Anyone nursing and supplementing?

gbaby26

I am nursing my daughter however I have to give her a bottle of formula every night. I feel I am "dried up" by 10 pm or so....So I have been giving her a bottle of formula so that she fills up and she will usually be passed out shortly after. She will sleep generally until 5 or 6 am. She is 6 weeks old by the way and we have established this routine for weeks now....I feel like a bad mom that I have to give her that one bottle of formula and it kills me everytime.. (I know that sounds CRAZZYY) but it has been working for us!

Anyone else supplementing???

jessicaA27

I do the same thing. I give DS a 2oz bottle every other night and it's usually around 10 pm too. Every other night he wants to nurse for 3-4 hrs straight and I just get to the point where I can't do it anymore. I have two other kids too which makes it hard to nurse all evening. After I give him the bottle he is happy and falls asleep. I feel bad too, like you said, but if I wasn't giving him the formula I have a feeling I would just get too frustrated and give up on nursing, so I feel that a few ozs of formula is better than stopping nursing all together now. 

h2ojock13

I'm not supplementing,  but in the beginning I was pumping and then doing a 50/50 split of BM and Formula in a bottle for evening feedings. I was getting really frustrated with him nursing for such long periods of time this saved my sanity. If it works for you, don't feel guilty. Do what you can do.

Just a suggestion, if you feel you're dried up by the evening and you want to be able to BF at night, I would try pumping (double pump if you have it) even though you are not producing any milk. When I needed to produce more milk for LO (I felt guilty supplementing too) I would pump after every feeding. It took about a week or so of me doing this (it sucked) but it was worth it, and it helped increase my supply.

kristennd

I'm basically supplementing with breastmilk rather than with formula because I'm able to produce less than half of what he eats. But I figure some of those antibodies are better than none.

I can't imagine anyone thinking one bottle of formula for a solid night's sleep is a bad trade.

Heather & Nayt

I am. I have major supply issues and don't produce nearly enough to EBF even though I have done ever trick in the book. Basically she nurses for 15 minutes on both sides then has to have a 2-3 oz bottle afterwards. It sucks but I am over the disappointment and glad I can nurse at all. I have to do what I can to be sure she is getting fed and growing and any bit of bm is better then none in my book. 

aschleser

We supplement with 1 oz formula after most feedings.  I pump, but after feedings get maybe 10mls total from both - I pumped when she hadn't nursed in a few hours and got a whopping 1 oz, lol.  Not going to cut it for daycare next weekend.... I feel super bad because we were giving her Enfamil NB and she had gas so she's on Enfamil Gentlease - I know if she was straight BM she wouldn't have that problem - but on the other hand she doesn't like to stay awake to nurse and is REALLY hard to get to wake up fully once she does that I think she's part of why my supply SUCKS.

mrbear83

We had to start out supplementing becuase of emergency C section and his extreme weight loss up front. Now, because of his preference, and our pumping turned FF, we are totally FF. 

There are times when I feel like the worst mom for FF, but he started to refuse to latch to me, and I went with it, so.....

But you know, breastmilk isn't a requirement for MENSA and he's thriving, so I'm ok with it.

Plus, DH gets to feel very involved with 1-2 feeds to himself a day.  

MrsH_08

Heather & Nayt:

I am. I have major supply issues and don't produce nearly enough to EBF even though I have done ever trick in the book. Basically she nurses for 15 minutes on both sides then has to have a 2-3 oz bottle afterwards. It sucks but I am over the disappointment and glad I can nurse at all. I have to do what I can to be sure she is getting fed and growing and any bit of bm is better then none in my book. 

This is us, too.  Every feeding is 10-15 mins nursing both sides (& with a nipple shield, too, unfortunately) and then 3.5oz of formula.

mzsparklepdx

Heather & Nayt:

I am. I have major supply issues and don't produce nearly enough to EBF even though I have done ever trick in the book. Basically she nurses for 15 minutes on both sides then has to have a 2-3 oz bottle afterwards. It sucks but I am over the disappointment and glad I can nurse at all. I have to do what I can to be sure she is getting fed and growing and any bit of bm is better then none in my book. 

This.  I am over feeling bad about it and do what I need to do to keep my baby growing. Between her bad latch and sleepy eating early on and my one lame boob that never kicked into gear, it is what it is.  Giving your LO one bottle to get some sleep sounds perfectly reasonable to me.

Iamthedigs

I give one bottle a day in the evening. It saves my sanity. She also gets half BM/FF when grandma watches her so she doesn't use my stash up as quickly.