Breastfeeding - expressing

[Hatepickinganame]

Not sure if this is the best place to ask but just wondering how other people express so baby can have the odd bottle? I don't want to mess up my milk supply or confuse her with bottles if that's a possibility. Shes only 3 days old, and I've already expressed about 3oz as my milk has started to come in and yesterday I was too engorged for her to latch on one side. So I'd like to know a)when is the best time to express to build up a small supply of milk in freezer and b)how best to approach a bottle when we do decide to give her one?

I'm aware breastfeeding can be an emotive topic, I plan to fully breastfeed but having the option of my oh giving her a bottle is something that's important to us both, so please no negative responses on that aspect of my question. Thanks!

I'd recommend a Haakaa type and not doing too much expressing until around 6 weeks.

Right now your milk is establishing and works on supply and demand. Demand too much with too much expressing and that can cause issues for your supply.

A Haakaa will collect let down and you can do it to help engorgement. You can freeze this if you want.

Once you're established you can use this to express a feed while giving a feed. Saves you a job.

If you give baby the odd bottle you need to express the feed you've missed as well as the one you give. This is to protect your supply. If after 6 weeks you decide to always replace that one feed with a bottle you don't need to express the missed feed, but it will take a few days for your supply to regulate down.

Whether a baby will take a bottle is pure luck so stick with one brand and see how it goes. My eldest was combi fed no issue, my youngest flatly refused all bottles even though she was offered them in the same way.

I will say, see whether doing this helps you. Expressing so dad can feed baby isn't much of a help to you. It adds work rather than takes it away. I asked my husband whether he felt he missed anything by not feeding our daughter with a bottle, he said no. He got to have lots of cuddles with her and could focus on her rather than holding a bottle for her.

I tried after 6 weeks but it increased my over-supply so I stopped. Then later I couldn't express much and my baby wouldn't take bottle.

I'm currently 6 weeks in and, like you, started expressing on day 3 when my milk supply was coming in on the advice of midwives. My son had pretty bad jaundice, we were readmitted to hospital and I needed to supplement feeding, as well as deal with engorgement which prevented proper latching (and give my bleeding nipples a break!).

I have expressed every day since then and combine bottle feeding and breast feeding without any issues at all - the midwives told me that as long as I continued to breastfeed alongside, there shouldn't be any problem latching or with nipple confusion. I started off by introducing the bottle briefly in between normal breast feeds, if that makes sense. Now, my husband does some feeds himself with the bottle which frees me up to get some precious sleep...

For me, the most productive time is morning but you'll probably want to experiment a bit to see when your supply is greatest. If you're at all concerned, you could express for five minutes ahead of every breastfeed, just to express enough to bring down engorgement and make latching easier (another tip from the midwife).

I have both a hand pump and a spectra S2 hospital grade pump, the latter of which I love as it makes it much quicker and easier. I'd say the best thing to do is just to try and see what works for you - just like all of parenting/feeding in the early stages, it seems to be very different for everyone.

Thanks everyone for the advice, very much appreciated. I did combi feed my 2nd but it was nearly 10 years ago I don't remember how i did it! We've not had the easiest start to breastfeeding anyway so I don't want to upset her or undo the work we've put in so far, hence asking for the advice. Will mention it to midwives at our 5 day appointment. They were supposed to call me today for breastfeeding support but I haven't had it yet 😕

Same advice as others a hakkaa type pump is best, after 6 ish weeks your supply should be established. I used to feed on one and have the pump on the other side normally collected 3-4 oz every feed, collected what I pumped in the day in the fridge the freezed in bugger batches.
I tried using the Nuk bottle from 3 weeks (I'm aware I've contradicted my times there but my supply could feed the street!) DH used to give a bottle same time in the evening, I'd go upstairs and leave them to bond while I pumped the feed and got an early night. Took about 3 days for DS to get the hang of the bottle. We were persistent and always gave a bottle at the same time every day.

You’ve had loads of fab advice, OP. I would just add that if it’s important to you that baby takes a bottle and as long as there are no concerns with her latch, don’t delay introducing a bottle. In my (unscientific but fairly extensive) experience, nipple confusion is very rare in babies with no latch problems but bottle refusal is very very common.