Will this ever work?

[*Liz*]

My ds is 24 weeks old and ebf until 1 week ago.

I introduced bottles with a lot of tears on both sided as I am exhausted after feeding him 3-4 times per night since he was born. He is distractable, and has reflux and the combination of these factors leads to poor daytime feeding and calorie catch up at night.

He's been on bottles for 5 days now - initially pure ebm and now a 50% mix with formula. I've been pumping all his missed feeds as I want to keep all options open to us. I'm currently pumping 20-25oz a day so no real supply issues at the moment.

What I want 'in an ideal world' is to bf morning and evening, have a bottle of formula at lunchtime and 10pm, and overnight if needed. I'm off back to work in a few months so now i've got him to take the bottles it would not be sensible to drop them again.

My question is - do you think this could ever work? I'm concerned that it will confuse him and the difference in taste will lead to him refusing bottles and then waiting for a bf? And if he does that often it will cause a lot of tears for both of us.

My head tells me to stop bfing and switch to bottles as this is what the future will hold anyway, and my heart wants me to keep offering some feeds, that magic bm, and special mummmy and Jacob time.

Am I asking too much? If I do give it a go, how long do you think I should try for? I want to be fair to my lo.

[KellyC]

If I were you I'd give it a go.  If it doesn't work out you can move away from the breastfeeds but you can't do it the other way around.

Both mine were having 3 feeds a day once they were well established on solids, around 7 months in both cases.  With Nathaniel, I went back to work when he was 9 months old and asked them to give him a bottle of formula during the afternoon but he never liked the taste (the bottle wasn't a problem as he'd had one for a dreamfeed since 2 weeks old, just didn't like what was in it!) so he didn't have his third milk feed on those 3 days a week when he was at nursery.  It wasn't long before he dropped the third feed anyway and he's still feeding twice a day (morning and night) now at 20 months!

Kelly x

[Paulsmama]

Are you planning to pump at work?  My DS2 was combo-fed from 4mos until 9mos, bottles in the day and BF at night.  Really from 6mos on I only pumped in the day to keep some supply so I could feed him at night as long as he needed it (gave it up on his own at 9mos).  He was having 4 bottles in the day of mixed EBM/formula and I only pumped 2 or 3 times as I could manage.  We did fine and actually the hard part was getting him to take the bottles in the first place.  It sounds like you have been feeding long enough that your supply won't suffer that much if you do decide to combo-feed.

I've been getting some pressure to combo-feed DS3 but am trying to stick with EBF until at least 6mos this time.  Good luck with whatever you decide, you have to do what is best for your family.