When to start giving expressed milk to baby..?

[ErikaMaye]

DS is fifteen days old, and frankly I would quite like to be able to sleep through on the odd night (I have ME, so am really struggling at the moment). DP has suggested I express so he can do the 3am-ish feed to let me get a good nights sleep. When is it okay to start doing this? Also, how much should I express? My theory was to express for as long as he normally feeds. Please correct me if I'm wrong

TIA

For me it takes quite a bit longer to express than to feed so I think you need to go on volume rather than time and experiment a bit or just express until no more comes out. I think my DD was taking something like 2oz at that age but it does vary between babies a fair bit.

I was told by a breastfeeding counsellor that replacing a night feed isn't that great for your supply and she recommended replacing an evening feed or a morning one instead (i.e. you could go to bed earlier or get up later). I think it's because if you leave your breasts full for a long time then they don't make milk as fast as if you empty them regularly, so I always tried to express fairly close to when the bottle was given and at least the same amount.

I expressed and DH gave DS a bottle at 2 weeks old. I expressed at 9pm (took about 30mins) and went to bed and DH fed DS at 10.30pm. This gave me 5-6 hours unbroken sleep. I think, for supply, its important that you express if you miss a feed and this way worked best to get some extra sleep.

HTH

I've expressed from 4/5 weeks (I think) and after teaching DD to take a bottle (major palaver) have had DH do the midnight feed from about 7 weeks. I know it's meant to be the wrong thing to do re. supply - it means I don't bf for 12 hours (from 7pm to 7am) but it works fine for me, and I've been doing this for 8 weeks now.

I'd start with 3 fl oz and see how much he has. If he drains it and looks expectant - go for 4 next time. And upwards, until you have a feed he's happy with.

My sums don't add up there - must have only been doing this for 7 weeks, DD is 14 weeks.

Here in Holland they also advice against expressing before 6 wks. I think it depends on how it's going. For me, I notice my milk decreasing when DS is exceeding 4 hour limit. But my SIL had to feed her baby evey 5 hours and no sooner due to too much milk. As for the amount: I stick to 150 ml (sorry, I'm rubbish with your metric system) per kilo divided by no of feeds per 24 hours. So DS is about 5 kilos = 750 ml divided by 8 = about 100. So I make bottles of about 125 ml to be on the safe side and some reserve. It keeps for a few days in the fridge