Transitioning to formula

[KaM86]

Hello,
I was unable to breastfeed my little boy so I began expressing in order to buy us some time to practise and time for him to grow up and learn to latch on. After 5 weeks, we’d made no progress and I was continuing to express 8 times a day.

We decided to begin to introduce formula as expressing this much was very difficult when looking after a newborn too. He threw up every formula that we tried. The dr prescribed Nutramigen which we spent two weeks trying to introduce (1 feed a day) but very little progress. The doctor then prescribed Aptamil Pepti but he seems to hate this too. Does anyone have any advice on how we could introduce it? Ideally, I’d like to continue to give some feeds of breast milk.

Expressing is making me pretty miserable so any advice would be appreciated.
Thanks

Breast milk is very sweet so I found my baby took an instant dislike to any kind of formula when I was trying to transition (so ended up still breast feeding after I went back to work, but that's a whole other story!)
I would suggest mixing a bit of formula with breast and gradually build up the formula? I didn't try this by the way as I couldn't see the wood for the trees and spent considerable time and money trying different bottles instead.

I also found expressing made me miserable whilst looking after a tiny baby. We moved from EBM to Formula at 6 weeks by gradually introducing. We did around 2 formula bottles a day, increasing up to 3, then 4 etc.
Good luck!

I’m having to give my child a specific formula on medical advice. She hated it. I have mixed it with EBM - started off 10% formula, 90% EBM and have gradually increased the formula - after 2 weeks now at 70:30. This makes more sense to me than trying to do a whole feed each day of formula and the rest breast milk. Good luck 🙂

Thanks for the advice. I have tried sweetening the formula with breast milk. He is managing 50:50 at the moment which is better than I thought. He does seem a little more unsettled and the rash on his forehead is back. I don’t know if the changes to his diet can have brought back his eczema in such a short space of time as 24 hours or if it would have happened anyway. Does this seem likely to anyone?

Are you following a DF diet too OP?

A bit of vanilla extract (Dr Oetker which has no alcohol) is often recommended in DF formulas because they are gross. Helped when my boys started it.

I pumped every two hours for 7 months for my twins because I’m insane and hated every single second so I don’t blame you for wanting to reduce pumping.

I started by just cutting out cows milk. The dr thought it was unlikely to make much difference but I will try DF too.

It feels like we’re trying to complete a Rubik’s cube! Trying to work out which change has made the difference good and bad.

If your LO is on a formula for babies with problems with cow's milk and is getting sone breast milk, you really need to be totally DF. It can be a bit overwhelming at first but it does get easier, much easier.

Ok thanks.

This article from Kellymom explains it much better than I could OP. I'm not sure why your GP thought it would be ok for you to consume dairy if they suspect a dairy allergy tbh.

Thank you. She said that it’s rare that a baby suffers with an allergy from breast milk. I don’t know really.