Breastfeeding/formula guilt

[expectingourmiracle]

I have a beautiful one month old daughter who at the moment is mixed fed. I started breastfeeding exclusively but my milk took a long time to come in so I ended up topping up with formula. Since my milk has come in I've tried to reduce the number of formula bottles she has, but the constant breastfeeding is exhausting me.

She feeds for up to an hour at a time (sometimes having to be topped up with formula if still hungry on the advice of the doctor due to slow weight gain), then has a break of an hour before wanting to feed again. Sometimes she will sleep in that hour, other times she won't, which means I can go without sleep all night. I know this can be typical of breastfeeding, but I'm struggling to cope with the lack of sleep, so much so it's causing me major anxiety. I've tried numerous helplines and seen specialists who all seem to give different advice. It's a minefield and I hate it. I want to give up but feel so guilty because 'breast is best' and I don't want to put her at any harm.
I don't really know what I'm asking... just looking for a handhold

10!

Great! Hope you enjoy some much needed rest OP and feel better tomorrow.

Best of luck.The very start is brutal !
Just a piece of advise.One thing that helped me mentally is finding women who just had babies too.We meet up weekly with babies and moan,laugh drink tea and eat cake ;)
It really helps as getting out of the house is big part of self care too.
Breast pump comes in handy too if you don't want to feed publicly

@Thejoyfulstar as per my post I breastfed at 3am, and again at 6.30am. I just skipped the midnight feed to ensure I got some sleep to be able to function. I have tried to express but unless baby is on the other breast nothing comes out (well, maybe 10ml!)

Sorry meant to reply to @Same1977

I’ve seen so many women drive themselves mad over bloody breastfeeding. Just stop!! There is no moral dimension to baby feeding, or there shouldn’t be. Just do whatever keeps you the most sane.

(and I say that as someone who breastfed two kids for two years each, because it was easy and right for me and I loved it, but it’s just not like that for so many other people and it’s completely fine for those people not to do it)

Glad you got some sleep OP. My 1yo was combi fed from birth and it worked fine (until around 11m when she started to refuse a bottle.. 🙄). I started off topping in bf, then occasionally letting DH do night feeds without bf first. Then just doing whatever I fancied on a particular day. Doesn't seem to have negatively affected her at all.

Breast isn't best when it comes at the expense of the mothers peace.
I get the disappointment and the guilt, I went through it myself. But that lasted a day or two and then I was just flooded with relief. I was able to enjoy my baby without constantly worrying about when I was going to pump, how much I would get etc.
Bf is great if it works for you. For some people it comes easily, for others it doesn't happen at all. For people like us it's somewhere in the middle. You could persevere and it might get better but equally you are stressing yourself out in the meantime and that will have negative consequences for you and baby. Frankly I don't think it's worth it.
Wishing you all the luck in the world and enjoy your little baby.

No worries. Totally relate to only pumping 10ml!

I agree. As someone who breastfed my last child for a year and is breastfeeding my current 7 month old with no sign of stopping, I agree that it's not worth it at all!

Yawwwnnnn

I had to use formula due to milk delay and then low supply - my baby was readmitted with dehydration as I had so little milk. No one warns you about these things in advance - they just promote BFing as the most amazing thing ever (it isn't!).

I found it helpful to know the reasons for low supply - you'll get loads of people saying 'supply and demand' and to pump on top of BFing but this doesn't actually help if that's not the cause of it.

I eventually put my foot down and refused to pump at all, just BF direct and topped up. I also handed DD over to DH for three hours every evening and had a break/got some sleep in which was invaluable. My milk supply increased once I was getting more rest and sleep.

Ultimately you can choose how much you do. I limited BFs to 3-4 a day from 12 weeks simply because I hated doing it and couldn't stand doing any more of it. I'd expected my milk would dry up but it just kept goi g at that amount - I eventually BF to 3.5 years.

