Mumsnet users share their combination feeding experience and tips with MAM

[JustineBMumsnet]

While some MNers find breastfeeding as easy as falling off a log, others say it can be a big challenge, especially in the early days. One MNHQ survey showed that 53% of MNers were exclusively breastfeeding at six weeks (itself lots more than the national average), and 19% at six months. Whether sticking exclusively with breastmilk or not, it seems that lots of MNers discover that combination feeding as a solution that works for them.

With that in mind, MAM would like to hear from those who are combination feeding or have done so in the past.

Here’s what MAM has to say: “Here at MAM we believe in supporting every parent on their feeding journey, whichever journey they end up taking. We believe in parents supporting each other, too. Whether you breastfeed, bottlefeed, or use a combination of the two, MAM wants parents to feel confident and babies to feel good. Today we want to open up a discussion about combination feeding, which means feeding bottles of expressed breastmilk or formula milk to your baby alongside breastfeeding. There’s very little information out there on combination feeding, so if you know the ropes, or would like to share your story, we want to hear from you. Every drop of wisdom could go on to help another parent out there.”

What has your experience of combination feeding been, and what led to your decision to combination feed? Do some styles of bottle work best for your baby when combi feeding? Perhaps you have tips on encouraging your baby to continue to latch on to the nipple once they’re used to a bottle? Or for getting them to accept the occasional bottle?

Whatever your experience or tips, share them below to be entered into a prize draw where one MNer will win a £300 voucher for the store of their choice (from a list).

Thanks and good luck with the prize draw!

MNHQ

Insight Terms and Conditions apply

I had hoped to breastfeed throughout my pregnancy but didn't want to add any more pressure to myself should it not work for us.

I was very fortunate that my son and I took to breast feeding fairly quickly. But my goodness, the tiredness of cluster feeding in those initial weeks when you're the only one that can provide comfort to your baby can be intense!

I began to express and my partner would offer baby a bottle in the evening so I could have a couple of hours sleep uninterrupted. We used MAM bottles as little one was already using MAM Soothers it felt like the logical choice.

It was very convenient to microwave sterilise as we were only using one bottle. We also microwaved his Soothers to sterilise.

As the months passed my little one struggled with his weight gain due to reflux and dropped a centile. At this point we introduced formula with alongside breastfeeding. Fortunately he was already happy with the MAM bottles and so this was easy for us. We gradually over a period of weeks replaced each daytime feed for a bottle. This gave my body time to adjust to my new supply needs and baby time to adjust to taking the formula.

We're now two months down the line, baby is doing very well. He has bottles for his daytime feeds and breast before bed, in the night and first thing in the morning. This works really well for our family. He gets very excited when he sees his bottle coming and loves to practice holding it himself. The nighttime feeds are a lovely opportunity for extra snuggles and I'm glad we're able to have the best of both worlds.

Our first baby is 15 days today and has made it back to his birth weight. I was determined to breastfeed exclusively and things were off to a good start after he was born by elective c-section (breech!). However, after we were moved to the postnatal ward, things took a turn as there was no peace and quiet to feed properly, he didn't wake up to feed and being inexperienced (and probably not as well supported as we could have been), we didn't know to wake him regularly. When we eventually did, he refused to feed and started screaming every time he saw my nipple. It didn't help that said nipple is quite flat and we had a hard time finding a good position to latch on. By day 5, he had lost 12% of his birth weight, I was expressing colostrum as my milk hadn't come in yet and I just didn't have enough at that point to feed him properly. I will say that it took me a while to get my head around the idea of supplementing with formula in addition to expressed milk, and even more to agree to bottle feed (after spending several nights feeding with a 1ml syringe, which left all three of us exhausted and frustrated). In the end, we established a routine of breastfeeding, then bottle feeding expressed milk and topping up with a little formula as necessary. This way, we managed to avoid another hospital admission and have just beed released from midwifery support. I grieved the idea of being able to feed my baby the way I wanted to and that I thought would be best for him, but at the end of the day, I wanted that because I want the best for him, and starving clearly isn't best. Now hoping to transition to exclusive breastfeeding, although I will say it is nice to have the option of dad giving a bottle during the night so I can catch up on sleep. And best of all, my baby is happy and well.

