Any Gina Ford breastfeeding mums?

[lastboxoftampons]

If so, when did you introduce the bottle feed? is it from one week? Did you have any nipple confusion problems?

So many different experiences to draw from.

I never had an issue with expressing or supply, I used to express at the same time as feeding DS at 11am ish, then that would go in the freezer so I could get DP to give him a bottle from time to time so I could have a break. If my supply dipped, I just fed him more and got it back up again. However, we didn't do this until about 4 mths old. I was blessed with a great supply though (cue squirting all over the place)

We DID introduce a bottle of ebm at 4 weeks and then gave him sporadic ones just so that he could get used to it & not refuse, but I think with the next DC due sept I may try the cups instead.

I think - do lots of reading, then when baby is born chuck the books out the window and follow your instinct - do what works - and if you need advice come on MN, lots of lovely help here

Hi LBOT- good thread, really good idea to explore the options.. I had all the books but didnt really read them properly.

just short comment, I agree with Sorky, really good to wait til 6wks or so for this kind of routine. And about the feeding 3hrly thing- that was my biggest mistake. I had an idea (wasnt thinking straight in new baby haze) that was confirmed by my midwife that if I fed more than every 3hrs the milk would never regenerate, so I'd watch the clock when DD was crying waiting for the right time to feed! Now in retrospect, I can see that she was hungry poor thing... She didnt regain her birth wt til 7wks and the wt gain stress put huge strain on my r'ship with my DH. This was only my experience so not the same for everyone.

So exciting - not long now...

crazycatlady, yes I agree with time off if mum chooses, but from 1 week, thats a little early to think of nipping off for a cut n blow. I was totally wrapped up in my baby at 1 week and devoted 24 hours a day at that age.

The stress and tiredness is made a little easier to bear though if mum seriously has nothing other than baby to think about, and any dads wanting to lessen the load - never mind suggesting bottles..get the washer on!!

I bought the updated version of GF when DS was about 6 weeks old after struggling through 6 weeks of demand feeding. Read through book and put me into a total panic as i was doing complete opposite and felt so deflated.

Tried following routine one day as DS happened to wake at 7am which the book advocates the time that the daytime routine should start. By 9.10am, routine out the window as DS only slept for 10 mins and not the prescribed 45 mins.

For the next several weeks, stressed so much about DS not being in a "routine" and kept picturing the GF schedule in my head. Eventually DS did his own thing and is now, at 17 weeks, sleeping from 9-6am and 7-9/10am (can't survive without the xtra couple of hrs sleep which didn't seem to be allowed).

As regards expressing, did it in the 1st week as had positional headache from epidural and couldn't figure out feeding lying down. Occassionally express now but it's a faff and no guarantee that it will satisfy baby unfortunately. Best of luck and hope you don't worry as much as i did about routines.

meant to say had no nipple confusion but waited 5 weeks before using dummy (lifesaver for a sucky baby).

I am a GF BFing Mum (ds almost 11 months).

I introduced a bottle of expressed milk late evening (between 10 and 11) at one week so DH could feed baby and I could sleep. I used to express around 9:30 pm and then go to bed.

Was great :-)

I got lazy around 12 weeks though and had a few days break from expressing and DS refused the bottle after that though so now just breastfeeding (and food of course)! It didn't really matter at that point though as the main thing was to help me get a bit more sleep in the early days.

hi, i'm expressing and giving dd3 a bottle a day. this started at 2 weeks old as i couldn't feed her myself for a while {sore nips due to tongue tie} slight nipple confusion/ lazy feedinf but nothing we couldn't overcome.

it's worked very well for us but i would add that you might find it a bit much with your first baby as expessing a reasonable amount can be difficult and topping up with formula can interfere with your milk supply. best to take things as they come.

also gina ford's advice on bf isn't very good in my opinion. the best advice i ever had was from a consultant who told me sternly to just sit in a chair and feed that baby!

Ha ha, yes dogsandcats, at 1 week there was no way I was leaving the house, let alone without DD! By six weeks though, my roots were desperate and I felt ready to leave DD on her own with her dad for an afternoon while I had three blissful hours in the hairdressers drinking a glass of wine and reading trashy magazines, and being pampered for the first time since the birth. I wouldn't have felt so relaxed about this had I not been used to expressing and having DH give DD the occasional bottle of EBM.

