Introducing a bottle feed

[ClimbAHill]

I’m sure this has been covered a hundred times but I’m looking at options for giving a regular bottle feed. She’s 6 weeks and although we had difficulty with BF at first it’s now we’ll established. She had a bottle before she ever latched but is getting more fussy about taking it so I’m keen to make sure we keep it up and I’m also at the stage that an extra hour or two of sleep would make a huge difference. I’m not against giving a FF but would like to try EBM first and am looking for some advice on timing. I’m already expressing most mornings to build up a bit of supply.

I’m thinking there’s 2 options. She usually feeds around 8.30-9.30pm and then goes down for a couple of hours so the first option would be to express a feed after tea and then go to bed leaving DP to do the evening routine. I haven’t yet tried to express in the evening and like most babies she feeds more at this time of day so I’m not sure I’d be able to express enough for a full feed then so I’m assuming I’d need to keep up a morning express as well. I’d then do the nighttime feeding as normal.

The other option would be for DP to feed her first thing in the morning which is usually around 5-6am. I’d get up a little bit later and express when I get up for tomorrow’s feed. DP then takes baby and dog for a walk and she sleeps in the carrier so I can be confident there would be a reasonable gap before she’d want to feed again.

I’m not entirely sure what the pros and cons of either option are? What’s worked for others?

I expressed an hour after my baby’s morning feed for my husband to give to her as her first night feed. I found my pumping output was greater in the morning and him giving it at 10pm-ish meant I could go to bed early and get a decent chunk of sleep. We did that for 6 months then i began giving that feed as a formula bottle as my pumping output suddenly dropped off (not sure why!). I felt glad to be able to EBF for that period but also now feel the decision to give formula has given me that bit more freedom not to be chained to a pump every day. Whatever you decide to do, good luck!

Sounds like a good plan. Agree with morning being better for pumping output than evening. I’d build up a stash beforehand though so you aren’t dependent on pumping being successful every day in order to do that days bottle feed.

Glad to see your DP will be doing the feed, that works best. However, for me when we first introduced the bottle, I had to physically leave the house until hours later. All my babies, if they knew I was at home, and they can sense it, would scream the house down while refusing the bottle. Once they became used to DP feeding them, I could be in the house, but the first few weeks, I had to absent myself.

Good advice from @PlanDeRaccordement to get a stash going first - I found myself getting quite anxious if I didn’t have enough in the fridge or freezer for a couple of days ahead

I’ve definitely found the same with pumping in the morning rather than at night. I take it if I’m still feeding during the night the lack of melatonin in that evening feed shouldn’t matter in terms of sleeping?

It does seem like a lot of the information out there focuses on reasons not to do anything other than feed exclusively from the boob!

I worried about the melatonin too but it didn’t seem to make a difference to her sleep whether I fed her a bottle of morning milk at bedtime or breastfed her (she was a shit sleeper regardless haha). Maybe experiment and see. But I did try to pump before my morning coffee so she didn’t get a jolt of caffeine!

Also well done for persevering with breastfeeding! We were the same with having to use a bottle before getting it established and I know how hard it is, you’ve done so well x

Thanks Emma. That’s a good shout on expressing before I have caffeine!