As a mum of two who needed to return back to work when my second daughter was 6 months old, combination feeding was the only way I was able to breastfeed my daughter long term. If I had been forced to pick one method of feeding it would have had to have been a bottle, as I would have been unable to feed her once I returned to the classroom.

My decision to combination feed wasn’t only returning to work, it was important to me that I was able to have some separation from my daughter – this is a personal choice which I have no shame in talking about. I loved the occasional dinner with my partner, cinema date with my eldest daughter and when I wasn’t too exhausted maybe even a gym class. Combination feeding gave the freedom to continue with the parts of my life that I really valued, which may not have been possible with exclusively breastfeeding. I am not saying a full life can’t be achieved with breastfeeding, I'm simply saying it wasn’t for me and I am okay with that.

I did, however, struggle with finding a bottle which my daughter would drink from, we exhausted the bottle market with no success. I was then told by a friend about the MAM bottles, I was initially hooked by the self-sterilising function, but held little hope my fussy daughter Lily would take it. To my surprise, she took the bottle and going forward built up the confidence to naturally alternate between breast and bottle with no reluctance whatsoever. I have since worked closely with MAM to support other women with combination feeding and when I was filled in on the science behind the bottles my story made sense. The MAM bottle requires the same tongue movement from a baby which they would need to use for breastfeeding, it was obvious my daughter had not been able to use other bottles because she simply did not know how to latch on to them. The MAM bottle bridged the gap between breast and bottle.

I am so proud to work with such a fantastic company, I am not surprised to read your success stories on this thread because I have the pleasure of hearing the good MAM products are doing for mums throughout my work. As well as MAM’s fantastic products which consider every difficulty a mother has surrounding feeding, they truly want to support women with their own well-being, they offer so much advice and guidance to new mums across their social media platforms.

If you want to combination feed or are struggling to move your baby, to a bottle I can’t recommend MAM enough.

The MAM team have been touched by your personal stories and want to thank you so much for sharing them.

I wanted to combination feed DD (my second DC) as I was returning to work part time quite soon after her birth. I was lucky enough to be able to work from home, but had to attend the odd meeting, plus our Nanny wanted to take her and our older DC to groups etc. So we hoped DD would accept the odd bottle to make everyone’s life easier.

Our Nanny introduced a bottle of expressed milk at 6 weeks, but sadly DD had other plans. Despite our best efforts we never really cracked it. The best that could be managed was a few sips of milk from a spoon or doidy(sp?) cup and letting her cluster feed at night to catch up. It was rather hard work, but easier once she got to 6 months and could have some solids.

I have ended up combination feeding my five week old DS due to weight loss/jaundice in the early days - midwives recommended expressing milk and topping up with this after feeds, & then topping up with formula as he still wasn’t gaining weight. Cluster feeding was making me so tired and it was difficult to express, except first thing in the morning. I was terrified that giving bottles would cause confusion and put DS off the breast. So far this hasnt happened and he is a very contented little boy who has a bottle of formula or EBM every couple of days, and I express at the same time to ensure my supply is maintained. Like PPs, I enjoy the break that I get from feeding (expressing is not the same...) and feel confident that my partner can feed our DS when I need to catch up on sleep.

I would recommend combination feeding, and encourage new parents to talk about this as an option - it seems plenty of peplum feed both breast milk and formula!

I did it with DS2. He got really fussy and wriggly about 4 months old whenever I was feeding him so I'd give him a bottle in public and try and breastfeed him in private. It did end up with me switching to bottles completely after not too long though. My DS3 was breastfed for 9 months as wasn't a wriggler. Can't remember with DS1 but I think I mixed it towards the end.

We had to combination feed because baby had a tongue tie and was born in a heat wave. 18 hours continuous feeding a day and she was only just maintaining her weight. Then I tried co-sleeping so she could feed whilst I slept and her latch went to pot completely and eventually killed my supply so we had to combination feed. We limped on with both formula and breast milk to 10 months.

