Please can someone give me some advice on mix feeding?

[2pt4kids]

My sister's baby is 2 and a half weeks old now. He has been BF'd up till now.
The last couple of days she has started expressing a couple of feeds so that she can get some sleep (baby is not going any longer than an hour max between feeds day and night and doesnt like sleeping much in between at night time!)
She has asked me if its ok to introduce one formula feed in the evening and carry on BFing the rest of the time.
I've said its fine to mix but it may reduce her supply seeing as its still early days and it may lead to her giving up BFing sooner than she'd like to.
I've also said I'll look up some more detailed info for her so she can make her mind up herself.
Can anyone point me in the direction of some good, easy to understand info on mix feeding please? Or offer advice yourself?
Thank you

Some good stuff here.

But really it's about what she wants to do - is she wanting to continue to breastfeed? How important is exclusively bfing to her? How easy is she finding it to express?

Some breastmilk's better than no breastmilk, but, as you say, mixed feeding is a quick route to no breastfeeding for many women.

She's lucky she has you to look out for her - find out what's important to her and support her in that - are you near enough to help her out a bit while she's so tired?

I'm a real odd-bod who defied all expectations and has successfully mix fed for 2.4 years, and am currently pregnant with number 2. DS had formula in hospital during the first week of his life, for various factors beyond my control. I expressed like a madwoman for 6 weeks or so and I think we did manage exclusive breastfeeding for a small part of that.

DS used to feed constantly from about 5pm until 11pm, and it felt like he'd never stop. I was pretty clueless really and did not consult mumsnet before giving the odd bottle of formula. I think we went through half a small carton of formula a day, sometimes more, sometimes less.

I fully admit, from reading mumsnet over the years, that DS and I are very lucky to still be breastfeeding. I really would urge caution before supplementing, because for many women, it doesn't work.

Thank you. I will print that off and take it to her.
Unfortunately I am 3 hours away from her, so cant offer a lot of practical help.
I'm going to visit next weekend so will be taking her cooked dinners and will offer to take baby out for a couple of hours with bottle of expressed milk so she can sleep a bit.

I'll chat to her a bit more when I see her and see how she feels about exclusive breastfeeding.
It seems to me (reading between the lines a little bit) that she is bf'ing mostly because she has been told its the 'right' thing to do by her midwives etc and she is desperate to be a good Mum.
Mix feeding (if she can do it successfully) could well be a good compromise between her doing the 'right' thing by bf'ing and also easing the pressure she is feeling a bit.
I think she feels a bit trapped at the moment as she's not confident enough to bf in front of other people and she isnt getting any break away from the baby at all.

Of course, its entirely up to her and I just want to give her all the info and not influence her decision with my own thoughts as I know from both sides of the coin about regretting giving up bf'ing and also feeling utter relief at giving up bf'ing, knowing I was doing the right thing for me (different experience with each of my DC's!)

From what she says she is finding bf'ing easy in that baby latches and feeds well and she is not sore at all after the first 3 days. Its more the fact that baby is feeding on average probably every half an hour that she is finding hard.
Plus my Mum and other family are saying 'just give him a bottle, you need a break' etc

I'd rather she had the info and made the decision herself either way, rather than feel pushed into something and perhaps regret it later.

Baby is big and has put on heaps of weight, even in the first week. Would that still happen if he was possibly tongue tied?
Good idea to check though.
How would I find out about a bf counseller in her area and get a number for her do you know?

All the numbers for the bf helplines are here - also, I've had very good feedback about this article - lots of emails to say how useful it was and it's been sent round lots of pg women and new mums, so she might take comfort from knowing it's perfectly normal.

She'll need to ring the helpline though because it'll get automatically diverted to someone local to her - not much good if you're three hours away and you ring! If she's not in pain, the baby's putting on weight and it's just the feed frequency she's worried about, learning to feed lying down might help her - she'll feel more rested then.

I have been mixed feeding since DD was 5 weeks. She is now 16 weeks and thriving. We give her one FF last thing before bedtime which means DH can give her a bottle if I need some extra sleep. It also means she has learnt to switch easily between breast and bottle from a young age, so will be easy when I go back to work. When I started doing it I expressed every evening to ensure that supply was kept up and have been building up an EBM supply in the freezer, for when I need a longer break or day out. However, I have not really been doing this for the last week or so and it hasn't affected my supply. I think this is probably luck, and if your sister wants to mix feed she should be careful to express regularly - well, you've got the link to the info there anyway. Just wanted to say that it can work and that it doesn't necessarily lead to full FFing.

Thanks very much for all advice. Will be pasing it on.

One more question - the tommee tippee bottles she has got are too fast for baby, are there other bottles that are slower flow for the expressed milk that you can recommend??