Breast feeding - clueless! Help...

[CLM123]

Hi ladies,

So I am 31 weeks pregnant and kind of set on breast feeding my baby. First time mummy so not sure how it will work out but hoping to definitely do it. However I will be returning to work after 12 weeks only for 6 hours a week at first then slowly upping my hours until I am part-time (own business so essential) whilst baby will be with her Papa. So was wondering what bottle set to buy?!

We have some normal 0+ Tommee Tippee Bottles and have just ordered the steriliser starter kit with the electric steriliser and all the other goodies it comes with. But given that I will be breast feeding what would you ladies recommend for expressing milk? Looked into both electric and manual breast pumps and both have mixed reviews along with the different makes too.

Also would you recommend that I start baby on bottles from newborn to get her used to them, even if its just once a day or so and the rest on boob?

Thank you x

You might be better off posting this on the specific breastfeeding and bottle feeding board for more views?

On expressing, I recommend looking into open and closed pump systems for hygiene, particularly if you think you might buy second hand.

Ooops apologies, seem to just always click on pregnancy, habit I guess! Thank you will give a go now x

It's not a problem, just that you'll get probably get more knowledgeable answers . If you link to the new thread people will know not to answer here too if they click on this one

OP, I would recommend reading The Womanly Art of Breastfeeding and The Food of Love.

These are good websites:

kellymom.com

www.breastfeedinginc.ca

Have you had a look at kellymom? It's American, so there is quite a lot about going back to work early and expressing

It's not usually recommended to start with a bottle from newborn as it can then be tricky to get your milk established - even if you start with bottles from 6 or 8 weeks your baby will quickly get the hang of it (we needed to go exclusively bottle and formula fed while I pumped exclusively to keep up supply at weeks 8-10, for example, and it was fine).

Are you looking to 100% express and feed the baby just with breast milk? If so you'll DEFINITELY want a double electric pump, it's really time consuming to do it all with a single in the early days, even with a good one like the Medela Swing I had. You can rent these in most areas, which can be useful as they are very expensive and until you start you can't be sure that lots of expressing will work for you (although I hope it does). A pumping bra looks ridiculous, but is brilliant as it means you can have your hands free for mumsnet ad Facebook work. Expressing doesn't work right off for everyone, but it is a skill you can improve hugely - I went from droplets to feeling like a milk cow when I was full expressing, the key for me was relaxing with nice music and looking at pictures of my son! It was still tricky in the early days, as there are so many wakings and the pumping takes a while, but one of my friends stuck with expressing and swears that it got much easier. You just have to be very determined at the beginning, because it's less effective at bringing milk in than a baby feeding directly, so you need to pump often to maintain supply - after a few more months it apparently settles a lot.

Breastfeeding groups can be a great resource, even before you give birth.

Good luck!

Thank you Summer, your post was very helpful and ummm insightive. There is so much I did not know about!

Definitely feeling like a naive idiot right now ha, wasn't even aware that I could potentially 'dry up' or any such thing just thought ahhhh be fine I will buy a breast pump and quickly express a few feeds for the day whilst I am at work. Feeling rather foolish right now.

Think this is something I will definitely have to research more! But thank you to everyone for taking the time to respond x

I went back to work full time when DS was just 14 weeks old (abroad, that's all the leave we get here). He's now 6 months and EBF.

I agree, get a good pump. Manual ones work if you only want to express a little occasionally, you need a double electric. I recommend Medela Freestyle. Pumping really gets a lot easier - took me ages to get an oz, now it takes 6-7 minutes for 2 full bottles.

which bottles - well, Medela Calma is supposed to be good for avoiding nipple confusion, as the baby has to work quite hard to get the milk. DS was very happy to use it between weeks 4-7, but then simply refused. If you have a bottle-refusing baby, then NUK First Choice latex teat often works. But you might also get an easy baby who drinks from any bottle.

I would not start bottle-feeding newborn, you need to get supply established. But do try some time before you have to leave the baby, so you have time to try different bottles, spoon/cupfeeding etc if necessary.

