Combi feeding

[Bellsx]

Hi ladies I'm due my baby in just over 2 weeks and I'm thinking of combi feeding (hopefully expressing so he's still having my milk) so my husband and daughter (who's 12) can help out and be part of it all so hopefully I can get some rest/sleep. My question is have any of you previously done this or are any of you also thinking of doing this and have any advice please?

I give baby bottle here maybe 2-3 times per week. He is 3 months. Have done since 2 weeks as wanted him to not refuse bottle incase I need to go somewhere.

I have only give 2-3oz ones though, as need him not to be full for hours afterwards as I feel uncomfortable if he doesn't feed for ages daytime otherwise. Ie i fed him 7am, popped out to appointment and left with dh, Dh fed him 2oz at 9.15am. I was back and breastfed him again by 10am

So I guess we use combi to stretch gap between feeding if needed, rather than fully replace a complete feed if that makes sense.

But he has always taken fine, and it means I know he can be fed if I need to go out.

Oh and we use latex teats, as I read baby refuses less than silicone if usually breastfed.

Hiya! Congratulations on the imminent arrival!!! I think technically if you're planning on expressing then it's not actually "combi" feeding, it's just breastfeeding with the occasional bottle which is precisely what I did, and what I plan to do with baby #2 (that I'm newly pg with!)

I'm not sure if you bf your first so apologies if this sounds like i'm teaching you how to suck eggs, but in order to establish your supply and to ensure your baby has a good latch, for at least the first few weeks I would try to exclusively breastfeed. Bottle feeding is a lot easier for baby as they don't have to work anywhere near as hard for the milk, so you don't want to encourage them to prefer the bottle and end up rejecting the boob. I do think it's great to get baby used to taking a bottle early on, so by all means, express within those first few weeks and give the baby a bottle here and there, but personally I wouldn't do 50/50 straight away for fear of boob rejection! My son was back in hospital at 2 days old with jaundice and they made me express and top him up with EBM, and he never actually rejected the boob, but when we left hospital after 5 days I only gave him a bottle 2/3 times a week to make sure he would always still take it, but never needed to do it more often than that.

One thing I would say - is that bottle feeding EBM is actually more laborious than you realise. Firstly, I hated pumping. It was tedious and dull and took forever. Secondly, I then had to freeze the milk, then when I needed it I had to take it out the freezer, defrost it, then heat it in a bottle warmer all before baby could drink it. Don't underestimate how convenient it is to just whip your boob out whenever baby starts crying. Get yourself a good breast pump (I liked the medela swing) and if you ever struggle expressing, try doing it while having skin to skin with your baby, it always helped me get that bit extra. Best of luck and enjoy your lovely new baby!

Good point by @Caspianberg - we used the mam bottles. The medela teats that came with the breast pump were bloody awful! (Has anyone ever successfully used those??)

We use the little nuk glass bottles with latex. No issues, but others i am sure work just as well.

Oh and I don't express. For me The odd few oz a couple of times a week max i am happy to use formula. He is taking the bottle usually because either a) he had fed for hours in a row and it gave me an hours break if dh gave him a little, or b) I have to pop out and don't usually have time to express as well.

I only try and give a feed after he has fed well from me all day anyway, and like i said small amounts. Especially the first month or so I wanted to make sure feeding was established. If I haven't need to go anywhere in the week, usually Dh just gives him a feed at the weekend just to make sure he doesn't go longer than a week and start bottle refusing

With the whole covid thing, I was also worried if I get sick at any point, baby needs to be happy enough taking bottle incase.

Thank you all that's really helpful info. I've already bought the MAM bottles as I read they were good for using if breastfeeding because of the teat, guess I just have to see how things go 🤞

I planned on 50/50 combi feeding but I’ve actually ended up just doing a couple of bottles a day. Boobs are so much easier! I find the bottle prep a hassle, especially when DS is crying. Like pp I wanted DS to be able to take a bottle though.

I do try to pump too. I have the Medela swing and find it effective. I just have the single one so I do one side at a time. I pump 60ml per bottle and it takes about 20mins now. I actually quite enjoy the satisfaction of seeing the bottles fill! DH uses this when I rest. He just puts the teat on the bottle and then puts it in hot water for a few minutes to warm up.

@mrsmummy1111 do you have the standard medela teats or the calma one? We use the calma one which DS seems to like.

I want to combi feed and I read up on paced feeding so that the baby doesn't get too used to the super fast flow of a bottle and doesn't eat too fast/too much compared to at the breast. Definitely worth a google I think.

I've combi fed (although wasn't planned), and baby has formula from the bottle. I found I could never express much. You'll read lots of stuff about not introducing a bottle too soon and how baby will prefer bottle and might get nipple confusion etc. We have combi fed from day 3 with no issue, no nipple confusion or preferring bottle. I'm not suggesting you do this, but don't panic if for some reason you have to give a bottle early on. You do need to be conscious of keeping up your supply by bf or expressing regularly. We are using tomee tippee back to nature bottles.