Breast and bottle feeding query

[mum2b1]

Hi

I am planning to breast feed my first baby (due end of July) but I also want to express so that my husband can help with the feeding/ bond etc.
How long should I wait before introducing the bottle (containing breast milk).
My NCT teacher says 3 weeks but that seems a long time and it seems to me that the longer we wait the more confusing it will be for the baby.
Surely if we do it earlier say after about a week and a half the baby will be more likely to take to both and not really have a preference...

any suggestions?
Has anyone else tried this successfully?

ps we were once talking about stretchy jersey cotton for wrap slings.

The Lace Market is the place to shop for fabric in Nottingham, it's actually an area and just outside the city centre. There should be signs, but if you ask anyone can point you there. Just wonder around and look in the shops, see what you can find.

you know tink,I never go to notts for fabric(not since sherwood's closed), where do you go?

I see the discussion has moved on, but I just asked my dp if he ever felt he missed out because he never fed ds

he laughed

just to be perfectly plain, I then asked if he had ever felt the need for me to squeeze milk out of my breasts, and put it into a plastic bottle, so that he could give it to ds instead of me, because otherwise his relationship with ds might have been adversely affected by it

he is still laughing at that one

certainly never asked my dh whether he thought i should bf or not. what on earth happens if the father thinks baby should be bf and mother wants to bottle feed?? or do I really want to know the answer to that?

Jamilla, I haven't been up there in a few years, I mainly use the rag market or the asian areas of Birmingham now. My ex used to be based right by there and most of my wedding dress came from the Lace Market. I've been up once in over five years since.

Just skim read this thread - and surely it's impossible to make any generalisations about a couple's circumstances where it comes to feeding?

I started expressing when ds1 was a week old - bit early in retrospect but this time round ( pregnant again) will probably do so around 3 weeks.

My motivation mainly came from the need to go back to work and also my dh being the main carer of my baby. My husband felt much more involved early on in our baby's care and I was lucky that expressing took me only 10 - 15 mins compared to a 45 minute breast feed.

I appreciate that expressing is very difficult for some women and no one should feel pressurised into doing it. However, if support can be offered for expressing (in the same way as breastfeeding) then I see it as the ideal way for a couple to experience this miracle that is nurturing a new born baby.

My son is amazingly close to my dh and waves goodbye to me at the window every morning when I go to work and I still managed to breast feed him until he was 13 mths old. I feel blessed that as parents we are both so heavily involved with childcare and my ds is a very secure and happy boy.

amijee feeding a breastfed baby with a bottle is a gamble, it could affect your supply and your DC could decide they'd rather have the bottle than the breast. It happens to a lot of women, in fact you are fortunate if you are not one of them, not unfortunate if you are.

I find it sad that the only way your DH could feel involved was to give a bottle, was he not able to help out with other things (nappy changes, bath times, looking after you) or bond with skin-to-skin time or wait six months till he could feed solids?

It is easy for any dad to bond with their children and I don't think you will find one mum on this thread who didn't express for dad will say their OH didn't bond with their DC.