combi-feeding

[amelia26]

I breastfed my first and plan to bf this one too but I found it so hard and horrible last time that I am a bit more open minded this time about the possibility of combi feeding. Maybe one bottle at bedtime. Or maybe just here and there.

For those who have combi-fed, I would be really interested to know what age you started, if it worked well for you, if it had an impact of your supply etc

Thanks

 

[hanni]

We combi fed from about a week old.
It worked for us for a while because he has a tongue tie which ment my nipples became so sore if he fed more than a few times a day. The only thing is because he was only feeding a few times a day I had to pump a few times as well and it still seriously effected my supply. I'd always have to finish off a feed with fomula. By 15 weeks my supply had gone down so much he would scream after a couple of minutes so I made the decision to stop breast feeding.
I also didn't realise how badly he was constipated when he was getting both breast and formula until we stopped combining. He went from pooing once every other day and screaming in pain to pooing a few times a day easily. He's so much more of a happy baby.

It is great if it works for you but it's so much more effort than just doing one or the other, especially if you're expressing as well which you might have to to keep your supply up.

 

[amelia26]

Thanks Hanni.

I would rather avoid pumping of I have to. I pumped a lot last time as baby was in hospital a lot and I did really hate it. I'm guessing that would be even less fun with a toddler as well.

Thanks for sharing your experience. Definitely something to think about.

 

[bdb84]

I combi-fed up until a week ago when I made the switch to exclusively formula feeding. We began giving one bottle of formula every few days starting at 5 days old. It turned to one a day eventually and then 2-3. By 3 months of age I was only nursing her in the mornings and bottle feeding the rest of the day (she STTN early on). I still could have kept going at this pace, as DD was perfectly content with my supply in the mornings.. but I got to the point to where I simply preferred to bottle feed. I'm convinced we could have kept going for months had I not so strongly preferred one method to the next.