So many questions about breastfeeding!

[POPPYDay11]

Hello everyone,
I'm hoping yous can give me some advice pretty please.

I'm pregnant with my second baby girl so getting ready to buy all the essentials and I am trying to find out some information on combination feeding...
My first born was very small she wasn't prem but she was late. She was super hard to feed I never tried breast as the whole idea frankly scared me, I never really got much information off my midwife at the time so me and my husband used formula. She was eating but not a great deal and she just never seemed hungry. Doctors weren't worried because she was constantly putting on weight. anyway!...
This time around I'm wanting information on using expressed milk and formula I think I would Much rather express milk than offer the boob just because I generally deal with sore dry nipples anyway and I can remember the pain I had the last time when I didn't breast feed at all. Also my husband and daughter want to help with feeding.

So my question is really is how soon can you start expressing Milk and is it okay to formula Feed along side if I don't have enough milk?

Congrats on your pregnancy. You can start hand expressing colostrum from 37 weeks gestation and freezing it ready to defrost and feed to your newborn. Have a look online about how to do this and talk to your midwife. Then once baby has arrived you will need your pump and everything ready in terms of storage and bottles. Supplementing with formula is fine but generally mums will make enough milk. There is a lot of anxiety around a perceived lack of milk but if you get your info and support from reputable sources like the kellymom website that will be helpful.
Although it can be hard establishing the latch etc, expressing does give you an extra job. So see how you feel, there are other ways family members can help if you do decide to feed straight from the breast. Good luck and I hope you find what works best for you.

Can't you just breast feed your baby the colostrum User79853? I hear people talking about hand expressing beforehand now, but I never did this with mine. It might be useful if you have a very difficult birth I suppose and are out of it for a while, but otherwise is it really needed??

Honestly just breast feeding your baby is so much easier. Yes it can hurt at first but that is generally not a problem for long.
I think mixed feeding is not recommended until breastfeeding is properly established, but breast feeding is easy, no worries about sterility, free.

With my first I curled my toes for 4 weeks when he latched and my second around 2 weeks - my second had a tongue tie that was snipped too.

It takes a bit of perseverance but the pain does pass fairly quickly then you have the convenience of breastfeeding.

IMO expressing is just a hassle.

The sore nipples doesn't even last for a week. Compared to the faff of expressing I would really suggest it would be so much easier to breastfeed.

Most women find it impossible to express enough milk because babies naturally cluster feed to increase Mums supply.

Once I had stopped being engorged I didn't even get any let down it's like my body knew the pump wasn't a baby 🤷🏽‍♀️

Find out about your local breastfeeding support. Didn't breastfeed my first but wit my 2nd I was determined and felt a lot more confident as I knew how to look after a baby so only the breastfeeding was new.

The trouble with feeding expressed milk is that you get the worst bits of both bottle and breastfeeding! You still have to faff about with bottles etc, pumping takes ages...
I breastfed exclusively until 9 months with dd and expressed a couple of times so that DH could take her out for a few hours a few times, but personally I didn't get on with it. I didn't like pumping, it took ages to get anything, for which the suction needed to be really high and my boobs always felt a bit bruised after.
Breastfeeding can be (really) hard to establish, but once it is, it's soooo easy and convenient. There should be people who can help you - ask your midwife or health visitor?

I didn't pump straightaway (or at all, for one of them) either. Generally it's recommended that you build up your milk supply by only breastfeeding, not formula feeding, for the first while if this is possible.
It's an idea to buy bottles/ steriliser etc in case things don't go according to plan, but if you get into breastfeeding you might find you very rarely use them.
Milk let down can hurt a little for a few seconds at the start of a feed. This should go away in time though. Babies feed on demand, little and often, at the start.

I have done pretty much all combos, and my favourite was combi feeding with both expressed milk and formula, then moved to just breast and formula. I found formula a breeze and had a set up it took me no extra time and had the benefit of my husband stepping in for feeds and giving me more sleep and meant I wasn’t so knackered all the time, so really enjoyed being with the baby. All babies are different so just find what works for you. You’ll get horrible and nice comments whatever you do. Also I didn’t find any nipple confusion at all, but I had guzzlers so they didn’t really care where the milk was coming from as long as they had it!!

The invention of the perfect prep machine is amazing for making formula so much easier!

So jealous they were not a thing when mine were babies.

It is toe curling to start with, I can't stand my nipples being touched. After a few weeks it feels completely normal.
My friend expressed and she was absolutely shattered, it's much harder work than BF

You can start expressing milk as soon as you give birth and for the about first week it will be colostrum, initially only colostrum and then mixed with milk until it becomes solely milk. You will need to express very, very regularly at first - every two hours 24 hours a day to establish a good supply and I would recommend hiring a medical grade breast pump either directly from the manufacturer, the hospital or some children's centres hire them out too. From the hospital or the manufacturer would be my preference. But having done the above (I had a baby in NICU for two weeks and was determined to breastfeed) I would say it is tougher to express than it is to directly breastfeed. It's very unlikely that you wouldn't have enough milk, the vast majority of women globally can breastfeed and it is more a question of the right support. A breastfeeding counsellor or a lactation consultant are so helpful in the early days to check latch, position and weight gain if you decide to give direct feeding a go. There are various nipple creams that can help too which safe for breastfeeding babies like lansinoh which help but I won't lie there is an element of grinning and bearing it in the early days. Best of luck x

But unless your baby is in NICU you really don't need to express at all OP. As pp have said, it's often harder than breastfeeding - I found it so at least. You can start expressing later on if you want to leave a bottle of expressed milk for someone while you go out. I sometimes used a bottle of expressed milk when out with baby if I was somewhere that breastfeeding might have been awkward for me too. In general though I found it much easier to just feed my baby myself. My youngest child never got a bottle of either formula or expressed milk. (I was a sahm at the time.) It all depends on your circumstances, but unless you're separated from your baby for a time after birth, it's not something you need to worry about doing immediately baby is born.

