Weaning bf baby onto formula?

[Shirelassy]

Hi I hope I've not posted this in wrong place, website is tricky to navigate on my tablet. I've got a quick question about weaning and thought this might be good place to get some ideas/experience from others.

Quick background, mum of 2, daughter is 10 and I bf her for 3 months but it was a long time ago and I don't remember how I switched to bottles. I found bf very hard and had some pnd issues so wasn't very dedicated to bf at the time.

Baby son is 6 and a half months now. Bf has been a great success this time round aside from one bout of masititis a couple of months ago (all ok after a week of hell).

Issue: Son is weaning onto food nicely and now has 2 teeth. He keeps biting me!!!!! Its driving me potty and really hurts and i want to start weaning him to formula but maintain night feeding as Bf. He will take a bottle and has had aptimal a few times with no issues (as I had to attend some work courses).

I am really worried about getting mastitis again and also dont want my milk to dry up completely. Does anyone have advice on how to do it?

TLDR: how can I wean bf baby into bottles without getting mastitis and whilst still maintaining a milk supply for night feeds?

Thanks in advance!

I did this when my daughter was 4 months; I didn’t get mastitis and still breastfeed at night. The main thing is to take it slow and only one drop one feed at a time. I started with the bedtime feed then the mid morning/lunchtime one and so on but only started dropping the next one when my supply had adjusted to drop the previous feed which for the first one took 5-7 days then got quicker. It did mean that I’d often be really full for the next feed but if I felt I was starting to get engorged I would feed her even if it was only for 5 minutes just to take the edge off it. I tried to do a breastfeed then formula then breastfeed then formula cycle until I then dropped the breastfeed in the middle.

Just make sure you don't let your breasts get over full.
If they start feeling heavy or leaking, take a hot shower and give them a good squeeze to let the excess out.

The current advice is to drop one bf every two weeks. This will give him the chance to adjust to the increased quantiles of milk and to reduce your chance of mastitis.

If he’s biting though, yiu need some information and support to deal with that whilst you reduce Bfing. Have you got the Bfing Helpline Numbers?

Thanks for your help, going to drop lunch time boob for now (he has a meal but always wants milk after so i will offer a bottle) as this is where he is most bitey (after crunching on his lunch!). Will try that for a week and see how we get on.

Hi OP - I'm in a similar position to you - DD is 5.5 months and I'm moving to formula from breastfeeding.

I did some reading on breastfeeding advice websites and the general consensus seems to be to drop one feed per week to avoid engorgement etc.

I've done it a little more slowly than this and my main piece of advice to you would be to be consistent. I've stuck with dropping the same feed each day, rather than dropping one feed a day but varying the time of the feed (if that makes sense). I started with the bedtime feed at 6pm which worked well and next I dropped the 9.30am feed. I find it's still convenient to breastfeed during the night and for the first feed of the day at about 6.30am. There's no way I'm dragging myself to the kitchen to make a bottle at that time in the morning!

I did make the mistake of going on a night out and enjoying myself way too much meaning DH ended up giving a bottle at 11pm resulting in my missing two feeds in a row and OMG the pain of having one giant boob until she woke at 3am for a feed! So alternating dropping feeds is a good plan (so you have one breastfeed then one bottle feed) and don't get carried away with missing two breastfeeds together in quick succession like I did. Standing in the bathroom at 1.30am with a hot flannel on the boob desperately trying to relieve the pressure while the baby was asleep was a bit torturous.

Hope it goes well!

My daughter started biting, in fact I ended up with an infected puncture wound from one of her tiny fangs... She was 5 months old and I freely admit to being terrified of her! More painful than childbirth!
We did get past it though and I'm still feeding two or three times a day at 13 months. My best advice? If you have a feeling he's about to start take him away and either swap sides or distract and replace. If he does bite, pick him up look him straight in the eye and say "no. You do not bite mummy" and immediately put him on the floor or his chair for a moment. Once he's got the message, try again... After a few goes I saw the bite thought cross my daughter's face and then saw her change her mind. They aren't silly :-) Good luck!