Breastfeeding

[katie23913]

I am planning on breastfeeding but I also want to bottle feed too (expressed milk not formula) how soon can you express? I want my partner to be able to do some of the feeding so it’s not always me having to do it durning the night. I just wondered how long to wait before being able to express or can you do this from the start?

Wait until breastfeeding is going well. Then add in an expressing session or two. The reason is that in the early days and weeks each feed the baby has from a bottle you’ll need to pump at about the same particularly overnight feeds.

If you wait til breastfeeding is established your supply is more robust and easy to change around.

In theory you could express from birth, but if you want to exclusively breastfeed bar the odd bottle, it’s not a great idea. For the first few weeks you need to build supply by direct feeding the baby on demand, especially during at night when prolactin is highest. Messing around with expressing, missing feeds and giving bottles can mean your supply doesn’t get going as it should.

The usual advice is not to express or give bottles for the first six weeks, by which time you should have a good supply. If you do decide to do it sooner I’d seek the advice of a breastfeeding counsellor who can explain the best times to express and how to give the bottles so you don’t end up ‘losing’ the milk for that feed from your supply.

My friends who expressed did so from about 4 weeks and began building a stash of breastmilk. Most introduced bottles of ebm at around 5/6 weeks. Be aware that some babies refuse bottles totally - mine did and we tried every brand, teat, temperature of milk and different formulas in the end but to no avail. Also as pp have said, feeding at night is really important for your supply so if you do get your partner to do some feeds maybe pick a different time when you can go and nap instead.

We introduced the odd bottle here and there from 3 weeks as breastfeeding felt nicely established. But then months went by without me expressing milk for my OH to give to out daughter and now she won't take ons (she's 7 months almost). You'll probably know when feels best for you. I found a lot of conflicting advice on this subject x