Baby Milk for Hospital

[BakewellGin1]

Advised that I need to take milk into hospital...
Which is best in your opinion ?
Also approx how many ?
Thank You

I found First Steps Nutrition very useful and informative as a suggestion.

FFS PPs who are going on about breastmilk. We all know the breast is best line but OP has asked about formula. If you’re just going to try to make her feel guilty (which she shouldn’t, there’s ABSOLUTELY NOTHING WRONG WITH FORMULA) get off this thread. We should support other mums not question or belittle their choices unless they are clearly dangerous, which clearly doesn’t apply here. Being a mum is hard enough without being judged by complete strangers.

OP. We used Aptimil. You can get premade little bottles which are in small measures and have sterile tests, which are ideal for in hospital. Boots stock them as do some supermarkets. Best of luck with everything.

@onemorego

Breastfed baby until she was 9 months. Absolutely hated every second of it. Would definitely FF my next child from day 1.
Baby had multiple ear infections so all the crap about breast milk being able to avoid that is BOLLOCKS as stated by many mums who breastfed here.
I was a breastfed baby until I was 2.5 and have a weak shit immune system. Dh on the other hand was formula fed since birth and is one of the healthiest persons I know.

We have as many breastfeeding mums here as Ff mums and except for Ambs who seriously needs to STFU now and go away and onemore go plus 1-2 others,other mums like myself who breastfed our babies are here to give support to the OP if she feels she needs to FF.

And no @ one of you pro breastfeeding keyboard warriors who mentioned "ask any breastfeeding mum and she will willingly give advice and support and share abt breastfeeding experience". Nah I do not want to share or gear any woman towards that direction since i hated it so much myself.
All the mums who bf in my playgroup besides one went through postnatal depression so the "facts"that were stated couldn't be more incorrect.
And colicky baby here as well despite the whole crap about less colicky baby due to breastfeeding. WTAF?!
Noticed all the comments from other mums abt their colicky breastfed baby. Gosh I feel you all

It's just not true a new born cannot digest any formula! Both mine were formula fed from very early days as I don't produce milk and they were grand! Aptamil for both, purely because that's what they supplied my DD in special care but no problems with either baby. Hope it all goes well - do what works FOR YOU

The midwives were completely shit ill be honest @SilverBirchTree. First baby and feel like ive had no advice about anything including csection recovery.

I'm currently sat 3 days post section trying to sleep on our nursing chair as getting in and out of bed is too distressing. Added to that panic my newborn is too cold in her crib and not knowing what to do about thay it seems like i am in for another great nights sleep.

Fingers crossed my community midwife is a little better.

I think it was mentioned my milk would come in shortly but i was distressed baby couldn lt feed there and then and i am worried she becomes dehydrated or is hungry etc.

I've never used formula as luckily BF worked out for me, but I did buy some for backup when I had to travel without my babies and was worried my expressed milk stocks might not last. From my research I went with goat milk based formula as it's easier to digest, and chose an organic brand. If that is not available, I would have gone for a smaller producer that was organic or had other high production standards.

The brand I chose in the end was Holle. However I never used it so can't report on how baby would have taken it!

I am sorry if you feel bullied about BF but I do agree if you can give your baby colostrum at the very least it is so healthy and beneficial for them.

Good luck.

@Rarfy recovering from surgery while caring for a newborn is so tough. Can I ask what makes you think your baby is cold in her cot? I think newborns just generally want to be held and nursed all the time, so I wouldn't worry that something is wrong. I remember sleeping in my living room with the baby as I was so worried he was cold. But then I found using the TOG recommendations on swaddles and sleeping bags and a room thermometer helped assure me that he was fine.

There is a lot of information online about establishing breastfeeding after c-sections and bad deliveries. I hope you get some help and are feeling better soon.

& Congratulations on your baby!

Thanks @SilverBirchTree! Just when i touch her she doesnt feel particularly warm to the touch. I hospital she was boiling and slept in a hat but midwife said not necessary at home and she will climatise.