Thank you all so much for your replies you've giving me something to think about think I will try just breastfeeding

Sorry, just realised you want to express, don't know how I missed that.

It's not an approach I've used myself and from my own experience I wouldn't recommend it above breastfeeding. But that's just my personal experience, perhaps others have found different. As a pp said though, it's a lot more work..you've still got washing and sterilising to do as well as taking the time to pump. Pumps are generally much less efficient than babies at milk extraction.

Sorry for the misunderstanding and for not reading properly!!

Sorry, cross post now 😅

@Marynotsocontrary the advice to hand express colostrum is because you dont know if you'll get an easy birth or end up with complications or a C-section so it's a handy back up to have.
It's not recommended to try before 37 weeks in case the nipple stimulation prompts labour.
I personally wasn't able to get any colostrum before birth.

Yes, that does make sense. However, it's a lot of pressure to be putting on people, particularly first-time mothers, in the few weeks before birth. Hand expressing can be tricky!

Expressing milk for baby most of the time is extremely exhausting and tiring. It's actually harder then breastfeeding and a pump can be more sore once baby has got latch sorted. It's incredibly hard to keep supply up, you have to pump every 3 hours including through the night It's gruelling beyond belief. I do not know how women do it for months on end! I did it for a few weeks alongside bf and was exhausted!

As said some women's boobs don't give up to a pump It's a completely unknown til you try. I use a hakaa in the mornings on the opposite boob to feeding to collect milk and my DH gives one bottle in the evenings.

It's important early days not to switch too many feeds to formula or expressed so that your supply gets established otherwise you can end up in a bit of a cycle. We found 1 or 2 were fine though. You need to get a feed in overnight between midnight to 3am early days. Its golden time for stimulating milk production.

Being prepared that bf is hard early days but it very quickly becomes easy with the right support in place. Find your local bf support group, nct have newborn groups with a bf specialist usually (don't need to be a member is usually free). Knowing to ask for a tongue tie check when baby is born and knowing to ask for the infant feeding team to see you if struggling.

Definitely agree with trying to harvest colostrum before birth if possible

@Marynotsocontrary oh yes I agree it can be tricky, I was just explaining the logic of it.
I've never been able to hand express, I wish I'd had more support in hospital - the community midwives said there would be help postnatally but it was pretty lacking.

Sorry I’ve only just seen this. I did it with my second just in case but actually only suggested it here because the OP asked when she could start expressing. Definitely not essential though.

Hi OP.

Currently 14 months into my breastfeeding journey.

I was really committed to making breastfeeding work and I think if I had been less determined it might not have worked out.

I started expressing colostrum when I was about 37 weeks pregnant and stored it in syringes in the freezer. When my baby was born by emergency C-section at almost 40 weeks he was very small, only 6lbs. In the first three days he lost 9% of his birth weight and I was advised to give him formula. I persevered with the breastfeeding and supplemented with the colostrum I had stored in the freezer.

Breastfeeding is hard work in the early days, for both you and the baby. Supplementing with colostrum is an easy way to help your baby gain weight as it is much easier to squirt it into their mouth with a syringe than it is for them to drink directly from the breast when they are still trying to figure out how to latch.

In the early days it is quite normal for breastfeeding sessions to take 30-40 minutes every 2-3 hours. Your baby will be figuring out how it works, and the continuous nipple stimulation is what will tell your body to produce enough hormones to establish your milk supply properly.

I also found it was painful in the early weeks. My baby didn't have a tongue tie or anything like that but he would sort of bite down on my nipples. Obviously he didn't have teeth yet but it was still quite painful, especially the initial latching. I bought some silicone nipple shields which I used when it was too painful to feed without them. But be aware - the silicone between the mother and the baby does inhibit the hormonal response. I actually found it helpful to start the feeds with the nipple shield on, and then once the flow was established, quickly unlatch my baby, remove the shield and latch him back on again.

When I was about 4 weeks in I honestly thought that if the pain didn't stop I would have to give up breastfeeding. By 6 weeks he had got the hang of it and the pain had completely gone away. For the last year we have enjoyed pretty much trouble free breastfeeding and have no plans to stop. We are down to two feeds a day, morning and night, which means I no longer have to wear nursing bras or clothes, I no longer have to express milk when I'm at work during the day, we just get one moment of loveliness first thing in the morning and then another one last thing at night.

I just wanted to tell you this because it is totally normal for breastfeeding to be hard at first. The most important thing is to surround yourself with information and support to help you make informed choices.

I also found the subreddit r/breastfeeding really helpful for troubleshooting.

Good luck!