More support should be there for mothers struggling to feed, and all babies should be checked for a tongue tie before leaving hospital, not just a 24 hour check where dad wheels baby into a different ward to be asked by a doctor is baby is latching on to feed. How the hell would dad know that baby is latching and feeding well?

Keep trying to breast feed. Her older sibling was BF to 12 months without issue so combination feeding just made me feel I'd let my last baby down. Sorry, but it's not something I'd encourage.

I really wanted to exclusively breast feed but my little one wouldn’t gain weight and the medical advice was to bottle feed supplements. In hindsight I’d have just gone with it rather than attaching so much emotion to it and being resistant, but that’s with hindsight!

With ds1, breastfeeding was fairly straightforward and he took ebm in any form it was offered (bottle, cup etc) and I was able to express easily, which was good as I returned to full time work when he was 4 months and we never needed to use any formula: he was happy and my supply didn't seem effected.
Ds2 breastfed easily but refused every type of bottle/cup offered. Luckily I was able to take longer maternity leave with him so he stayed exclusively breastfed until he was fully weaned.
After having ds3, I was a bit I'll and he didn't seem to take to breastfeeding as easily as the others so we did start offering extra formula 'top ups', eventually switched fully to formula at 3months as he didn't like switching from bottle to breast and I didn't manage to express enough.
Just shows that each baby and experience is different and I fully agree with fed is best. It seems so important at the time, but it really is such a small part of your child's life and so long as you're both happy and healthy, the source of their milk isn't hugely significant, I don't think. (I can say in hindsight!)

I loved loved loved breastfeeding, I was lucky, it was easy for me, I had a very good milk supply, and enjoyed everything (except the leaking breasts - I could literally feel them filling up) to apart from changing breast pads several times a day, it was fine, I kept this up until around 5 months, when I needed to visit my parents. I introduced bottle feeding, after going on forums for advice on the best bottles and teats and formula. Apart from the changes in babies poo, (colour and look - a bit like bird seed ) all went well.

With my first I exclusively breast fed for almost 6 months. It was such a special time but it was so draining, I had no time to myself as she refused to take a bottle for months.

With my baby now, she's 3 months, and combi fed for the first 2. I was adamant from before birth I wanted to combi feed to allow my 5 year old the option to help out, and also to allow me to have time with my 5 year old still and also time to myself.

She's now fully on formula. I do miss feeding her but it was so painful, everyone says it shouldn't hurt, but you know what, it did. With both of them. 😂

Anyway, I'm glad I combi fed this time and wouldn't change a thing. FED IS BEST.

I breastfed for the first 6 weeks, and was so exhausted, and could feel my mental health was suffering from lack of sleep, i was the affects PND had on my sister, so made the choice to combination feed, for my health and wellbeing, DD still got the breast, and the benefit which went with it, but DH still has his 8 hours, and I got to sleep in the afternoon to cope with the night feeding. I chose a skin feel nipple teat and formula. I trusted - I did feel guilty, but my health had to be addressed.

He was exclusively breastfed as thankfully there were no difficulties and and worked for us but I definitely would have given combination feeding a go if I had needed to - I know it really helped with some of my friends' babies.

I always intended to combi feed my children. Whilst I was happy to give breastfeeding a try, I knew I'd find it very tying to be solely responsible for feeding if they wouldn't take a bottle.

I couldn't find much about it during my pregnancy, but my midwife told me to wait a few weeks to establish breastfeeding before introducing the bottle. I had intended to follow that advice but actually ended up giving bottle feeds much earlier and happily had no issues with milk supply.

My eldest had her first formula feed at 2 days old when I was having a wobble and needed half an hour to myself. I was finding the constant breastfeeding very painful, was feeling rather overwhelmed by the responsibility and just needed a little break. I did feel guilty but she took the bottle from her dad whilst I had a shower and went back on the breast for her next feed with no issues at all.
I was still in hospital at that point and the midwives were very supportive of just finding what works for us and I'm certain I wouldn't have breastfed for as long as I did if I hadn't felt I could take that break when I needed it.

