Planning to breastfeed - do I still need bottles + steriliser

[PuffsMummie]

Exactly that really, due in 2 weeks and planning to BF, but DH thinks we still ought to buy a pack of bottles + a steriliser.

Do we??

I didn’t buy any and didn’t plan on bottle feeding

When all else failed and I’d exhausted help from the HV’s I sent DH it to buy bottles and a pump.

Very readily available and even if he couldn’t have just popped out there’s Amazon if needed.

Next time around I still probably wouldn’t bother buying things until I knew for sure I needed them.

If you want to express later then yes you will need a proper breast pump rather than a Hakka which just collects excess milk on let down. The Medella pumps I’ve found very good. The Elvie also has good reviews but is expensive.

You will find a way that works for your family and professions will give you so much conflicting advice. Don’t worry about giving a bottle or using some formula in the early days if you want to.

With my first I breasted and then tried to introduce expressed milk but he wouldn’t take a bottle easily.

With my second I breastfeed but give one bottle of formula in an evening as I don’t have the time to express milk with having a toddler as well.

I managed to BF and didn't have any steriliser, bottle or formula in. However!!! I was not expecting my very painful recovery (infected episiotomy and sepsis) and at some points I physically couldn't lie/sit to BF him, so DP ran to the 24hr Tesco to stock up and gave him a bottle until my breast pump arrived the next day (amazon prime was a lifesaver). Next time I would definitely have back up bottles just in case.

On the subject of haakka pumps or normal.
The haaka was excellent at catching the opposite side leakage and sometimes caught loads but it wasn’t a touch on what my pump was getting.

I think I must have had some weird over production though as my pump could get about 9-11oz each time

And as others have said, Amazon Prime will save your life for things like this. If you don't have it sign up the 30 day free trial when you need something!

I love the idea of those wearable Elvie pumps.
I wish theyd been out when I needed to buy a pump.

The one thing that made me eventually go from exclusively pumping to formula was being stuck to the sofa for every 2 hours

I disagree about the haaka, I could t ever get anything out using either an electric or manual pump but get 4-5 ounces easily using the haaka even when I’m not feeding! I find it far less intrusive than a harsher pump. Each to their own I guess

I've been expressing since day 4 so DP can help and it's worked really well. Baby has always been a great feeder from boob and bottle so we've always been able to go out for a date night and GP can babysit; not so easy for babies that won't take a bottle. We bought the Tommee Tippee kit and I use the NatureBond pump

I didn’t bother to buy bottles etc before the baby was born. I have supermarkets within just a few minutes’ drive and can order online. I had a bottle refuser in the end anyway.

Just so that you are aware, an expressed feed daily may not feel like much of a break for you because you still have to do the expressing to replace the feed when they are that small. I don’t mean to put you off, but just worth adjusting your expectations for the early weeks, and you might be pleasantly surprised of course

I'm planning to BF but have bought bottles new and a second hand steriliser just in case, also a breast pump.
As PP mentioned, you could just get 2 of the MAM bottles.

I would like to buy the Elvie but going to see how I get on with BF and how baby takes expressed milk in bottles - as it’s such an investment!

Re the Haakaa, my plan is to use while breastfeeding 1) to increase my milk supply in the beginning and 2) I guess it would be useful to catch that milk and can be used by DH later on in a bottle.

Lots of conflicting advice re when to introduce a bottle. I’ve read that giving a bottle before 2 months can cause nipple confusion. My DM insists that babies will only take boob OR bottle, not both and usually the bottle as less work for them (but that’s some 30 year old advice from when she last had a baby) and others, which makes sense to me, advise introducing the odd (1 per day?) bottle early on, so baby will happily go between both.

Both of mine much prefer boob to bottle and I’ve known that to be the case with all my friends babies too.

One bottle a day isn’t going to cause nipple confusion and we’ve been doing it with DD since she was born. We waited 6 weeks to introduce one to DS as that was the advice from midwife and it meant he refused it completely.

Look at paced bottle feeding if you plan to switch between the two.

Just to say that at least until your milk supply is fully established you will need to pump when baby would have fed even if you give expressed milk for that feed in order to protect your supply (it's very much a supply and demand situation!)

It was that which made it a faff for me because instead of just feeding the baby I was sterilising and pumping and storing the milk so the DH could do that feed. For me that wasn't worth it although lots of people do get on with expressing.

It will be different for different babies. Some won’t have nipple confusion, some may. Some may refuse bottle, some may start to favour bottle, some may happily switch between the two. Personally I would have struggled with using the Haakaa straight away as nipples were sore (from previously never being used that way!) during the first couple of weeks and this would have been yet more usage. I used one later on very successfully (well actually it was naturebond but the same thing), though my son never took expressed milk from a bottle. I wouldn’t plan too much tbh, wait and see what your own baby wants and needs

@Tigerwhocamefortea Thats good to know, thank you.

@Sunshinegirl82 I know what you mean, I just kind of want baby to accept the occasional bottle so I have the option to go out sometimes and leave baby with parents or DH. But this is all "ideal thinking", could be a totally different story and this is my 1st baby so I really will just have to see how it plays out.

@PuffsMummie if you join the Boots parenting club they often give away the MAM self sterilising bottles for free, so you could get a couple that way to keep incase of emergency.

@BostonFern oh really? I am a member but I havent seen this!

Oh, that's a shame! I've had three of the vouchers now! Two paper vouchers in the post and one on my app. I've no idea how they allocate these things, hopefully you'll get one soon?