Considering mixed feeding at five months after repeated mastitis

[BusyMamaBear2001]

I love breastfeeding. I EBF my two other children for more than a year. My youngest boy is 5 months old, we have ebf up until last month when I decided to try expressing my milk and feeding it in a bottle.
I suffer with Mastitis more times this baby than with my older children combined, and it is making me resent breastfeeding a little. Recently, I think because I am confusing my body by expressing but the odd thing is, my breasts are not engorged, the opposite in fact. My doctor suggested it could be tight nursing bras, or the way I sleep maybe is blocking something.
Anyway, I am torn with what to do - bottle feed exclusively or swap a couple nursing feeds to bottle and offer breast at bedtime or something? btw I also really enjoy giving the bottle to him!
Thanks for reading x

I gave mine a bottle of formula at night to make them sleep longer, but also so I knew they would take a bottle in an emergency.
Personally I didn’t see the need to mess about with pumping when I could just give formula.

Well you’ve offered two paths, continue with expressing and offer some formula feeds or move to completely FF. Neither is wrong, which path appeals to you the most?

I think what you did for your other two is a bit of a red herring here. I assume you didn’t have recurrent mastitis with the other two and also two other DC who you had to look after when you were nursing them?

The only thing I would suggest is to read up on Tongue Tie before you switch. If he has TT he may not drain the breast effectively which could lead to infections.

One thing you could do is to call one of the BFing support lines.

A BFC can help you to talk through your feelings about switching to FFing, if that’s what you want to do and she can also help you to come up with a plan to phase out expressing in a way that should reduce your risk of mastitis again