This totally sounds like I'm obsessed with my hair now... I'm not but it was just an example of why I found expressing enhanced my experience of bf'ing. I know it's different for everyone so I guess I'd just say to the OP don't feel pressured to do it, give it a go and if it suits you great, if not then it's perfectly possible to still do GF or other routine/non-routine parenting while breastfeeding successfully without the expressing.

I had a similar experience to GYo - read the baby whisperer who says babies need feeding every 3 hours so I would sit there saying he's not hungry, babies only need feeding every 3 hours whilst my poor baby screamed with hunger . This led to poor supply and lots of problems solved by 24 hours in bed with ds after 2 weeks.

I realised the mws were right and went to demand feeding but I am a bit cross that these books do not make clear that they are for ff babies

Crazycatlady, no I know where you're coming from. I could not go for a wee or a much longed for soak in the bath. The first time I tried it I had just put my head back to relax when the sound of baby screaming got me out of there rapid.

Whatever the break is needed for, be it hair or a peaceful bath, it is nice to be able to get that.

By the way, what hairdressers do you go to...wine?? lol not oop north then! Lucky if you get a coffee round here!

Have to agree with smallorange - GF's breastfeeding advice is poor. There is some useful advice in her book but the BF stuff (and the weaning stuff too imo) is nonsense.

Like others have said, the expressing, while OK in theory to give you some time off, is actually such a huge faff that it just isn't worth it. I would rather just do that feed myself than spend time expressing and sterilising. And there are definitely issues with supply when you start fiddling around with expressing so early - supply isn't established for at least a couple of months.

It's great you're doing all this research but I'd suggest that you just go with the flow for the first month or two. Get to know your baby then see what kind of routine (or not) you want to follow.

Btw, expressing so you can have a night out or go to get your hair done or something is well worth it though! I'd just advise not to try to make it part of your everyday routine.

Did GF with DD (now 3) and now doing it with DS (11 weeks)

Both of them had a bottle at 10.30pm ish from about 5-6 weeks, and I fed DD until she was 16 months, and imagine I'll do the same with DS, so I don't think it did my ability to bf any harm.

Expressing is annoying, but it only takes me 15 mins for express 8oz, which I do at about 9pm, and then I can pop off to bed and sleep until the boy wakes around 3pm.

Who knows how it will work for you, but if it works, that long spell of sleep can really make all the difference.

Hi LBOT - I have a friend who is BFing on GF and it seems to suit her and her DD pretty well. She's still BFing at 20 weeks.

FWIW, my take as a first time mum is that it's pretty difficult to anticipate how you and your baby are going to want to do things. So read what you can now - you definitely won't have much time for a few weeks after the baby arrives - and remember that nobody knows your baby as well as you do.

A book I wish that I had read before our DS arrived is What Every Parent Needs to Know and I have also found What Mothers Do Especially When It Looks Like Nothing incredibly reassuring and comforting.

Hope that helps and best of luck with your little one. Glad to see from your posts that you are already trusting your own judgement - try to hold onto that!

lastbox I haven't read all the posts as I can imagine there is a lot of anti-GF advice so apologies if I am repeating.

As someone who loves loves loves GF as it has really worked for us I thought I would add my experience.

We introduced a bottle of expressed for the 10pm feed at 2 weeks, I expressed and we used the BreastFlow bottles you can get from Mothercare (we moved onto the Mothercare self sterilising bottles when he was 6 weeks as he moved to size 2 teats). As it turned out I could never express enough so at about 6 weeks we topped up my expressed with some formula.

My DS has never had any nipple confusion but if he is upset he sometimes refuses the bottle, and has refused to take the bottle from anyone but me at times too.

He is now 8mo and has 2 BF and one bottle feed a day before bed at 6.30pm - although as I love BF and it will soon come to an end (when I go back to work) I am thinking of replacing the bottle feed with another BF instead .

Personally it worked well for us so I hope it works for you too. HTH

LastBox, just wanted to let you know how GF methods helped us. As everyone says, not everyone's cup of tea but worked for us.

I had no idea about any of it, motherhood that is, so having something to tell me what to do gave me the confidence to bring my baby home and start somewhere - when to feed, change nappy, naps. It also helped me to start to look for cues from my baby for all of the above.

I found that the book helped me to anticipate my baby's needs so it took some of the guess-work away.

