Shamed for wanting to give formula to baby?

[thepurgebegins]

I guess I shouldn't let it get to me but im so emotional postpartum and dont have enough people around to make me feel better I suppose. Baby is 3 weeks old and I breastfeed him. At the beginning I gave him cow and gate ready made milk which i did with my first too whilst my milk came in fully just once a day for a few days. At night baby has a feed from me and then I give a bottle as a top up with my own milk in but after 5 10 minutes he needs another feed and It can go on for abit. Ive tried giving the ready made milk which helps a little but not as much With my first I gave him hungry baby formula from 2 weeks before before bed only ( he was the same) and it helped him alot in being settled and staying asleep. But when I mentioned doing it my sister in law and a few others in family have said thats just stupid and its bad for them and 100 other reasons. I in no way want to give that bottle to make him sleep longer as babies wake up thats fine. I know im over thinking but unfortunately im an overthinker. Guess I just need someone to tell me straight if I should keep feeding him or introduce the formula to help baby. My mum supports me. Only 2.5 year age gap but feels like I've forgotten everything 😅 thankyou in advance

OP I did exactly the same with my DS. He was a poor sleeper and a bottle at bedtime gave me a bit of respite. It didn’t affect my milk supply at all and I BF for 21 months. He’s 6 foot 3 now so wasn’t harmed by his one bottle a day. Do what you want.

Listen my DD only ever had formula (not my choice but how it worked out) and she’s the healthiest kid I know, so I’m not giving coming at this from an anti-formula standpoint - but giving the ‘hungry baby’ milk seems a bit unnecessary when your tiny baby is acting exactly like tiny babies are supposed to.

Hungry baby milk is designed to be harder/ slower to digest. I wouldn’t want that for mine.

As I understand it, they’re supposed to cluster feed with breastfeeding (and to be fair mine did to some extent with formula - tiny amounts every 30-40 minutes or so when she was really little). So you might not need to top up with anything at all, but if you wanted to do so or feel like that suits you/ baby best then it’s not really anyone else’s business, and if you want to try the hungry baby stuff it’s not mine even though I said the above! I remember the constant overthinking but honestly your health and happiness is really important here too.

If you want some feeding support though and don’t feel like you’re getting it from family what about asking the midwife or health visitor? Or googling if there’s any groups in your area.

Agree with this, some of what you say makes me wonder if anyone has explained to you about the physiology of breastfeeding, how milk supply works etc.

I'm a long time BF peer supporter and have zero problem someone wanting to combi-feed, but would want to be sure you're informed about how formula affects your baby's digestion, how milk supply works, and how formula feeding impacts breastfeeding.

At the end of the day, all you need to say to your family is "thanks for your input but we're all happy with what we've chosen to do".

@StretchyPants1988 @zepherfan the bottle I give before bed currently is either my milk or if ive run out and pumping doesnt get enough milk then I use the cow and gate ready milk. So if im already replacing one feed with that will it make a huge difference giving formula. I still have a deceny supply. That's what im confused about. Is there a difference in formula and the cow and gate ready made milk.. ive tasted both and the ready made tastes almost same to breast milk apparently it is different?

No different. If you are using the step one ready made. All formula milk is made to very tight regulations. The ready made isn’t closer to breast milk or anything. Breastmilk has things that can’t be recreated in a formula like white blood cells, stem cells, igA, hormones.

On a personal level I had to return to work quite early for a few hours a day, so my baby had a bottle of ready made during the day. I picked ready made because it was easy. The cost factor doesn’t come into it when you are only doing a bottle a day: and there is no need to add making up formula when you are already so busy.

Yes it could affect your supply be because you aren’t cluster feeding. It could cause problems in particular during growth spurts when this cluster feeding basically becomes important to building up your supply further.

But there are no hard and fast rules; many people will successfully do what you are doing. It’s just good to be aware of cluster feeding and supply building.

As a retired midwife in no way would we ever suggest feeding hungry baby formula unless baby had specific problems. To use normal formula and bf is fine but the hungry one can cause all sorts of stomach problems if used when not actually needed. For my own children I bf all day and gave one formula before bed just so I knew stomachs were full for sure. But don't discourage the little and often cluster feeding until 8-12 weeks as this is exactly what baby needs for growing correctly

@4kids3pets thankyou i think ill stick with the breastfeeding and bottle with my own milk the once a day and introduce it later.if need be. Also you and alot of.others have mentioned drhe hungry baby but I only said id given it to my first boy, which I should have mentioned was after many months only using normal formula at first. I wouldn't be giving hungry to this baby. Thankyou x