Transitioning from bottle to breast?

[RooBow]

This is my first post so bear with me!
DD was born by emergency section at 35 wks (the problem was with me, not her) & started bottle feeding in SCBU as I was too ill to be with her for first couple of days. Attempts at breast feeding were unsucessful, my milk came in eventually but she's never been able to latch on really - maybe because she was used to bottle by then or she was too small, who knows. Once home I tried keeping milk in by pumping in hope she'd take to breast feeding eventually but it didn't happen & I was exhausting myself with pumping so made decision last week when she was 3 wks old to stop trying & stick with formula. I feel as guilty as hell & would love to be able to either breast feed or give her breast milk by bottle (supply now dried up but was never getting much from pumping anyway but think I was still too ill then).
I secretly put to her to my boob over the weekend (after deciding with hubby it was better for all our sanities to give up!) & she seemed to latch on properly for quite a while which had never happened before. I doubt she got anything out but it's made me wonder if she's now strong enough.
As I'm now feeling stronger in myself I'm wondering whether to give it one last go to stimulate my milk again to see if we can establish anything.
Has anyone else had experience of transitioning from bottle to breast feeding?
I've posted under premature birth as wondered if it's often issue with premmie babies?
I keep telling myself that we're doing best thing for us by formula feeding, as she needed to put on weight & I needed to get well but I can't help feeling guilty/a failure. I always assumed BF would happen naturally, but then I wasn't expecting things to happen the way they did!
It would be great to hear from anyone with similar experience or any advice.

Hi, firstly congratulations on the birth of your daughter :)

I'm afraid I can't help you exactly but I am aware that transitioning from bottle to breast can happen, as can re-establishing your milk supply.

Have a read of these articles. They do partially focus on guidance for mothers who have adopted their babies, but the principles remain the same.

Understandably, it is hard work. I fought and fought to breastfeed my daughter (and there was much messing about from tubes, bottles, formula etc) and I believe it was sheer dogmatic determinism that got us there.

Don't feel guilty or a failure. Breastfeeding isn't always easy under the most straightforward of circumstances.

Wishing you lots of luck (and no sore nipples!)

Forgot to say, it might also be worth posting in the Breast and Bottle feeding section, I had some great advice there.

What worked for us was Medela nipple shields and Nuk teats on the bottles - they were similar silicone I think which helped, and the shield shape got my prem Dts latching.

Hi roobow
I've managed with both of my DDs to do the bottle to breast transition. It's not for the faint hearted as you know!

Firstly, I'd second the suggestion that you also post in breast and bottle feeding as they are fab there ( you've maybe already done this)

I'm a bit different to you in that I was expressing all my DDs feeds so didn't need to build up supply. But you most definitely can get your supply back if you want, especially if your DD is having some of her feeds from the breast. I would contact one of the breastfeeding helplines if I were you about this. I got a note of them in DD2s red book so I can type them out for you if you need.

DD1 took to the breast fab and just went racing away with the breastfeeding.

DD2 was a bit more of a problem do what I did was offer her the breast at every second feed (bottle at alternate feeds). I would give her as much of a breastfeed as she would take, then offer her a bottle top up. She started to take less and less out of the top up bottle so I stopped them once she was just taking 20ml ish.
Then I did two breast, one bottle etc. till we were wholly on breast.

Throughout this I expressed after each feed whether it was breast or bottle.

Tips which I used to get both DDs onto breast were:

I fed their bottle with them sitting on my lap facing me rather than cuddled in in breastfeeding cradle position. (so she would prefer the cuddly breastfeed)

I gave the bottle milk at room temperature (do she would prefer the nice warm breast milk)

I used tommee tippee closer to nature bottles rather than the easier bottles she came home on. These meant she had to open her mouth to get the bottle in, encouraging a good latch and actually move her tongue to get the milk out (I'm sure other brands do similar, that was just what we used).

You could also try lots of skin to skin. Baby mooning etc.

Hope you get some help from that essay. DD2 has only been ebf for about a fortnight but already she is doing so well, latches on so easily and I have been feeding her in public for about a week. I fed DD1 till she was eighteen months and was so pleased I had persevered with the breastfeeding.

Of course if it doesn't work out then there is no reason at all to beat yourself up. But if you can get it sorted it is so worth it.

X post with peeling
Yes nipple shields might be worth a shot, though you do then have the hassle of weaning off them so if she latches without them I would tend to try to keep going with getting her to latch directly. Just my personal opinion.

Sounds like kd had a much better outcome than me, although mine was complicated by them being twins, and refluxy, as well as early, so try her advice !

Huge kudos to you peeling for your success with the twins. I wasn't trying to pooh pooh your advice, I hope you didnt think that. It's just different strokes for different folks isn't it and it's worth trying all different things.

I had DD at 35 weeks and also didn't have her on the breast until around day 5 (again, problem was me not her) and I expressed until milk appeared. At around 3 weeks I switched to Calma bottles from Medela, which simulate breast suckling and whilst it took a few days of tears (mostly mine!) she got the hang of it. I gradually put her on the breast even if nothing came out, just so she could build up muscle strength then gave her the Calma bottle to fill her up. She is now 5 and a bit weeks and is only taking a bottle at night because she's such a sleepy bear and falls asleep all the time. I have formula in the kitchen ready in case I don't have enough milk and I use it now and then when she's being a greedy guts and I don't have enough for her. It has taken diligence and nerves of steel but we are about 80% of the way there and I hope by around 8-12 weeks she will be exclusively breast fed. However, i wont stress if it doesn't pan out. I understand you can get your milk back although I have no experience with that - I expressed every 3 hours even if it was just a tiny trickle - just 5ml or less sometimes, even nothing at all - and now I'm up to around 80-120ml per breast per express. Putting her on the breast and expressing on the other breast is a great trick and I personally found talking and singing to her helped or even being soppy and thinking about how much I love her got my milk slowly coming through..
I feel for you and really hope you can either get some milk back or if not make peace with the formula.
Wishing you all the best!

Haven't got much advice about going from bottle to breast, just to give you some encouragement, but did see reference to nipple shields in earlier posts. My twins were born at 27+6 so they were fed via an NG tube for a long time. They never had bottles though. I was told that the sucking reflex only really starts to develop at about 34 weeks gestation and then it needs time to get stronger, so it might be that as she's getting stronger, she's better at latching on.

I also used nipple shields - I was told that they were longer, reached the back of the babies' mouths where the reflex was and it helped them to suck. I used them from about 36 weeks (when we started trying to establish breastfeeding) until 40 weeks (their proper due date) just to help them and had absolutely no problem weaning them off them - we just stopped using them one day (not an issue with either twin).

As far as generating supply, a couple of things really helped. Try in the middle of the night (I know its exhausting but apparently 2am/ 3am is the best time to try). If you can express whilst you're feeding from the other breast, that worked for me, and even if it was only for a few minutes, I used to express after feeding too. Eat LOTS - everyone focuses on how much you're supposed to drink but my neonatal consultant told me the amount you eat has a big impact on your milk production too. Anything oaty is good