Breastfeeding/expressing emotions

[Sarahkins1]

Hi everyone - I'm just wondering if I can get your experiences/opinions please?

My baby is 5 weeks old and due to a combination of having an emergency c section (milk coming in late) and baby not taking to the breast very well and not getting enough food I have decided to express and feed my baby breast milk via bottles and use formula to top up.

First of all, I've got no problem with using formula, but I really wanted to breastfeed and was gutted when it didn't work out as I'd have liked. I wanted to keep up the expressing for as long as possible but having to express every 3 hours and especially through the night is really having an effect on me. It takes double the time it would take to breastfeed because I'm feeding baby with a bottle and then expressing. Anyway, I really wanted to make sure that my baby got breast milk for the first month which I've managed and decided to do for at least another month (we are renting a breast pump month by month) but I suspect that this month will be my last.

Anyway, I have such mixed emotions about this; I feel so guilty like I should be keeping it up for longer even though like I say, I don't have a problem with formula at all. It's really weird and I just can't explain it and wondered if anyone else had felt similar? Am I just being stupid?

I wanted to breast feed and it didn't go well so mix fed, eventually moving onto formula only. I had no issues with the thought of using formula if breast feeding didn't work out before having my babies but then felt incredibly guilty/like I had failed them when the breast feeding didn't work out. Years down the line I wish I hadn't spent so much time beating myself up over it and spent that time enjoying them! It really did feel like a big issue at the time but now not so much with all the other things motherhood has thrown up along the way. So what I'm trying to say is that what you are feeling is normal but the decision to stop will not be something that you are likely to give much thought to in the future (in my experience).