{"id":422,"date":"2013-02-26T18:20:35","date_gmt":"2013-02-26T18:20:35","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/theparentsocial.wordpress.com\/?p=422"},"modified":"2024-06-19T10:06:46","modified_gmt":"2024-06-19T10:06:46","slug":"bottle-feeding-a-breastfed-baby","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.theparentsocial.com\/bottle-feeding-a-breastfed-baby\/","title":{"rendered":"Bottle Feeding a Breastfed Baby"},"content":{"rendered":"

Undoubtedly Health Visitors provide a lot of advice, guidance and reassurance for many new mums, and I certainly would not want a situation where we didn\u2019t have them on hand. However, there is one piece of advice that I would disagree with: not trying a breastfed baby on a bottle until they are six-weeks old.<\/p>\n

Bottle feeding after breast feeding<\/h2>\n

My firstborn (Sofia) arrived eight days before my 30th<\/sup> birthday. I wasn\u2019t going to be out partying but I knew I certainly wanted a good number of postpartum and \u2018hello 30s\u2019 alcoholic beverages! I was however breastfeeding.<\/p>\n

Breastfeeding was going well.\u00a0By day five\/six my milk was already well established, so I tried expressing.\u00a0 After a few attempts with fairly meagre results I was able to express enough for a full feed. I tried Sofia with the bottle and she went for it immediately. Then I reverted to breastfeeding throughout the night and then the following day, and then tried a further bottle in the evening. I found she was able to interchange between both feeding methods without any problems.\u00a0 By my birthday it would be fine, and it was.<\/p>\n

\"Image\"<\/p>\n

I got in there with the expressing before the Health Visitor advised me not to. She was in fact quite surprised at the success I had, had (though she was supportive). However, many friends did follow the six-week advice to avoid what was described as \u2018baby confusion\u2019 and all found by this point their babies would not accept the bottle.<\/p>\n

When my twins came along I started them on expressed milk on day three, and again they had no issue swapping between the two. I ensured that my husband gave bottles too. It offered great flexibility and was a lovely bonding experience for him.<\/p>\n

There may be certain circumstances where you should wait, but from my experience – and others that I have spoken to – if breastfeeding is going well there doesn\u2019t seem to be a problem with expressing and bottle-feeding early on.<\/p>\n

What to buy?<\/strong><\/h2>\n

With Sofia I got a hand pump and soon changed to electric a) it was so, so much better at extracting milk and b) I did actually fear I\u2019d get arthritis in my wrist. With the twins, I got the best pump money could buy. It was a double one, which if I had to do it again for a single baby would get again (on reflection, it would save so much time for one baby). Double is certainly not essential for a singleton though.<\/p>\n

I was able to sell my pump<\/a> afterwards for a very reasonable sum. I found\u00a0Medela<\/a>\u00a0to be better than Avent. Also I’d recommend investing in a\u00a0breast feeding bustier<\/a>\u00a0\u2013 for \u2018hands free\u2019 pumping.<\/p>\n


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Undoubtedly Health Visitors provide a lot of advice, guidance and reassurance for many new mums, and I certainly would not want a situation where we didn\u2019t have them on hand. However, there is one piece of advice that I would disagree with: not trying a breastfed baby on a bottle until they are six-weeks old.<\/p>\n

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