Breast and formula feeds / How to start?

[Hollyberry]

Hi,
I hope I"m posting this correctly, I've never done this before sort of nervous.
Can anyone give suggestions or share their experiences with breast and formula feeds.
I'm breast feeding and bottle feeding with breast milk. But my milk is diminishing in the evening and overnight.

My milk at night is limited, my son feeds only on one breast and is also being treated with reflux.
I also have a hyperactive letdown so he chokes and usually projectile vomits at night b/c of all the air he has swallowed with my letdown.
He gets furious if I pump first to release some of the pressure of my letdown. My pump takes 45 minutes or longer to stimulate a let down esp at night. So I have to latch him on to get a letdown. But take him off again during the letdown.

Complete nightmare b/c he's so mad he won't settle, and then he's so gassy he's up for an hour or more after both feeds. They are 11:30am feeds and 4:00am.

He's 16 weeks old, and still feeds every 3 hours.
In the evening I want to top up with formula due to not enough milk and overnight give him formula and any milk I have saved, if any at all.

Can anyone help me?
I dread our evening feeds it's very stressful for Hudson and I.
I want to go to formula b/c of my lack of milk but not sure if I'm doing the right thing and hold guilt for doing so.

Thank you,
Holly

[jana224]

Other people can correct me here if they disagree, but I'll share my perspective...
Let's just say Hudson was sleeping 12 hours through the night right now... it's nice to pretend ... anyway, if he was, he wouldn't be getting up to nurse in the night and your body would correct the supply of milk it produces overnight, so you'd have enough milk to feed Hudson during the day, and at night your milk production would slow.  So... feeding him formula at night (if you think that is best) would kinda be like him just not feeding at night, so as long as you're still nursing throughout the day, it shouldn't cause too much disruption. 

Some of the concerns though:
-if you switch to night time formula, you'll have to stick with it, because your supply at night will really drop off
-switching to formula at night won't necessarily solve the problem of gassiness since breastmilk is the easiest on his digestive system, he may have added gas when formula is introduced...

Another option for you:
-generally you will have the most milk in the morning, and since your son only feeds on one side, what about pumping on the other side while he nurses?  His sucking will activate your letdown, so the milk will flow easily, and you can probably gather enough for 2 bottles if you pump the first two feedings of the day (say 7am and 10am).  Then, at night, you can give him this pumped milk?  This is just an option if you don't want to go to formula...

Let me know what you think!
Jana

[Hollyberry]

Thank you Jana, I appreciate your suggestion.

I agree with you, I pump my right breast while he feeds on my left.
I save what I can from my right pumped breast. He is still hungry from the left breast (not always, but at some time during the day). So I have to give him my saved milk to top him off. At night he seems to need the saved milk, and feeds more often. So I'm having smaller and smaller amounts of saved milk for the night feed because of what he needs.
Does that make sense?
I would like to continue to feed by breast at night, but he gets so stressed with this letdown, I know longer can take the stress of it all. I was feeding him breast milk by bottle at night, it was great he didn't fuss at all, and he slept immediately after. I just don't have the breast milk in a bottle to feed him and for some reason my letdown doesn't want to happen without him or I would continue to give him the bottle with breast milk.
I dread my night feeds b/c of his stress and then mine.


Holly

[jana224]

Oh I see - when you said he feeds on only one breast, I thought you meant that he only needs to empty one breast during a feeding, I didn't realize you meant he prefers one breast over the other.  If you are having supply issues on one side, could you not always pump that breast while he's feeding on the other?  You may not get much, or anything at first, but at least it might signal to your body that you need more milk to be made on that side.. ?

I too like to keep a reserve of frozen BM in the freezer, so I pump one bottle every morning while my DD nurses, and then every time I feed her for the rest of the day, I pump about 1-2 ounces from the side she isn't using... by the end of the day, I have enough to put together to make another bottle.  But, mind you, I don't have an issue with one breast having more milk, so this may not work for you.

What have you tried to get the right side flowing more?

[Hollyberry]

Hi Jana,
Yes, I only can feed from one breast at all times (left side).
Hudson has refused from day one. Maybe it's the position on that breast that bothers him and his reflux. I'm not sure. My daughter who also had reflux wouldn't feed on my right side either..

Jana,
I only pump from my right side when I feed Hudson on the left breast.  Maybe I should pump more on the right side, you have brought up a great point. That way I would have more milk to save, I hope. The right breast only pumps about 2 oz at a time.

Thanks Jana

[vacamex]

Hi Holly... I think my DD shared many traits with you DS!... just some quick tips that worked for me:
- Always keep your back warm... my nanny said that too me and then my Ob Gyn confirmed it... so I got myself an extra vest even though DD was born in the middle of the summer. 
- Remove dairy from your diet... any cheese, milk, butter, etc. Keep an eye on how many calories you're still eating because you don't want that to decrease. My DD had many colic - like symptoms that disappeared a couple of days after I quit dairy.
- If you can, contact a lactation consultant or your local chapter of the La Leche League... they can give you many more tips, advice and, above all, support. I'm still in touch with a couple of girls I met at their meetings.
This small steps helped me a lot, hope they work for you too.
Hugs,
CC

[Hollyberry]

Thank you so much CC.

Holly

[* Paula *]

Hello ladies,

I hope you don't mind, but I am going to pop this over to the Breast Feeding Forum, as the subject is more about BF.