The edition I read was pretty recent and it has been updated and takes into account criticisms of previous editions (probably including those from Mumsnet). The book is very detailed so I referred to it a lot. I found the method to be much gentler than the reputation it has - perhaps because the summary routines look much stricter than I think they are intended to be when you look at the text.
For example, feeds are more frequent than every 4 hours and demand feeding is encouraged so if your baby demands food before the next 'slot' then you feed them.

The things it doesn't really cover are how to do some things (such as recognising specific types of cries or calming a restless baby) and I found the Baby Whisperer books helped for that.

Read around, MNers can recommend a lot of good books and give their own advice of course. You may find that what you decide to do before your baby is born goes at the window later anyway so it is useful to have some ideas in mind beforehand as you're not likely to feel like reading a lot in the early days.

LastBox I did GF with my 6 weeks premmie twins and I think it saved my life. I had to introduce bottle from day 1 as my milk did not come in till day 3. I nursed them for 3-4 weeks on demand and also did bottle since my supply wasnt the greatest. I must say that there was NO nipple confusion. Their life depended on the bottle when they were feeding 2 hourly. They never refused bottle or breast. I eventually gave up because of my health.

At 12 weeks I started GF. But at that point I was only doing FF. The method works if you think of it as guidelines and not rigid rules. If she says feed at 6.45a then it wont be the end of the world if that becomes 7.30a or 6a. My babies are roughly 2 months behind a term baby of the same age so I had to develop skills to read their needs within the routine. As people have pointed out that Baby Whisperer is a good complement if you find reading them hard in the early days.

GF is not for everyone IMO because your baby will never follow it 100%. So a mum has to develop a sense for bringing things back on track w/o distressing anybody. And yes they do go back on track. I think any one who does not believe in routines has not seen a house with multiples

Also I have one friend who BFed and did GF but never expressed until 3 mos when she introduced FF at 10.30p. I think she dropped BFing a month later as she was fed up.

Good luck to you in whatever you pursue. Keep an open mind but trust your instinct and you will do great.

Sorry but i wouldnt be following gf's adivice in relation to breastfeeding (actually persoanlly i wouldnt for any other matter either). But that aside, there is a wealth of positive breastfeeding advice available. FOr online Kellymom is great. My best mate followed gf and ruined the whole bfing business for her At the time though she believed routine etc etc. Babies arent programmable robots and all individueal. Your baby kjnows when he/she is hungry, needing comfort, sleep etc etc Not some apparant 'guru'. Trust your instincts and your baby.

Also another poster made a comment about milk not 'coming in' till day 3. That is completely and utterly normal. Prior to that they have very smal amounts of collostrum and require nothing more (unless medical reasons dictate).

Am still breastfeeding ds2 here and it is the most amazing and wonderful experience and he loves it. Recently he would take nothing but milk as infected tonsillitis. Was so thankful i could nurse him and give him comfort and sustinance.

Breastfeeding is fab but be prepared for people to stick their oar in and tell you exactly when and how often etc etc. IME i would trust your baby and instinct above all else.

Good luck xx

And not allowing a baby to nurse frequently and on request will stop them building up your supply to meet their needs therefore scuppering the whole breastfeeding. Fixed routine does NOT wrk with bfing. Also when they hit growth spurts they then feed very frequently again (sometimes feels like non stop) but this is their way of ensuring adequate supply.

Completely agree with everything Awen has said there.

You can still have a routine but not a fixed in stone one - and it has to wait until the supply is established.

And yes your milk doesnt come in til day 3-4 - ignore anyone who says that they need anything other than colustrum before then unless theres a special circumstance.

Hi, I haven't read all of the replies I'm afraid, but I just wanted to let you know my experience. I have loosely followed GF with all 3 of mine and found it a very helpful guide. The routines really do work well for lots of babies - although obviously they don't suit everyone.

The expressing schedule did, however, seem a bit too much for me to cope with and so I never followed that. I was lucky to find expressing (with a medela electric breast pump) v easy. Regarding when I first gave a bottle, with DD1 and DD2 it was around 2 weeks and with DS it was 1 week - they were absolutely fine with it (I also gave them dummies from about 1 week too - I'd never heard of nipple confusion and we never experienced any problems). I would generally try and express a bit of excess milk after the first feed of the morning (when I usually seemed to have the most milk) and would then freeze it and it meant someone else could do occasional feeds for me (I got a night nanny in once a week for the first 6 weeks with each of mine - oh the bliss of once a week putting earplugs in and getting 8 hours straight sleep!!).