From that point we did one formula feed a day. In the early days her dad stayed up for the midnight feed so that i could have a much needed block of sleep. Later on we would do the bottle at bedtime so that she wasn't reliant on me for going to sleep. I gradually swapped more feeds to bottles after we started weaning and she dropped the last breastfeed when she was ready to at 9 months.

I'm currently taking a similar approach with my 2 month old. We didn't have as easy a start with breastfeeding this time around and struggled to get a strong latch. She had her first bottle at 6 days old when I was struggling to get her to take a full feed without dosing off. Again she went back to the breast for the next feed without any issues.

I did have occasional days when I skipped the bottle feed to work on getting a comfortable latch when breastfeeding. Other days she took a couple of bottles if I was particularly sore or overwhelmed or needed to be somewhere else but I tried to stick to one a day wherever possible to avoid any issues with my milk supply. I found everything had settled down and we were in a bit of a routine with the bottle by 3 weeks. I still breastfeed on demand the rest of the time.

I loved the mam bottles, the self-sterilising function is great when you're combi feeding and don't need to fill a big steriliser every day. My kids both took to them straight away and the anti colic bases seemed to work for them as they didn't suffer with wind.

My experiences of combi feeding so far have been very positive and I hope it gives some hope to other new or expectant mums that breastfeeding doesn't have to be all or nothing.

I breastfeed DS1 for 8 weeks in total. In the first 24 hours he was dehydrated so had a top up formula feed and then about once a week he had a bottle as I knew I didn’t want to BF for very long. At about 6 weeks we started combi feeding with the plan to reduce my milk supply to switch to formula. I felt I’d given him the best start I could but mentally I just hated BF, I resented every feed and while we didn’t struggle physically, the mental load took its toll. I was essentially touched out and after an IVF round to get him, I just needed my body to be my own again

DS2 is 3 weeks old and EBF apart from one bottle which he has as his last feed of the day to try and get me an extra hours sleep. I’m finding feeding mentally easier this time but will still combi and then formula feed eventually. Formula gives me the opportunity to have a break but I do sometimes feel guilty about moving away from BF when we don’t have any actual physical problems doing it. This time I’ll see how we get on and maybe do it longer or combi for longer

I combination fed both of mine, no problems.
What I think is an abomination is triple feeding. That was initially recommended to me, so I was told to

• breastfeed
• pump
• offer the expressed milk
• if baby was still hungry, top up with formula

At each feed That entire process took around 1.5hrs, every 3 hours. Absolutely broke me. I only did it for a few days before I crumbled.

I cut out the expressing part completely and instead breastfed as much as I could and did a full bottle of formula at 7pm and again at 10.30/11pm. My husband gave those two and I got lovely uninterrupted sleep until around 4am and then would breastfeed again until the early evening.

So I guess my lesson was, combination feeding can be great - but avoid triple feeding at all costs, even if it is recommended by your health visitor!!

It was necessary because I just couldn't do everything myself any longer, I have a lot of health problems and I needed some rest. Unfortunately once they realised the bottle was easier they preferred it, after initially rejecting it, and didn't really go back to breastfeeding. I still wanted them to have breastmilk when possible so I expressed a lot, it was harder than just feeding directly and it did make me question combi feeding with other DC but when it came to it I didn't really have a choice as I needed the odd block of sleep etc or I'd have ended up in hospital the way I was going

Combo fed both my kids until breast milk supply naturally dropped after I returned to work around age 1 with first and second is now 9 months and I'm returning to work next month. Breast milk (I feel) is essential in the first few feeds, especially the colostrum - however with my first I found it really difficult to latch after a while the MW used a syringe and collected my colostrum to feed. With second DC I was more confident and managed it myself. Both times I supplemented with formula because my supply was low (does increase over time), so DP can do some night feeds, and that I kind of thought the best of both worlds, in breast milk there are antibodies and it IS the best for baby, however lacks vitamin D which is found in formula milk therefore I do not feel guilty because I combo feed. I actually think it's the best for mothers mentality (happy mum, happy babies), baby's needs, for the other parent to also get bonding with baby and baby won't be as reliant and hard to wean off boob, many many benefits.

