Any breastfeeding mums occasionally use formula?

[frans]

My DD is 18 weeks old and, until now, has been exclusively breastfed. However, I'm trying to finish my PhD so my mum has offered to take her out a couple of times a week to give me time to get on with my work. I find expressing quite tricky and find that on days when I express, there seems to be less milk for DD, which is far from ideal. I'm thinking of sending her off with mum with a bottle of expressed milk and a bottle of formula, for back-up. I will then express to relieve engorgement if necessary. Has anyone had any success using formula just a couple of times a week? Many thanks

I did this with ds quite a bit as I was always paranoid that the expressed milk was not enough but tbh ds only ever drank very little from a bottle anyway and he really drank almost none when it was fomula (he didn't like the taste)

I just sent the carton for my peace of mind. Say I got run over or something and the 'babysitter' only had one bottle of milk.

I did actually eventually build up a small stock of milk in the freezer although it was painstaking to do as I used to express so little at a time. That way I'd have 2-3 bottles of expressed milk available in the freezer. Even then though I'd rarely provide 2 bottles of expressed milk to the person looking after ds as I seemed to sweat blood to get the stuff and mostly it got thrown away as ds would generally just wait for me to come back

My ds is 25 weeks and still bf. I hate expressing so don't bother. If I'm going anywhere I leave a carton of formula, which he has is he gets really hungry. I think he has had about 4 or 5 bottles of this and I'm happy he's happy!