EBM can I feed her?

[DialMforMother]

Have just started introducing some EBM feeds to DD (6 wks) mainly to top up on breastfeeding and to make sure that DH can take over some feeds sometimes. DH says he's read that I shouldn't feed her as it can confuse her more: anyone know anything about this? Obviously I wouldn't want to do it often as breasts work ok but would like to know.

BF babies generally won't take EBM from their Mummies. They can smell that the real thing is close by and won't take such trickery!

I would recommend it, and keep it up daily. My DD stopped taking it from a bottle as we stopped for a few days when we went away and still won't one year on. Letting your OH do that 10pm (or whatever) feed once a day so you can go to bed early or have a bath is amazing, both for you and your man.

Thanks for the advice . Feeling a bit worried about potential for nipple confusion and also unexpectedly weird about someone else feeding her but will just have to get over myself on that one I think!

Most of what I've read has said that nipple confusion is a myth.

Nipple confusion isn't a myth, maybe badly named. As what really happen's is that babies find getting milk form a bottle far easier then having to suck at the brest. Therefore they then get lazy and refuse to suck at the brest.

Many people do combine feed or EBM feed succerfully with no problems. The issue is you can never tell before you try which babies will prefer a bottle.

Try to use a bottle that's desinged to mimic the brest more. Always use the smalest size teat don't change up a size like you would for a FF baby, this make's them work harder for the milk. If you start to see any problems, drop the bottle.

You can give a bottle once a day if you wish, just remeber pumping isn't as efficent as baby feeding at the brest so you may not get enough out in one go to replace a whole feed. Again this will vary form one person to another some women can't express and other can express loads.

It really is a case of you don't know untill you try.