Child waking up with really dry throat when heating is on having to clear it and needs a drink as soon as he wakes. Me also ! - I’ve research a little and it seems to lead to the heating to be causing the dry environment causing throat irritation. I was going to call the heating company as we have no problem when heating is on in other houses overnight. Other ideas suggests to buy humidifiers, plants, placing bowls of water in the room? What does everyone think has anyone had this problem before XX

I'd planned on breastfeeding but I lost 7 pints of blood after labour. In the hospital I didn't produce much milk, on one day i didn't manage to get a single drop of milk. Obviously I had to give him formula whilst we still tried to get my milk in. My milk did come in a bit and after a few weeks I was exclusively breastfeeding. Unfortunately my son wasn't gaining weight so we reintroduced formula top ups. He then started getting angry when he got breast rather than bottle. So now I pump 5 times a day and top him up with formula too. I see it as the best of both worlds. The formula makes sure he's getting all the calories he needs and the breast milk hopefully helps with his antibodies.

I exclusively breastfed my daughter at first but after 27 days she still hadn't got back to birthweight and the stress of midwives coming time the house every 2 days to weigh her (and give confusing advice!) was getting me down. She herself was weeing, pooing and sleeping beautifully. I started to combination feed to get some weight gain going and that was fantastic for another 2 months. I would start every feed with her breastfeeding from both sides and then offer formula to top her up. She wouldn't always take much but I was so reassured to know she was always satisfied by her feeds. I phased out the breastfeeding at 3 months.
Brands wise, the second brand of bottles we tried worked wonderfully and she still has he bedtime and nap time milk in them now she's 24months. (This is just her but Avanti didn't suit her, Tommee Tippee does). She also took a dummy which was great for sleeping, and was easily weaned off the dummy at about 11 months. Mam dummies were the best, and by that I mean they stay in and therefore less getting up to put them back in for parents!

Breastfeed dd1 for 9 months and dd2 for six. Both would accept a bottle in the early days but then became bottle refusers. With dd1 I thought I would have to delay my return to work. Luckily we found a teat both would eventually accept but it was stressful. I enjoyed breastfeeding but was ready to get my energy back when the time to stop feeding came. Reflux played a major role too as the gaviscon was easier to give in a bottle.

After struggling with breastfeeding for about 2 weeks, we introduced some formula and fortunately DC1 took to it straight away. A friend had recommended MAM bottles so we tried those along with a few others. DC1 once again took to this straight away and we combined between breast, expressed and formula for about 3 months.

We had a very similar experience with DC2.

Combination feeding can be very helpful and it doesn't have to be all or nothing. I bf twins (born at 38+4) pretty much exclusively for 6m and for 13m in total. The 'pretty much' is that one was tongue tied and failed to feed at first so was formula fed for a few days until the tie was cut. She latched on then and was mix fed for a week or so and as she got stronger I cut down on her bottle feeds and increased breastfeeding. I cut out the top ups after 10 days or so and then returned to combination feeding at 7 weeks during a growth spurt, when I just couldn't keep up with the cluster feeding, by replacing an evening feed with a bottle. Again after a week or so things settled down and we were able to drop the bottle feed. Also helpful was that I could leave her with my mum and she would take a bottle. Supplemental formula feeding actually helped us breastfeed for longer, which was the best of both worlds for all of us.

I really wanted to breastfeed, but my milk didn't come in properly until day 6 and DD lost 13% weight. She cried for a whole day, despite me "feeding" her, and wouldn't be put down. My brother had given me a small supply of premade bottles, and at 2am I caved and gave her the bottle. I needed my baby to be happy.
We got admitted to hospital after the HV had said DD had a 13% weightless, and they advised combi feeding 60ml top ups after breastfeeding. I tried to Express, but at this point I was still only getting 20ml after 30mins on the pump.
My DD now gets an expressed bottle a night from her dad in addition to all the boob.
I recently moved from the tommee tippee pump to the MAM one after a friends recommendation and it is fab! Now, I can Express 160+ at a time! Its brilliant!