FTM is my baby getting enough

[AnnaAtkinson8990]

Hi all
Need some advice
I started breastfeeding straight away. On day 2 baby was getting restless and couldn't sleep so I tried giving one of those pre made formula bottles and he ate the whole 70ml and calmed down. I have been breastfeeding every time since but also topping up with 30-60lm formula and he is happy eating that. I want to only breastfeed but not sure if it's enough when to stop with the bottle? Day 5 today so milk should be there . He is latching for 25 min each time. Today i put him down after that but cried so I gave the bottle and he immediately ate it and fell asleep.

Realistically, in my opinion, any kind of feeding or sleep schedule needs to go out the window at first. He’s 5 days old, in a week he’ll be totally different in terms of how he’s feeding and sleeping, and then different again a couple of weeks after that. While you’re establishing breastfeeding, just feed on demand. It is exhausting.

What worked for my eldest from about 2 weeks old was feed feed feed from about 6pm until midnight, and then she’d do 6 hours straight of sleep.
My youngest didn’t play ball with that at all and didn’t do longer stretches until a lot older.

It will work itself out to some extent as baby gets bigger and it will be constantly changing as they age. Don't worry about that now, newborns don't even know night from day yet.

If you want to breastfeed, do so on demand. I spent most of the first 6 weeks with all my children breastfeeding, it's totally normal. I would try and unlatch them gently after 20 minutes, if they tried to latch back on again I'd swap sides, but often they'd be asleep. As they do suck in their sleep and it can take awhile to recognise the different feelings etc I think. I didn't realise any of that with my first at first and spent even longer attached to her than needed until I figured this out weeks in.

There is no routine with breastfed babies for a while. It's a very harsh reality of breastfeeding. Babies take what they need, sometimes they are hungrier or thirstier, sometimes they just want comfort. Breastfeeding gives them enormous emotional comfort. It helps them with stress and pain, you are doing a wonderful thing for him. Of course you didn't ruin anything with a few bottles, just hang in there.

The reality of cluster feeding is hard. I personally had my mum warn me about it , she still remembers it from 36 years ago 😂

I think around 3 months we fell into more of a routine.

OP you haven't ruined feeding by combo feeding. I am a week and a half in and my baby had some health problems, so she was fed top up formula for the first couple of days. After three days on the neonatal ward she was allowed to be breastfed completely on demand and we have kept this up at home.

My supply came in after 4/5 days and has been fine since. Just keep on trying, live breastfeeding is best to build up supply. There is a couple of tricks you can try, like stroking their cheek, rubbing their feet and massaging your breast whilst feeding.