combi feeding

[alex_22]

We've been combi feeding from pretty early on mainly breast until this week she's mainly bottle and only nursing twice a day with a few oz of expressed milk sometimes too, my question is is it worth it? I'm more than happy to combi feed but is 2-3 feeds a day of breastmilk enough to make it worth it? I prefer to give her the breastmilk expressed and in a bottle too she seems so much more content from a bottle I think it's maybe because when she's feeding from me once she's done she likes to use me for comfort after which if it was 5-10 minutes that would be fine but at 3am when it's an hour long it just doesn't work lol, the reason I'm combi feeding is because supply is pretty poor, I know there's many ways to increase it but I'm not going to lie I don't have the time or patience to cluster feed all day long and express after and during feeds, I know I'm not the first and last person to have other kids and a home to look after and there's women will do anything to up their supply in my position but honestly I really don't want to I tried it had me stressed, tired, feeling trapped in the house and I just want to enjoy my baby! She's getting the goodness from the few feeds she has from me and I'm getting the easyness of a settled baby from the formula in my eyes that's a win win situation!

Sorry for the ramble :S I just don't have many people understand at home x

 

[TXJen]

I also combi-feed because my supply is poor (and I HAVE tried everything, and still am! Nothing seems to work). I still pump during the day at work (every 2 hours-ish) and then breastfeed at night. I pretty much let LO stay on until he comes off on his own on both breasts, and if he's still hungry then we give him a bottle. He usually takes about 15-25 minutes per boob. The good thing is that now if he wakes up in the middle of the night (like he did last night) he is pretty satisfied with just breast milk and I barely have to get out of bed. I also wake to pump, though - although I don't set an alarm or anything, I just wake up when it's too painful to sleep through it. I freeze A LOT (I have about 100 bags of milk in my freezer) because I am in a career that requires frequent travel and I don't want my LO to go without breast milk.

I do want to keep giving my son breast milk as long as possible. A few weeks ago, he caught a cold from his nanny and he was only sick for a day and a half, as was I... The nanny was sick for over a week and so was my husband. I don't know how much it had to do with chance vs breast milk but if it's helping him at all and I can manage, I figure why not?

Fwiw, I HATED breastfeeding for about the first 7 weeks or so... But now I love it. So much so that I am traveling tomorrow to visit clients and will be out all day on Thursday driving between sites, and I'll have to stop at coffee shops to pump in between as well as pumping at the airport before and after my flights, and of course in the hotel once I get situated. It's going to be a HUGE pain and I'm not looking forward to it at all, but I'm not ready to give it up yet!

 

[alex_22]

I'm definitely not ready to give up I've fed her once myself and pumped 5oz and I'll probably feed her during the night too, I feel like atm I'm just doing it to keep up my supply in the hope that soon I'll have enough want to go through a few days of exhaustion to feed and pump constantly, I really want to get to weaning then I'll have no problem at all stopping x