Advice needed - mixed feeding and travel to US

[louisemiller19]

I'm travelling to the US with a just 5 month old who I breastfeed most of the time but give a bottle of formula at 7pm. This helps her sleep and she goes to sleep at 8pm. I think she'd struggle to go off without it.

Looking for tips on how to handle her schedule for a 1 week trip to the states with a 5 hour time difference.

We are flying 9am and changing in Boston for a 2pm US/7pm UK flight to Cincinnati that takes 2.5 hours.

Should I move her bottle time straightaway? I can't decide whether to give it to her on the flight and risk her not getting to sleep later when we finally arrive (she doesn't have good form at having a deep sleep on breastmilk). But what if she gets overtired and can't wait till 7pm US time?

Any tips on how to handle this, plus the days after our arrival, much appreciated.

My mum suggested giving her extra formula as a one off if needed that first night, but I'm not sure if it will mess with my breastmilk supply.

I'm less worried about the return journey because it will be an overnight flight.

I live in the US so have travelled several times to Uk and back with my kids. First thing is just wing it. Whatever you plan, it will probably work out differently

I was in pretty much this exact situation and chose to breastfeed on the plane etc to avoid the hassle of making a bottle. But my DD was less than 3 months and fed all the time anyway so it wasn’t a huge issue.

If I was flying now (DD 6 months) is probably give the bottle at the same ish time she normally has it. But be prepared to feed more than normal the first day. Extra bottle too even wouldn’t do any harm. She should fall into a routine again soon. I usually try and shift their routine by about 2 hours per day although it’s easier for babies as they sleep whenever so she could adjust very quickly

I would plan for lots of possibilities but also expect that everything will be completely up in the air and timing of a bottle probably won’t make that much difference. Her sleep will be all over the place when you arrive. Mine was older when we first did that trip and we were flying to the west coast. It was an 11 hour flight, I stressed about having milk for her (was on cows milk by then) to help her get to sleep, etc. She ended up being awake for the entire 11 hour flight (despite several rounds of milk!) and then stayed awake a full 24 hours before she finally fell asleep! She woke for the day between 2-4am for the first 4 days. It was hell. We’d stressed about the milk on the flight but didn’t really plan how we’d cope once we got there and were exhausted. If you bf, it will be infinitely easier to bf on the plane than offer a bottle, but I would take some formula anyway (you can buy after security) so you have all bases covered. But I would also be strategic about sleep, make sure you take turns and trade off and then expect the first 3-5 days could be rough. Make sure you both get enough sleep then too. My dh and I traded off, one would get up 2-5am and then the other would get up and the first would go back to sleep for an hour or two so we were as well rested as possible for the day.

Thanks so much, this is incredible helpful advice and great to know other ppl have done this and survived!!