Also - if you have any trouble at all, it's worth getting to see a specialist lactation consultant as soon as possible. Some midwives are great with bfing help (some are less so!), but especially with your need to get expressing and bottles sorted out quite quickly, you have less time to muddle round than the rest of us.

Hope we don't make it sound offputting, the first few weeks can be surprisingly challenging for people like you and me who just assumed that you stick a baby near a boob and it all works out - but it gets easier much faster than you would believe at the beginning, and soon you can have an experienced 3 monther who gazes up a you adoringly throughout and then a totally expert 6 monther who only feeds every 4+ hours for 10 minutes and is good to go!

Or if you do end up needing to formula feed, that's very understandable with needing to work so early, and you and your baby will also be fine

I went back to work when baby was 3 weeks, and I bf him until he was 2 - so can safely say it went well. Totally possible. Employers have a duty legally to give you somewhere to pump.

I pumped in a quiet room without a lock. Only got walked in on once...!

I fed baby expressed milk from about one week old to ensure he would know what to do with a bottle.

I used a medela pump in style was about £250. Not sure if I'd buy the same one again - do some research on open vs closed systems. Medela is open and pumps air straight from surrounding environment,in my case dusty stationary room - not good. Mind you, I'm a sucker for the look of all their bottles etc. We bought the entire kit inc. Bottle warmer and skme other tat we didn't really need - we just wanted to get it right.

As for pumping, I got into work early and pumped before I started. Then again at lunch, and occasionally in the afternoon if the day was running on a bit.

I took hundreds of videos of my boy bf and watched them to help with letdown.

As soon as I got home I would put new milk in fridge (had a freezer pack to keep cool at work), ice pack in freezer and wash and sterilise all bottles used that day. TheN pack them back in bag ready for next day.

It was really tough. Got major oversupply on weekends and had to pump then, but did need milk for mondays so that was ok. My milk was just so forceful as the pump stimulates you a lot more, so my boy was engulfed by milk quite a lot.

By the age of about 4/5 months he had had enough. He stopped taking a bottle altogether and waited the 7 hours for me to get home from work, then fed like a demon all night long.

I am very pleased we managed to do so well, but please don't be hard on yourself if your body doesn't cooperate. Lots of women find the pump impossible, and that's fine, but it might be best to see if you can get a cheap pump to try and then quickly pop out and get a proper one if it suits you.

Any q's just pm me!

I returned to work full time at 16 weeks with DC1 and expressed there until she was 12 months, twice a day until about 10 months then just once. I worked in IT so there were very few women (and HR were annoyingly "giggly" over the subject but compliant nonetheless) but my line manager was really really good about it all. I had to move rooms a few times as they were refurbing the building but I always had somewhere to go with a lock and privacy, never a toilet. And no issues with fridges etc.

You may find baby does "reverse cycling" where they feed more at night so they take less from a bottle during the day. This helps you out if you find it hard to express as much as baby can take "from the tap" but it does nothing for your tiredness!! In the initial few months I ended up pumping three times outside of work hours in order to get enough, but when she started on solids that helped me quite a bit. It's hard, but it's just a short period of time really - it soon flies by. Try not to look at the bigger picture and just focus on getting by week by week.

Summer made a great post and like many others here, I really recommend kellymom as well. And a double pump! And avoiding nipple confusion in the early days, but not leaving it too late either - there's a perfect time to introduce the bottle but I can't remember what it is now! 6 weeks maybe.

I ended up feeding DC1 until she was nearly two years old - would have been a lot longer as I did with DC2 and DC3 but I was forced to wean her due to one of the very few complications in pregnancy (incompetent cervix) that mean you have to. She was still feeding a few times a day at that point despite me working full time.

I second the advice about how it is tough in the beginning, but the best part is that, unforeseen stuff aside, it does just get easier and easier as you go along and get more experienced. It's a steep learning curve at the start, and nobody would blame you if too many things went wrong or your body just didn't cooperate (sometimes bodies don't respond well to pumps) but if you are able to do it and can get those first few weeks at home and then later at work sorted, it will all get easier. Promise! The most important thing that contributes to success is being surrounded by supportive people and the correct advice.

You are absolutely doing the right thing by researching now - considerably ups your chances of things going how you want!