For moms who breastfeed AND bottlefeed(formula)

I would love to do this but I'm not sure how to go about doing it.

Do you start doing both in the hospital (and do they frown upon it)?

How often do you do each (switch every other one or just bottlefeed at bedtime?)

Is it hard for them to switch back and forth breast and bottle?

Thanks so much

Re: For moms who breastfeed AND bottlefeed(formula)

Ok, Im butting in here because I only breastfed but you should start off only breastfeeding in the hospital to establish your milk supply... which should take about a week or 2. I cant answer the other questions though - sorry.

Re: For moms who breastfeed AND bottlefeed(formula)

I agree with KPtoys that you should only breast feed in the beginning to get as much milk as you can.
The hospital nurses DO NOT frown upon supplimenting, if thats what you want to do. They understand that mommys are so exhausted after the delivery and sometimes need to just rest.
The Lactation Consultants DO frown upon it because they believe this will confuse the baby.
In my case, we had to suppliment with Logan because he had jaundice and was dehydrated. The nurses were telling me to give him formula, the Lactation Nurse was telling me to pump to get my supply up and only feed him breast milk.
Honestly I thought supplimenting with formula worked great for me, especially on those nights when I was toooo tired to feed the baby for 40 minutes.
You have to do whats right for you.
Good Luck!

ETA - what hospital are you delivering at?

Message edited 8/22/2005 10:36:24 PM.

Re: For moms who breastfeed AND bottlefeed(formula)

i only breastfed for the first month, then I would pump and we introduced the bottle w/ bm.

I went back to tutor when my son was 2 months old, and I felt like I wasnt able to pump enough to leave for him for the 5 hours I was gone, so we would add 1-2 oz of formula to the milk i had pumped to "stretch" the supply.

I was sure to pump extra times in the day to help keep my milk supply up, even though I didint generate very much pumping in the beginning...over time I established a good frozen reserve.

what i typed above is just what I did...i know my dr wasnt all that happy with the suppliment idea, but, hey, it worked for us, and i was lucky that my son has the ability to go back and forth between bottle and breast with no problem

He is now 6 months and I was able to have enough milk stored so my husband and i could go away to a wedding and leave the little guy at home...it was a 6 hr drive, and we were gone 2.5 days. He had bm at all feedings and formula for his cereal...

We used a bottle at all different times based on when i needed a break, or when my husband wanted to feed him, sometimes i even pumped i the AM before my son woke up and my husband would feed that to him in the bottle...you'll play around and see what works best for you :)

Re: For moms who breastfeed AND bottlefeed(formula)

I agree its important to establish a supply right from the beginning. From there you can decrease it as your body will make just what you use.

Though my son did get a formula bottle in the hospital before my BM was in and it didn't affect my supply or cause any confusion, but everyone is different.

Just before we weaned completely, around 3 months we started formula during the day and nursing at night. This worked well for us.

Re: For moms who breastfeed AND bottlefeed(formula)

I may also need to breast and bottlefeed because I'm a teacher so I only get 6 weeks of maternity leave. I am hoping to be able to pump enough, but I'll suppliment with formula if need be. What I've heard though from many sources is that you shouldn't introduce a bottle until about 6 weeks because the baby needs to establish preference for the breast. Once you do that it should be able to go back and forth between breast and bottle. They just say that since bottles tend to be easier to get milk from, if you do bottle right away the baby might not ever want to do breast.

Re: For moms who breastfeed AND bottlefeed(formula)

Well I didn't plan on breastfeeing so I started off inthe hospital with jsut formula feeding then when I was home for a few days I was curious about Breast Feed and I gave it a shot it was ok I basically forumla fed marissa when we were out and about and when we were home I would breast feed her I didn't do it for long.

Re: For moms who breastfeed AND bottlefeed(formula)

I tried to BF in the hospital but I always signed off for them to give him formula overnight. They did not frown upon it. I was never able to establish a good latch. My milk didn't come in until the 4th day so there was nothing to pump anyway.

Once it did though I pumped and he got only BM for the first couple of days while I established my supply. We were home already at this point. Then we supplemented with formula. But he always got the bottle so there was no issue with nipple confusion.