Our bedroom has the thermostat in so i can see the temp of room. I havent checked it but have set heating to come on if drops below 16 degrees.

I googled and discovered being cold is better than being too warm and when thinking logically, i felt warm but when i touched my skin it didnt feel particularly warm.

Don’t touch her hands to see if she’s warm. Touch the main part of her body to check. What’s she got on at night?
C sections are tough, you sound like you’re doing a good job.

@Rarfy you'll work it out, it's scary to begin with! I'm 6 weeks in now and it's all becoming so much easier as I get to know him. The general rule is one more layer than you have, so if you're wearing a top, she'll want a vest and a babygrow. If you're wearing a top and a jumper, she will want a vest, babygrow and blanket. It's a general rule and obviously they aren't all the same - my baby seems to be very hot (my husband is the same, he literally radiates heat) so I put less on him. It's cold out at the moment, but if I were to take him out with a hat and a coat on, he would very quickly end up a big sweaty mess!

Rarfy I couldn’t find your previous post but did they tell you that you can breastfeed before your milk “comes in”? You produce colostrum until then which is all they need and they don’t need much. I’m not sure whether you’re breast or formula feeding at this point, that’s totally your choice - you wanted to make sure you know that you don’t have to wait for it to come in!

Feel your baby’s chest to check their temperature - their little hands and feet often feel cold, it’s their core temperature that’s important :)

Yes i was touching chest and back of neck and altho they didnt feel cold she certainly didnt feel very warm but i think im comparing too much to whn we were in hospital.

Yes i knew milk wouldnt come in for a few days but hand expressing colostrum was producing a drop and i mean literally a few tiny drops each try. I just didnt know if it was enough. She is doing great on bottles she actually woke herself for feeds last night which pleased me.

I've only read about half of this thread and I am frankly so embarrassed to call us a community of mums who are supposed to support each other?? Why all the vile shaming?!

OP, my son was born with a very severe tongue tie and i was desperate to BF. The midwives provided me with a pump and syringes to try hand expressing and pumping but my son spent hours screaming for food, every time we tried to latch he would get more upset and it was horrendous to watch, I was in floods of tears. The hospital provided us with bottles, steriliser, and Cow and Gate, as well as still supporting me with expressing.

His tongue tie was cut but 3 times and he still never latched. I expressed every 2 hours for the first 6 weeks, my boobs leaked constantly and pumping/feeding and just surviving when my husband was at work was awful. I would pump 2 hourly in the night as my boobs were so full and then feed my son which took 45 mins....I didn't sleep!

I was hugely hugely depressed, screaming about how much I hated my life. Week 6 I switched solely to FF and my depression lifted over night.

My son had cow and gate and aptamil until we found he had CMPA! But he was ok on both formulas prior to this.

However, I manage a nursery where we provide all types of milk and I would say, Aptamil have changed their 1 formula considerably in the last few months, it's harder to make and curdles quickly. SMA or Hipp Organic seem the best options out of the formulas we use at work.

Good luck with whatever you decide and I hope you're not poorly after this baby enters the world xxx

Just remember OP - no one actually cares if you were breastfed or formula fed when your an adult. It doesn't crop up when you make friends, or start dating someone! Yet it provokes such a reaction when it's such a short term choice whilst your a baby and rely on it for food.
I don't understand why everyone gets so passionate when it doesn't apply to their own baby. Good for you asking a sensible question before the birth of your baby, I hope you get the responses to help you. Xx

Other than Mn I’ve never come across this obsession with how other people’s DC’s are fed. Both breast and formula give babies an excellent start in life and which you choose really doesn’t matter.

I haven't carefully read each post, but I don't think I saw anyone 'shaming' people who formula feed. Every mum should be free to make an informed decision about how to feed her baby. The problem is that there is so much misinformation out there, like that expressed in the posts immediately proceeding mine suggesting formula and breastmilk are the same and make no difference to the health of children. There is a proven difference between the health outcomes of breastfed versus formula fed people, from a lower risk of SIDS in infancy to a lower risk of diabetes in old age. It's simply wrong to suggest otherwise, yet people in this thread have repeatedly done so.

