Breast and Bottle Feeding?

holdintight

I would love to exclusively breast feed, but I volunteer and work part time. Neither of which would I want to give up. Plus, my husband would love nothing more than to bond with our baby and feed him/her too! Unfortunately the women in our circle of friends are either all breast or all bottle and are not helpful in the area of how to balance the two. Will having the baby use a bottle sometimes and the breast other times make things more complicated?

I guess I'm just looking for input and helpful tips since I need to breast feed as well as pump and use bottles. Thanks! 

ktbee33

I do both though I am more breast than bottle until I go back to work. Every baby is different so it just depends on how your LO takes to it. Experiment with different bottles. If you want to make the transition easiest pick some that are designed to flow like the breast. We use born free, I've heard breastflow and tommee tippee are also good Hope that helps! Good luck!

nealbl

Unless you are a stay at home mom who never plans to go out for the evening until you are done BFing you will have to use the bottle at some point while breastfeeding. We do both and both of my DD's have taken really well to both.

I go to night school and DD gets two bottles while I am gone. If I ever decide to have a drink I generally have pumped milk ready for the next feeding and once I had DH take a MOTN feeding.

Buy a few different types of bottles b/c you never know what your LO will like. 

==N==

I am EBF right now but will be pumping when I go back to work. My LC recommended EBF until 4 weeks then start giving her at least 3 bottles a week so she doesnt get nipple confusion.

jessican08

Most LCs would advise not introducing a bottle until BF is well established but we were in a situation where we had to bottle feed the babies when they were 3 days old while my DD was in the hospital and they never had an issue switching back and forth.

We do a combination of BF and bottle feeding now and it's working out great. The way I look at it is that they're getting the best of both worlds, I don't have to mess with bottles or pumping at night and we're able to stay flexible, especially since I started back to work and they're in DC. Here's our schedule:

6am/7am - nurse (I pump afterwards)

10am/11am - BM bottle ( I pump )

1pm/2pm - formula bottle ( I pump )

4pm/5pm - BM bottle ( I pump )

7pm/8pm - formula bottle ( I pump )

night feedings - nurse

anonsouthernbell

amy052006:

Yeah, I side eye the hell out of the "my baby never took a bottle" crowd. I EBF'd DS1 for 15 months, and would have gone longer but he weaned himself when I got pregnant.  I think it is pretty sad if you won't do something without a kid hanging on you over the course of 15 months.

Both of my boys were supplemented via bottle with pumped milk from almost day one due to tongue ties and jaundice.  They never had an issue going bottle to breast. 

dd won't take bottles . So I feed her before I leave...ds on the other hand didnt have any problems taking them. 

elvinnoe

We started off with major BFing problems, so I had to use a bottle for a few days. While I would never suggest going days in a row like I did, we haven't had any trouble going back and forth between breast and bottle. I've been doing two to three bottles a week since then and it's been fine.

One thing though. She gets lazy with her latch sometimes (really painful), and I can't tell if it's because she's sleepy or because she had a bottle last. I'm definitely still working on getting the hang of all of this.

happilyeverafterxo

jessican08:

Most LCs would advise not introducing a bottle until BF is well established but we were in a situation where we had to bottle feed the babies when they were 3 days old while my DD was in the hospital and they never had an issue switching back and forth.

We do a combination of BF and bottle feeding now and it's working out great. The way I look at it is that they're getting the best of both worlds, I don't have to mess with bottles or pumping at night and we're able to stay flexible, especially since I started back to work and they're in DC. Here's our schedule:

6am/7am - nurse (I pump afterwards)

10am/11am - BM bottle ( I pump )

1pm/2pm - formula bottle ( I pump )

4pm/5pm - BM bottle ( I pump )

7pm/8pm - formula bottle ( I pump )

night feedings - nurse

 

This is basically the same thing I am doing with our LO He has done really well and not refused the breast or bottle

We use Tommee Tippee bottles, and he seems to love them! Also, we introduced him to a bottle the day after he was born (with pumped Breast Milk) and he still nurses with no issues

Good luck!

Stephorse

I am mostly doing breast feeding, but my LO has been exposed to the bottle with BM in it and with formula. I wanted him to get used to it since he has a milk allergy and just in case breastfeeding didn't work out or once I go back to work if I was to run out of breastmilk or run dry then he would be ok having formula. I have not had any issues with using the bottle and him nursing. He still nurses just fine and will also gladly take a bottle just fine. We didn't have to fight with him either to use a bottle. We use the Avent bottles and he took to them really well. It was pretty easy for us actually.