One thing I would add - although most tiny babies will happily take a bottle, they do lose the knack if you don't keep it up regularly after about 6 weeks. With DD2 once she was sleeping better after about 8 weeks I didn't bother with bottles any more as it seemed like a right old faff once I no longer needed occasional respite from night feeds. Then around 3 or 4 months down the line I desperately wanted to have my Mum or DH occasionally give her a bottle so I could go out for the day or something, but not a chance, I had a terrible time trying to get her to take a bottle. With DS I have made a point of continuing to give him an expressed bottle once or twice a week just so I never have this problem.

Hi I'm a mum of twins and we are using a Gina type routine. My babies had probs latching initially and actually didn't learn to BF until they were nine weeks and eleven (they had problems with their jaws). I pumped and now they now do both beautifully! For me they are fine with both breast and bottle and I can switch between. They show no pref at all! So hopefully yours will be fine too xx good luck

I'm a first time mum, have no experience of BF and no friends / family who have positive experiences and advice to offer. I really want to BF, I've bought three different pumps and a several books including GF. I'm going to give it as much time / effort as I can to make it work.

Went to the hospital breast feeding 'workshop'. Possibly the worst thing I could have done as the advice was rotten. Mentioned trying GF and you'd think I'd done a poo in the middle of the room. Three midwives coughed and took a looooong time to respond to my question.

Why does everyone behave like that when you dont stick to the 'best method' at the time. I was bottle fed as it was the norm when I was a baby.

The most trusted advice will change again in 5 minutes time, maybe we should all learn that nobody is right and anything that works for you and your baby is surely the best thing to do?

I'm clueless and quite happily going to see how I get on. If something works for you, it might not work for someone else. Nuff said.

Now please pass me the white carbs and some full fat Coke

not following Gina Ford (never even read her book or know what it contains) but have used expressed milk from week 1. I wasn't planning to but had problems breastfeeding and supplemented by expressed milk with the medela swing pump. It works great and there are no nipple confusion problems.

they say if you do it from the beginning you are much less likely to have problems than if you try to introduce the bottle at a later stage.

For me the advantages are

• i can get my husband to do the bottle feeds and rest in between - spending 7 hours of your day breastfeeding can get quite monotonous, and it is nice to be able to say i am going to bed and going out and know that my husband can feed her. i absolutely like doing breastfeeding in general, but after you have done 5 feeds in a day you do get tired and it is very nice to have the bottle
• there are techniques for minimising nipple confusion problems. i lost the link but you can google it - the gist is first to pace the feeding, so that the baby doens't gulp down the bottle (as it is much easier to drink from the bottlethan from the breast - so tilt it every 15-20ml to pause the baby and simulate lower flow. also, secondly and very importantly, only offer the bottle when the baby actively opens the mouth and also put the bottle slightly to the upper lip so he/she has to open the mouth properly, so that the baby learns to open the mouth properly rather than having the bottle pushed in.

i think it really helps to have a pump from the start, i had it by coincidence and was very glad as i ran into problems, as for your info many new first time months do in the first weeks of breastfeeding. it is good you are doing your research in advance, i certainly didn't and regretted it.

agree with some other posters that kellymom.com is a great resource!

Tried to follow GF from week 6, but gave up after two weeks nearly pulling my hair out. I found I was constantly trying to wake DS up or standing in a dark room trying to put him to sleep.

It was very stressful and felt I couldn't leave the house with DS because he would go to sleep in the buggy at the wrong time etc.

The one I did find useful was the expressed dreamfeed. I've never gone to bed early but because I don't particularly enjoy breastfeeding, I found it a relief hat I knew after 6pm I didn't have to BF again until in the night.

DS has been having a bottle everyday since about 5 weeks, although he did have bottle at around 3 weeks due to cracked and sore nipples.

Having read GF's book, there is a lot of things which seem to make sense but being able to practically apply them to a new baby is difficult. For me, I felt like I had been thrown in the deep end and had no idea what to do with a baby and found that using a suggested routine made me feel like I was able to cope.

I can absolutely understand people who say they've taken GF's routine and adapted it for themselves. Ignore the strict times of day, I follow the general pattern suggested in the book, but if he wont sleep or feed then I don't worry abut it.

DS doesn't sleep through the night, but then I don't think there is anyway you can guarantee a baby will ever sleep through the night, and I hold out for the point where DS learns it on his own, as seems to be suggested on here many times.