It's not 'shaming' to provide facts about health, it's correcting wide spread misinformation so that mothers can make an informed decision. Formula feeding will still be the best option for lots of people, but they should make that decision with good information.

I used SMA for my girls. No issues with it at all. Perfect prep will change your life by the way.

Also. If you take a room full of three year olds, no one knows or cares how they were fed. You do what’s right for you x

@HappyTheCroc it's true that you could not tell from looking at the room full of three year olds who was breastfed. You also could not visually tell which ones watch hours more TV a day than they should. Or which ones never eat vegetables. Or which ones don't wear seat belts.

I don't think a lay persons visual assessment of a room of hypothetical toddlers trumps the non disputed medical evidence reported over decades that breastfeeding has significant and lifelong health benefits for mother and baby.

I don't think a lay persons visual assessment of a room of hypothetical toddlers trumps the non disputed medical evidence reported over decades that breastfeeding has significant and lifelong health benefits for mother

I don't dispute that there are health benefits to bf. The thing is though, when you look at something like the link between smoking and lung cancer, things are very clear to me. Everyone I know who has had lung cancer, apart from one person, has smoked for many years so the link between the two is very, very obvious. When you talk about breastfeeding lowering the chances of eczema, allergies, diabetes in later life, etc I know so many cases where this hasn't been the case. I don't dispute an overall trend in less bf babies having for example, eczema, but I don't think it can be an overwhelming number, like the link between smiking and lung cancer, because of the amount I know.

If bf meant your baby had an extremely low chance of getting things like eczema, allergies, diabetes etc then I think people like me would see it as very important to bf your baby, but it's just not the case. So for me, it wasn't worth stressing over.

Perfectly1mperfect but look at the analogies she used. There is no clear link between not eating vegetables leads to x disease or too much TV leads to y mental health issues, but the weight of evidence tells us that it’s best for children to eat vegetables and limit television consumption. BF is in the same category. You can turn out healthy and fine if you’re not BF but on a population data set, societies that have more BF have lower incidence of some negative health outcomes.

Smoking is not equivalent to using formula so not a good comparison at all.

It's not 'shaming' to provide facts about health, it's correcting wide spread misinformation so that mothers can make an informed decision.

@SilverBirchTree it is shaming on a thread where someone's already made their decision and asked for advice about formula.

brookshelley

It's just how I feel. I didn't want to BF for many reasons, I feel no need to justify my reasons because for me a trend of a 'lower incidence of some negative health outcomes' wasn't enough to make me. I don't dispute the trends though, as I said. If 95% of ff babies got eczema and diabetes then I would have tried to BF.

I encourage my kids to eat vegetables, I don't stress over the fact that one of them doesn't eat many, as like you say, there's no clear link between them and any disease, although there are trends. If eating Brocolli every day meant my children had an extremely low chance of getting cancer, then I would 'make' them eat Brocolli every day. I don't stress about the things where there are not very strong trends in the data as there are no guarantees in life. I think the stress of it can be worse than the doing/not doing the thing you are stressing about. It's personal choice, I think I've made good decisions for my family and I'm comfortable with them.

it is shaming on a thread where someone's already made their decision and asked for advice about formula.
This.

Also, there is a school of thought that the benefits of bf are over emphasised. That better outcomes for bf babies is not causal but down to a number of factors. No matter what, the difference is negligible. Just like bloody screen time as has been mentioned. Nothing wrong with screen time as long as it's not replacing face to face communication. It's all just a way to make mothers feel guilty. (Obviously vegetables are definitely important though!)

Dear god, how is this thread still rumbling on???? I plan on breast feeding again but will be taking milk incase that doesn’t go to plan. I came to see the views on formula and decide what to take not a tonne of people preaching on about BF

@ILiveForNachos not only is this thread rumbling on, threads of threads have been started!