Has anyone used breast milk to bottle feed?

[babyonsay]

I am thinking about bottle feeding, but using breast milk. Can this be done? Is it too much hassle? Has anyone done it before? Thanks

Hi @babyonsay , maybe try on the Infant Feeding forum:

www.mumsnet.com/talk/breast_and_bottle_feeding

I can’t speak for everyone but for me it was a lot of hassle. Expressing takes ages and even the best breast pump just isn’t as good at getting milk out as a baby.

It can definitely be done but it’s probably the most hassle way of feeding as you’ll need to pump, store and do bottles. If you don’t BF but pump, you’ll need to pump as often as a feed to keep up your supply and provide enough milk for baby. I BF, pumped and used formula and the pumping was my least favourite and felt a bit of a chore.

Yes I did. Found it easier for my second as I had a toddler to watch and frankly it made feeding quicker and less hassle.

You mean by pumping? Yes it's theoretically possible but difficult and time consuming to do it all the time and not always successful. Your supply can be fine if you're directly feeding but bad when it comes to pumping, like me. Used to take me 45 mins to get a Medela bottle full. Honestly, it's the worst of both worlds IMO as still need to do all the sterilising etc and you're taking time to pump and feed. I only did it as lived in a country where mat leave was 10 weeks and had to go back to work 3 days a week.

I'm sure it depends on the person but expressing took me hardly any time. If anything, I ended up producing too much so it made it harder going cold turkey when I stopped.

My sister did she got one of those pumps you put in your bra, baby was exclusively on breast milk for 9 months.

I expressed milk to put down my baby's feeding tube for a few months. Once he was able to feed orally I breastfed him. Breastfeeding was definitely far, far easier.

Yes many people do it, but it’s by far the most difficult way to feed. It takes double the time… the time to pump, and the time to give the baby their feed.

Yes, I couldn't BF so had to use a bottle so tried to pump and bottle feed. I lasted 5 weeks, I was on my knees.

Everything took twice as long, because I was having to pump the milk as though I were BFing, but then also having to store and heat it as though it was formula, if that makes sense.

You are also supposed to pump in the middle of the night to stimulate the supply to increase, so you're waking to pump and waking with the baby.

I would say, if breast milk is what you want to feed then if you can BF for the most part, but you're able to pump a bit and have some in the freezer so someone else can bottle feed if you need to be elsewhere then that would be ideal.

Or you could give the occasional formula bottle if necessary, but you'd still have to pump otherwise you'd start leaking.

Yes, and I wish I hadn’t, although I had to top up with formula anyway as I couldn’t get enough, but I wasn’t able to breastfeed so every time I could have been taking time to rest myself when my baby was so tiny I had the bloody pump out. A health visitor said the best time to do it was about 4am because of the prolactin, and to ‘watch a box set and chill out’ while pumping. She was probably right but I didn’t want to watch a pissing box set at 4am, I wanted to sleep! I struggled on until 12 weeks, then got the flu and everything dried up pretty much overnight. Was a blessed relief.

I've breastfed, expressed and formula fed, for me bf (once established) was the easiest, expressing took the biggest toll on me. In the middle of the night having to sort a bottle of milk, feed baby, settle baby and then express (to keep supply up) really is exhausting

I’ve had one ff and one bf baby and exclusively pumping sounds like the worst of both world. The Kellymom website should have lots of info.

Thank you all

My little one is 10 months old and I breast fed initially and now I'm back to work I pump and my baby has expressed breast milk from a bottle on my working days.
Its saved me loads in formula and is helping pass on immunity to my baby helping to defend him against winter bugs now he's started nursery.
I started pumping when he was 3 weeks old and also donated some of my milk to my local neonatal hospital.

It's funny that we're all different. I could pump a bottle full in 10 minutes and it saved quite a lot of time then feeding with a bottle. Plus it made it easy for others to feed them. But each to their own, we all do what works for us.

Well. Hats off to you.

This is what I wanted to do but didn’t in the end up, mainly due to just not having a clue what I was doing and formula seemed like an easier option. I ended up wishing I’d kept trying. I watched a YouTube video by a channel called Fab and Ell last night (their most recent video) and she’s doing this with twins, made me wish I had!

Exclusively pumping is the hardest option in my option - you have all the faff of sterilising and cleaning, plus pumping every 2 hours day and night.
I would only do it if I had to - ie baby won’t latch! Otherwise I would establish breastfeeding then maybe pump a bottle a day if you feel like it - I never did as too much hassle, much easier to just feed!

How to say you’re dense without saying you’re dense.

I exclusively pumped and bottle fed my son 4 years ago. It's bloody hard and not for the faint-hearted, but definitely possible. X

Positive experience of (almost) exclusive pumping here. I had intended to BF from the start but my DS had a significant tongue tie and couldn’t latch unless I used nipple shields (he had a frenulotomy when 5 weeks old but it didn’t improve his feeding). So initially I used a combination of BF with nipple shields and pumping, but that was really hard work. Because it was difficult for him to latch with the nipple shields (they would get slippery with milk and slide, or he would flail and knock them off) and he wasn’t getting vast quantities of milk that way as the nipple shields reduce flow. So he would be on the boob for hours and then I would pump after that to keep supply up- it was exhausting!

I stopped BF with the shields and switched to pumping with very occasional formula top ups and that worked fairly well for us. I had a (fairly cheap) double electric breast pump and could produce 150+ml in about 10 minutes, which I initially did about 6 times in the space of 24 hours including once in the middle of the night. So a max of 1 hour in 24 pumping. We had a Tommee Tippee steriliser for the breast pump which was quick and easy to use- after a few weeks I could and did strip down the breast pump in about 2 mins when half asleep! Also used Mam feeding bottles which are easy to sterilise with water in the microwave if you don’t have a steriliser. In one sense, it was a much more efficient way of feeding DS, because it took me 10 mins to produce and him about 20 mins to drink a bottle (when he was very little, less later) rather than him being on the boob for hours each time.

I won’t lie- it was a bit of a faff with the frequent pumping and sterilising. I used to envy friends who could just get their boob out and put the baby on it. But, the great advantage was that my DH could and did share in the actual feeding (so during the night-time wake up, he would usually give DS a bottle while I pumped for the next feed, and he did a couple of bottle feeds during the day as well). My DS was used to bottles from the start so we never had the problems of bottle refusal that some of my EBF friends faced when they went back to work. And if I wanted a night out, I would just pump and leave a bottle of expressed milk before I went whereas some of the EBF ladies didn’t feel able to leave their child for more than about 2 hours in the evening, ever!

So I would say it can work well- so long as you have a good milk supply. I don’t think it would be doable if you were spending hours and hours pumping to produce a bottle.

Should say, I did that for 12 months then stopped when I had to go back to work and he was old enough to drink cows milk

I expressed a lot at the start in order to increase my supply and it was awful. Once my full breast milk supply came, I ditched the pump as soon as I physically could. Breastfeeding, once established is much, much easier if you are able to. I’d rather give formula in a bottle than express milk again tbh.

Yes, I did this with dc2 who had tongue tie and wasn't feeding properly. I had a v fast letdown and quite good supply so pumping actually worked out easier. It is a lot of work, but with my dc1, the regime of feeding, pumping and topping up with formula for EVERY feed (advised by midwife to do this to try and establish breastfeeding) was significantly worse.