Combination feeding - feeling sad

[Dawnyybus]

I've been forced to combination feed as my 6 week old isn't gaining weight correctly, I always put him to the breast and express then offer him expressed milk and three times a day formula but I hate using my expressed milk (it's so valuable... I don't know it doesn't make any sense) and I'm starting to really hate giving him formula, I just feel so useless and I don't want to stop breastfeeding but sometimes I feel like that would be easier...

I'm sorry for the rant but I feel so helpless.
Thank you

Xxxxxx

 

[AnonymousCAT]

That must be so hard! I'm sorry. Hopefully it will get better. I know breast milk is great but do whatever works for you.

 

[noon_child]

I started supplementing at 6 weeks for the same reason, and it saddened me too. Sometimes it was expressed milk, sometimes formula depending on how often I'd managed to have a spare second to pump! However I've come to realise that formula was initially designed to help Mums when babies were struggling to get the breast milk they needed.

Do you feel you have the support to use formula as a supplement and continue breastfeeding? It is possible. I did it. Formula helped my LO grow big enough and strong enough to correct her latch problems and stop getting exhausted on the breast. I wish to this day that there had been another option, a magic piece of advice I didn't know about, but I've come to realise that maybe this doesn't exist. I was supported to use formula to HELP ME BREASTFEED and I think that important; there is a difference between feeling forced in to formula feeding (or sliding down a slippery slope to formula feeding) and using formula as a supplement.

I ended up breastfeeding to 27months, and just because I used formula sometimes for a few months, I never thought of myself as anything but a breastfeeding mum.