bottle feeding breast milk - any tips?

[T84]

I breastfed my first child until 22months. she never took a bottle. I dont really want to formular feed the new baby but dont want to be the cow and dummy I was for my firsst child. Can baby use the bottle well without loosing the ability to breast feed?

rather new to all of this as DS1 is only 3 weeks!! But, i have managed to express for the last few days and have given 1 maybe 2 bottles of EBM a day and still BF for other feeds. Doesn't seem to have made a difference to his latch on me!!!

DS falls asleep on evening feeds so have been told to express after a feed to release th 'hind' milk and then give him that after his next feed so he is still getting all of his calories!!

Not sure if that'll help or not?? i guess all babies are different but hasn't bothered mine at all with the bottle

thanks

We gave DD a bottle of expressed milk for the late evening feed from six weeks. Didn't have any problem with the dreaded nipple confusion and she took to it fine. I think there's a lot of stuff about the exact best time to start, but it seems to make sense to wait until you feel the bfing's really established and then give it a go. Problem now is getting 15 month old off the bottle and onto a cup! Argh!

Incidentally, she also had a dummy from about week two (that's how long that resolution lasted) until about 3 months (when we weaned her off it - another story) and that didn't seem to cause any feeding problems either.

DD first had a bottle at 12 weeks (when I could finally be arsed to express!) and took to it straight away. She only had a bottle occasionally but never had a problem with it, and also happily went onto cows milk in a bottle and then a cup (when she pushed the teat in and emptied her bottle in the bed. Twice. So I stopped the bottle!)

DS on the other hand, happily took a bottle once, then decided they were the work of the devil and screams blue murder if we put one near him now!

So, yes, they can swap and change between bottle and breast quite happily but they might not!! I would give it a try. You might find it's easy, you might find you have to work at it or you might decide it's not worth the bother The next baby might not be so demanding anyway, in terms of you being cow and dummy.

Good luck with the new baby!

I bought a bottle called 'BREASTFLOW' last week. It's brilliant. It mimics the breast very well. google it.

Thanks so much everyone. I really want to keep up the child centred parenting but I cant be the martyr I was with my first DD. She demand feed and i mean she was really demanding1 I really want to only have expressed milk bottle fed to new baby as i feel that DP needs to do at least some of the hard feeds.