. She made up for it once she turned three and decided that sleep was for other ^children" [sigh]