Forum home Babies Breast & bottle feeding

Switching to the bottle for day time feeds. :(

Hi ladies

hoping for some tips. I go back to work in 7 weeks time when my little hannah will be 7 months. She will be 6 months in 2 weeks time so reluctantly I'm having to stop bf during the day. She had be exclusively breast fed with only a handfull of bottles as she seems to dislike them. This has improved since we started weaning 2 weeks ago and so has had the df bottle of ebm since. I intend to feed her in the morning ~6am and before bed at 6:30pm. My questions are

1. Shall I just go cold turkey and stop all day bf and replace with the bottle. It will be formula a expressing at work will be almost impossible. OR should I replace one bottle at a time over two- three weeks?

2. What will happen to my boobs?!? Will I be very engorged for long. Or if I drop feeds for bottles gradually will this regulate my supply better?

I'm worried that if I stop day feeds I won't have enough milk to continue the morning & night feeds.

Thanks
Helen x

Ps I don't wanna go back to work!!!!!! Aaargh! image


Replies

  • Hiya, what i would maybe do is cut down the feeds gradually. I used to feed in the morning, then express a bit later and use that for my 11am feed. Over time the bigger he got i would express less till i was giving a few oz of breast milk and some formula. You could maybe do that for a few days/week till you are only expressing 1 oz at that feed then stop it. You could then do the same with mid afternoon milk.

    If you just stop you will be engorged by bedtime. I couldnt do that, i get really engorged and my milk takes ages to go so i would def do it gradually

    By dropping feeds i certainly found my milk supply did slow up a bit but it was reallyu when i went down to 1 feed at bedtime that it just seemed to vanish. You should be ok still feeding morn and night. You could even start expressing at maybe 10pm and as you fade out the daytime feeds. bring that in and then lo could have that during the day when u are at work.

    Good luck

    Gemm x
Sign In or Register to comment.

Featured Discussions