What I would say is if you're not enjoying it and it's affecting your mental health it's not worth it. I regret carrying on with BFing - it made my baby's first months so miserable.

I combi fed my son and it worked well for us, I still breastfed up until he decided to stop just before his 2nd birthday.

I used to bf at the start of every feed but for the last feed before I went to bed I'd bf him for 20 minutes and then switch to a bottle of formula, which would often see him sleep a longer stretch of 3-4 hours which really helped my sanity! Then he'd wake every 1-2hrs and I'd bf for 45mins and try to put him down, if he wouldn't sleep then even just 1 or 2oz of formula seemed to help settle him off at that point. I'd exclusively breastfeed in the day as I was awake then anyway. Once he got to 12 weeks, he would go to sleep during the night without an extra 1oz of formula to send him off so just had 1 bottle a day before bed, which he dropped at aged 1 anyway.

Do what works for you and please don't feel guilty whatsoever about giving formula. I couldn't co-sleep and there's no way I could have kept going being woken more than every single hour day and night long term.

I think the thing that riles people about saying "it will become so easy" is that it doesn't for some people. My situation was similar to what OP's sounds like. We combi fed for 7 months when we went onto just formula. I had input from all the doctors and lactation consultants you could shake a stick at. I went to support groups etc. and spent every spare moment online looking up breastfeeding info. I was not "lazy" or uninterested in putting the effort in.

But it never became easy. No one can seem to tell me why but my baby never latched properly. He just couldn't seem to do it (he'd had his tongue tie fixed very early on so it wasn't that). I do have nipples on the flat side which didn't help (totally unbeknownst to me until a midwife told me, by the way! I thought they were normal 🤣), but all the tips and tricks in the world didn't seem to help. He never was able to transfer a good amount of milk so absolutely did need top ups.

One of my nipples is so damaged to this day that it's numb and the areola is white with scar tissue (my doctor wonders if my body started an autoimmune response to the constantly damaged nipple). I doubt I will be able to use it to feed the baby I am currently pregnant with, but I will give it a good go with my other nipple.

So no it's not a given that it will become easy. I spent months in false hope because people told me it would be easy, despite the fact I'd evidentially had a rocky start and issues to overcome. I felt a lot better about it once I accepted that actually, for me it was a bit shit and I was never going to get that stereotypical magical breastfeeding experience. It was lovely in its own, painful and miserable way, and I'm glad we breastfed as long as we did because I enjoy saving money on formula ✌️ but I hated it so much when people seemed to delight in telling me how easy they it should be

@blueberry23 Did you actually read what OP said? I actually can’t believe you posted something so insensitive on someone who is clearly struggling.

OP, breastfeeding is only a good idea when it works for you too. All that matters is that baby is fed. Doesn’t matter, doesn’t matter by who, but as long as baby is fed, baby is happy and will grow up healthy. The breast is best concept is absolutely nonsense.

That's great you got some sleep.

If you want to mix feed going forward that can really work for you.

Some advice from doing it.

I'd not do it overnight. As hard as some nights can be, you can nap in the day and it's much easier to just breastfeed when half asleep.

I did bottles at 10am and 3pm for my son. I'd half fill the bottles with boiled water first thing and put them in the fridge. Then I'd top up with fresh boiled water and add the powder when the feeds were due. Saved waiting for things to cool down.

The other benefit of those times is that once we got to weaning I ended up with a big gap in the day. The first feed my son dropped was lunchtime so by 7 months I was just feeding morning and night and overnight.

Whenever you do bottles though make sure you alternate feeds breast and bottle. Try not to do 2 bottle feeds next to each other at this age.

It will.Its early start so supply isn't fully there .I used to pump 30 ml plus at the start for both breasts.Now I pump 4 times a day approx 350 a time

Just to clarify I exclusively pump as my daughter was brutal on my nipples

I agree with @Lunabun in that sometimes breastfeeding just doesn't get easier despite seeking all the help that's available. In my case I never managed to build up a full supply despite pumping on the recommended schedule, and when you have a baby readmitted to hospital for being dangerously dehydrated, you soon accept the need for formula top ups so I disagree that this is bad advice from doctors. In some cases formula top ups are essential.

