Breast feeding and bottles - advice please

[mum2b1]

Hi,

I am planning to breast feed my first baby (due end of July) but I also want to express so that my husband can help with the feeding/ bond etc.
How long should I wait before introducing the bottle (containing breast milk).
My NCT teacher says 3 weeks but that seems a long time and it seems to me that the longer we wait the more confusing it will be for the baby.
Surely if we do it earlier say after about a week and a half the baby will be more likely to take to both and not really have a preference...

any suggestions?
Has anyone else tried this successfully?

It's probably to do with comments like this which he's just posted on the breastfeeding board:

"I cant help wondering if there is a bigger underlying issue. Some of the posters seem to use BF as the main definition of being a mother, and so feel justified excluding husbands"

and

"I suspect the reason for this is because they are worried that other aspects of motherhood, maybe they are returning to work early or something else. So somehow feel that by ensuring they are the only one that can feed enshrines their role as mother, no matter what the other shortcomings"

MrUmble is so blinded by his own insecurities about the relationship of dads to their breastfed babies that he seems compelled to ignore the basic lived experience of the normal breastfeeding relationship between mother and baby, and also the basic physiology of breastfeeding itself.

It seems to me that far from being unselfish, he's actually putting himself at the centre of things. This is all about HIM and HIS feelings, not about what's best for the baby. If men CAN and DO bond with their breastfed babies without being involved in their feeding as infants then why the INSISTENCE that this is an important part of being a father?

What a brilliant debate!

MrUmble, you're certainly fighting your corner, however I think that you're not really comprehending the whole breast feeding process and how important it is to get it right.

None the less I think its brilliant that you are taking an interest enough to continue arguing your point. I can't even get my DH to read mumsnet.