Stopping breastfeeding when I hadn’t ever really started but breast painful now

[Itsnoteasyfeelingqueasy]

Hi, I have a one week old baby girl who i intended to combination feed. However after a bad experience in hospital after the birth I never really got going on the breastfeeding, I maybe tried for five minutes on the first three days?

So I have been formula feeding, my baby is happy and very content sleeping really well. Yesterday my breasts became really swollen and painful and today there are red patches to. The midwife advised me to express some milk as I still kind of intended to try a bit of breastfeeding. I expressed a small amount this morning and this evening and offered it to my baby and it obvious she much prefers the formula!

All things considered I’m thinking of just going formula but what do I do about my breasts? Should I express a little just to ease the discomfort? Or just stop and it will sort itself out?

Express to ease the discomfort but I should say my baby was formula fed in the hospital but is now combi fed. But if you are sure about stopping bf then make sure it’s manual or hand expression and only enough to take the edge off or you’ll produce more. I expressed (double electric pump) and offered for a few days before she took any boob and now she’s pretty much 50:50 so they can turn a corner.

If you aren’t going to combination feed then done express otherwise you’ll just make more milk and it’ll take longer/be more painful. I was told when I stopped breastfeeding at a similar point to just leave my boobs alone, wear a supportive bra and try not to even wash them in the shower as that stimulates things and after 2-3 days it’d pass