Everyone's situation is different but it's so important to reach a place of being at peace with the feeding method you use and it sounds like you're getting there OP. There's nothing wrong with continuing to mixed feed if you can't or don't want to reach EBF. Your baby is still very young, but soon you'll appreciate the time and headspace that a settled feeding routine (whatever form this takes) will give you to interact and bond with your developing baby.

Hi OP,

Breastfeeding can be hard work and it was so so difficult with my first - he fed all the time and the nights were awful! I was so exhausted all the time and I was picking fights with my husband all the time because I was so sleep deprived. This awful stage lasted about 6-7 weeks but eventually it did settle down. Thankfully my second baby wasn’t as bad, but it was still tough.

I co-slept with my second baby and so husband was in the spare room for a year! I’m not up to date with current research but I believe co-sharing shouldn’t be done with two parents in the bed and babies definitely should not be placed in the middle of two sleeping adults.

As a previous poster said, topping up with formula was terrible advice, not because it’s formula but because it will impede on your milk supply. There’s a concept called the “formula trap” I believe that explains this well so it may be worth googling. Ideally you should have been told to express after breastfeeds and then use this milk for the next top-up.

Remember that “breast” isn’t best, “breast milk” is what’s best and it doesn’t matter whether it comes from a breast or a bottle.

It must be very frustrating to be told different things by different professionals, I can understand how that would make things even more difficult.

I would definitely look to go to a weekly breastfeeding support group as being surrounded by women having h similar struggles can really help, even if it’s just for emotional support and empathy.

I have been in situations where I was at a crossroads of choosing whether continuing to breast feed despite my struggles and my difficulties, or pushing though so I know how conflicting it can feel. It’s really hard to want to do what you think is best for your best but at the same time knowing you are struggling with it.

Looking after yourself is so important though and you need to bear your own needs in mind as well as those of your baby.

That's not helpful advice @DreamToNightmare - if you don't make enough milk then you MUST use formula. If your milk is delayed and/or you have low supply then formula is essential. Some women will be able to pump for top ups. Some women will be able to move to EBF within a few days or weeks (a friend EBF from six weeks once her body recovered from a CS). Others won't - my milk didn't come in in quantity until eight weeks. That's with very frequent BFing on demand, S2S, BF immediately after birth, was never apart from my baby. I'm not sure what my baby was meant to drink before eight weeks?!

There's a myth that formula destroys BFIng (I was actually told this antenatally!). Triple feeding (pumping after BFing direct, then using that to top up) may help increase supply in cases where the baby couldn't latch on frequently or effectively enough early on. If it's going to work then it will within a few days - triple feeding for longer than that is counter-productive. If the milk delay/low supply is because of a different reason then triple feeding won't increase supply and could well be counter-productive eg if your body needs to recover from a haemorrhage, then exhausting yourself triple feeding won't be any help.

OP this would really have helped me in the early days of I'd seen it then. I realised when I saw it that I'd been set up to fail by BFing promotion - I can tick off about a third of this list of causes for milk delay.

fedisbest.org/resources-for-parents/know-risks-delayed-onset-full-breast-milk-supply/

I have to admit that i used to be one of those women who thought that there was no such thing as low supply, and if women just pushed through with breastfeeding then everything would be OK. After all, I'd breastfed two kids before, one not for long (by choice), the other for a year.

Then I had my third baby and was seriously humbled. I had so, so many problems with her. Agonising latch, low milk supply, poor weight gain, cracked bleeding nipples etc. The lactation consultant put me on a programme that seriously tested my mental health. I nearly went crazy and can be quoted on mumsnet saying that trying to breastfeed was costing me literal blood, sweat and tears.

