Combination feeding

[Crackerscheesescabbyknees]

Morning :D

Has anyone here done/tried/thought about combination feeding?

I breast fed my son for a time, but it was relentless every two hours physically and mentally drained me. I decided early on that this time I would exclusively bottle feed (with expressed breast milk), but now I'm thinking a mixture of breast milk and formula might be better (for me).

My reasons for this are that formula fed babies tend to feed less frequently IME and giving breast milk in part will still give the benefits of breast feeding.

So I was thinking a combination of expressed breast milk throughout the day and then formula in the evening and night, with a view to encourage better sleep patterns for baby, partner and me.

Has anyone else done this with any degree of success?

I did this with my first, I tried to breastfeed of a day and bottle for night time or sometimes if we were out and about it was really easy and I never had an issue with him taking the breast or bottle as I don't it from newborn and would recommend it xx

Amazing. Thank you :)

I went back to work when ds was 10 weeks. Dh gave formula in Mam bottles successfully.. Bf every feed except the lunch time...

I've heard it work for some however others have had issues. With exclusively pumping it's absolutely draining and baby gets milk more efficiently than a pump so if you're not removing milk as effectively sippy could drop. Same with combi feeding you need to be careful to replace the same feeds each time with formula as if one day you decide to replace more that could cause a dip in your supply. If it's any consolation after the first 8/12 weeks it usually eases up on the feeding front. Your supply will take six weeks to regulate with baby doing lots of cluster feeds for growth spurts. Formula fed babies do feed less frequently but only because formula is harder to digest than breast milk x

I breastfed my first for about 12 weeks until He took a growth spurt, my milk couldn’t keep up, he started losing weight, we were both crying a lot, then I started combi feeding and OMG it was heaven! Fully intending to combi feed DC2 so I don’t put that additional pressure on myself again. I was so miserable and anxious and didn’t even realise.

I combination fed. The only problem you might find with it is that it can be quite hard to keep your supply up with expressing and combination feeding right from the beginning. My DS had a tongue tie and didn’t manage to latch properly until he was 9 days old, I expressed as much as I could but had to top up with formula. I was hoping to increase the breastfeeding after that, even exclusively breastfeed if possible, but my supply couldn’t keep up with his needs. By around 8 weeks it was more for comfort and cuddles than anything else and by around 12 weeks I just let it gradually fizzle out.

You will still have to do those tough early days of feeding or pumping every 2-3 hours in order to establish your supply, I’m afraid. There’s no avoiding that. The most effective way to combination feed is to establish breastfeeding with baby feeding directly to bring your milk in, and introducing a formula top-up fairly early.

Maintaining a supply through exclusive expressing is very hard work and there are good reasons why very few people do it. Even if baby is sleeping through you will need to set an alarm to wake yourself up to pump at least once between 1am and 5am when prolactin levels are highest.

Even if baby is sleeping through you will need to set an alarm to wake yourself up to pump at least once between 1am and 5am when prolactin levels are highest.

Yes I’d blissfully forgotten about some of this! I would give DS a bottle at say 1 am - this was before he was able to latch, it would take him 20+ mins to drink it and then I would go off and express for 20+ minutes. Then before I knew it he was awake again. Definitely invest in a good pump if you want to do this OP. I wouldn’t be under any illusion that this would be easier than when you were breastfeeding - ideally you could try breastfeeding without expressing and then only using the bottle for formula.

I combi fed because I couldn't keep up with a cluster feeding DD in the evenings. She always slept well, even when breastfed so I was waking in the night to pump while she was sleeping through from a few days old! The noise of the pump still haunts me!

I fed her then expressed while she had a bottle to keep my milk up for the first few weeks/ months. I found expressing harder than feeding her myself and as others have said, you might struggle to get enough milk just expressing. Everyone is different though so I think you'll need to take it as it comes and see how your body responds.