Successful bottle to breastfeeding?

[impatientandwaiting]

Has anyone successfully transitioned their baby from bottle to breast? And if so could you give some tips as to how you did it? (I have already seen a lactation specialist but would like to hear other people’s experiences).
I’m trying to do this with my 6 week old but it feels like my supply will never improve and I’m wondering if it’s worth continuing through the pain or if it’ll never take off?

First of all, congratulations for your precious baby!
I have a success story to share: it was in the heights of lockdown and my baby had significant weight loss and jaundice. We started supplementing with formula when he was 1 week old but then we quickly found ourselves bottle feeding basically. It went great, because he made a fast recovery and within 21 days had recovered his birth weight.
I never stopped breastfeeding, meaning I never stopped putting him to the breast. And I mean literally anytime he was on me, I offered the breast. It was like parallel feeding, if it makes sense. I always offered the breast so he always knew it was there.
I think that helped to mantain my supply and then, once we got the ok from the paediatritian that he was growing well, we slowly started to revert the amounts of milk until we ended up just like at the beginning: breastmilk being his main milk, and then topping with the bottle/formula. And from there, we stopped the bottle. This process, of mixed feeding, lasted roughly 4 months, so from the time he was 4 months old, he was EBF (until he was 3yo!).
Persistance is the name of the game: constancy, patience, a sense of perspective. It's perfectly possible. At times it's complicated and can be tiring, but nowhere near as difficult as some breastfeeding "activists" wanted me to believe. In the end, I just followed what I felt was needed. And it worked.

We started formula feeding as I was in ICU and introduced breast after a week. We never managed to completely switch over but we did make it to 4 months before baby started refusing breast. Remember it doesn’t have to be one or the other it’s ok to do a bit of both if that works better for you.

I mixed fed to begin with due to finding breast feeding really difficult and painful at first. I then transitioned to 100% breast when it became easier. Basically I found I had to make sure baby had 100% drained both breasts, before I gave bottle.

Thanks for the replies - feeling somewhat more hopeful!
Baby had to be on formula in hospital due to weight issues, and then when we were ready to breastfeed he couldn’t latch, had a tongue tie and feeding was just too painful so we carried on with the bottle while getting things sorted. I was pumping as much as I could and still am but it’s difficult as LO always wants to be on me. Trying to do as much BF as possible but still a bit sore and LO gets frustrated I think because he’s not getting as much as he’s used to. Will try keeping on and see how I get on.
@stichgurui keep reading about letting baby empty the breast - how do you know when it’s empty?

You don't exactly know when it's empty, but basically get to the point where the baby no longer seems interested in the breast which you imagine is because nothing is coming out of them, then try a bottle to top up. The other thing is do you pump after EVERY feed? If LO is nearly draining and then giving up, your body will presume it's producing enough, whereas actually LO is needing more but getting it from the bottle! I found that the electric pump would clear out every drop which then stimulated production because your body though more was needed. Obviously then by next feed there is slightly more in each breast.