I was doing everything the lactation consultant told me to do, pumping around the clock, setting alarms at night and spent hours and hour just crying that nothing would work. There just was not enough milk coning out.

I was just about to switch to formula for the sake of my mental health. I remember making the decision and my husband saying 'it's a shame when that's what you wanted, but you've really tried your best' and me replying that I had knew there was nothing more to try, and I now had to make the decision and make peace with it.

The next day something changed and suddenly my breasts were like a tap pouring milk. I remember my baby was exactly 40 days old when it happened and I felt like there had been some kind of hormonal shift (hard to explain)

All the pumping, water, fenugreek, oats, breast compressions, cluster feeding, night feeds in the world didn't seem to make a difference and I felt like I was seriously at risk of PND if things continued as they were. It was just the grace of God that my milk did happen to come in, right after I made the choice to forget about breastfeeding.

I seriously get it and would never, ever roll out the "just try harder" trope that I secretly used to think. I also think formula top ups are the responsible thing to do in certain cases, and that formula can even be used as a temporary solution (alongside very frequent feeding and pumping).

Op I mixed fed my first. Most of my misery came from
1, pumping. I never got much and it ate time
2, pressure from lactation consultants to ditch the bottles

Mixed feeding is a perfectly valid choice, with hindsight I wish I hadn't stressed so much about how I was 'failing' by needing formula top ups.

In my experience at 5 months dd decided she didn't like formula any more, and fed like crazy to get my supply up, which was exhausting, but after that I had a great breastfeeding experience and kept going until she was 2. I'm glad I stuck at it, just wish I hadn't stressed so much about using formula when needed.

Good luck, and whatever you chose to do is right.

Adding in my story as I hope it might help.

I had my first DD 21 years ago when I was 19. My milk took about five days to come in but I was adamant that I would breastfeed come hell or high water and once my milk came in she gained weight quickly and easily and followed the 91st centile. We co-slept, she never had a bottle and I fed her til she was over two. I judged anyone that bottle fed, felt that they hadn't put their baby's needs first or were looking for an easy route to parent. During this time I had next to no sleep. DD1 didn't sleep through the night until she was nearly three and no longer breastfed. She used to wake up at least ten times a night and I was a wreck. My mental health was awful - I was a lone parent and exhausted. I was suicidal. I was hospitalised as a result of the depression. Yet I was adamant that I had to keep breastfeeding. Being a mother was pretty much my only identity and I was determined to do attachment parenting and be the 'best' mother.

Fast forward 21 years and I had DD2 in February. She lost so much weight after birth that I had no choice but to start supplementing with formula. I pumped and got about 10ml if I was lucky! The latch was perfect, I did everything 'right', saw a lactation consultant but my milk never came in in the same way it did with DD1. I've never leaked, never had milk spurt across the room like it did with DD1. It's a wholly different experience. And in a way I'm so glad that's been the case as it's meant that DD2 has had a bottle of formula every night before sleep. She sleeps in a cot. She now at six months only wakes up once a night and sometimes sleeps through. She eats solids very well. I bottle feed for most feeds now having gradually dropped breastfeeds as I'll be back at work soon. I'm not at all depressed. My identity isn't founded in motherhood - I'm looking forward to going back to work. And DD2 is happy, thriving and I enjoy her so much more as I'm not exhausted or suicidally depressed.

One other point to note. DD1 (now aged 21) has highlighted that there is little point in being a martyr with a baby. You won't get thanked for it. DD1 thinks it's 'weird' that I fed her for so long. She happily partied, smoked, took a bunch of drugs and ordered endless Deliveroo through her teens which I feel probably undoes any of the benefits of breastfeeding! Her health is ok but she had horrendous glandular fever aged 16 which then led to recurrent tonsillitis and frequent hospital admissions until her tonsils were removed so she's not exactly a picture of health. Certainly I know enough formula fed children that are healthier!

I've learned so much since having DD2 and I'm so ashamed of how judgmental I used to be. Do whatever is best for you and your baby and be kind to yourself