Advice on expressing / getting baby to take bottle

[idunnop]

I'm expecting my 2nd baby in a week's time and plan to exclusively breastfeed as I did with DD. However, I never managed to get DD to take a bottle of expressed milk, which was quite restricting as I couldn't leave her with anyone for more than an hour or so, have a night out, etc etc.

This time I would like to do things differently, and wondered if anyone could give me advice on how early to start giving the new baby expressed milk, how often, how much, when to express, etc etc. Any tips gratefully received!

Hi, with DS I was expressing from about 1 week old (1 bottle a day)and he took the bottle and breast great - I used closer to nature bottles so duno if that helped. I found I had more milk 1st thing so expressed about 1/2 hour after DS 1st feed of the day. We made the mistake of not gving him a bottle for 5 weeks when he was around 10 weeks old and the next time I tried a bottle with him he nver took it, I was lucky that he took it from a cup from about 5 months old though.

If I can remember right at about 4 weeks old he was taking about 160ml of ebm for 1 feed. Each baby is different though.

With my DD (now 4 months old)I started using a bottle when she was 1 day old but found I was so busy with DS (now 2.4years) that I didnt have the energy or milk supply to express so after 2 or 3 weeks she was just on the breast.

I really dont think this will help much but though I would share my experience...

I've heard they need to take one before or around 6 weeks otherwise you might miss the boat.

I gave ds a bottle from v early on and I definitely think it contributed to me giving up bf.

idunnop
We introduced an ebm bottle around 2 weeks. I express during the night (only time i can get any) out of necessity as i have low milk supply in the evenings - so dd has bottle just before bed (about 4.5 oz topup- she is 15 weeks).

No real problem with her accepting the bottle - started with Dr Brown because thats what i had - now using NUK anti colic bottles and 'silk' teats.

hth

Thanks - all useful advice / experience!

It's just so much effort trying to express, isn't it, and yet if you don't give them a bottle often enough they start refusing... (despite what I said in my original post, DD did take a bottle twice, at around 8-9 weeks I think, but when we next tried a couple of weeks later she refused point blank and that was the end of that!)

Determined to give it a go anyway, as the flexibility would be great.

Picante, sorry to hear your bottle-feeding contributed to giving up bf - I get the impression that wasn't what you wanted.... so were you giving expressed milk or formula? I kind of assumed as long as I only gave expressed milk it wouldn't affect bf too much, as long as it wasn't the majority of feeds?