breast and bottle

[hedgehog2000]

Hi,

My baby is still in special care after being born at 34 weeks. All is well apart from the feeding. She gets expressed breast milk and some formula through a tube in her nose. We try to Breast feed at every session and sometimes its brilliant and others a disaster and she doesn't want to know. She also seems to prefer my right boob ( weird!) It has been suggested that we offer bottle top ups after trying the breast. Some staff have said it won't confuse her and others have said it will. I'm not against giving formula but I don't want to stop the BF that we do manage. Anyone tried this method of feeding. Did it work?. My daughter is 3 weeks tomorrow. Thanks.

 

[budge]

no i soley breast fed and i strongly recommend that if you can.

Its a personl thing and only you can decide and you must must weigh up the pros and cons of it.

It isn't the end of the world if you have to top her up wih formula after a breast feed and you mustn't feel guilty.

. My sister had to do the same but she insisted on cup her son being cup fed as a post to bottle fed formula.

 

[Rosieroo]

I haven't experienced having a prem baby so can't help on that side of things - what I can say is that I topped Ella up a handful of times with formula on the advice of my HV and it really affected my milk supply from establishing properly the first 10 weeks.

I hope you manage to get the bf started soon, it's great you're still perservering

 

[loulou1980]

what about expressing it regulary to keep your flow going and give her that as long as everythings properly sterelised they should be able to feed it her

 

[SarahH]

I was gonna suggest expressing - thats what I'm having to do for Arianna - as she wont latch on at all to me - been to all the breast feeding clinics and she just wont do it. I'm not really bothered tho as she is still getting the goodness and she is putting on plenty weight!!

S. xx

 

[Urchin]

Hiya
How is the feeding going now? sorry I only just saw this topic.

I would try and offer breast at every available opportunity, but don't feel guilty for giving the odd bit of formula to top her up. The more you give breast, the better you will both get at it and hopefully you can drop the formula if thats what you want to do.

 

Sorry just saw this too.

Damien was a prem and was in SCBU and tube fed, he wouldn't latch either, absolute nightmare. I expressed for him and fed him via tube and cup for a few days and then transferred to a bottle in the end as it stressed him out far too much trying to latch on (although I did still keep trying when we were home and more relaxed).

It's good you are persevering breastfeeding, premmies do find it hard to latch as they just don't have that reflex yet. From experience it is harder going, their mouths don't always open wide and they tend to chomp before suckling (I don't know if your daughter does this?) but with the right encouragement I am sure you will manage it. I saw mums of 28weekers still trying to BF their babies (obviously when they were quite a few weeks old) but had expressed to keep their supplies going until the baby had a suckling reflex.

Of course it is easier to give into a bottle, and I must admit, I was GUTTED to do this but Damien was just too stressed and so was I by this point. It's not failing as I thought it was then, so if you do go this route, don't feel bad, you can still express and feed by bottle.

As for the cup, Damien wouldn't suckle much, but the times we did use the cup didn't seem to make a difference to his preference.

Good luck, I'm always about if you need some more questions answering on the prem side of things. Damien wasn't in as long as your daughter, but hopefully I'll be able to help somehow. Keep smiling, you'll get her home soon

 

[Tara & Liam]

i found that the more i bottle fed the more my milk depleated

 

[Urchin]

One tip I can give is...when you try the breast and think "oh that's enough it's not going to happen this time" Give it another 5 minutes at least.

My friend had problems latching her son on, and I went round and helped her and I reasurred her while she was feeding that the baby was fine, not fretting, just moaning, she went past the point where she normally would have given up...and he finally latched on.
She was giving up too easily....and was so happy to finally get him feeding!

 

[Tara & Liam]

liam used to love bf, even now he still sucks my t shirt, makes me feel sadder

 

[TipsyDipsy]

Yea there is a thing called nipple confusion with newborn babies and it is recommend that you breastfeed soley for the first couple of weeks until they can recognise the difference between a bottle and breast but I think the nurses must have advised you to give bottle as well if they though your baby wasn't getting enough from you soley.

One thing though if you subsidise some of your feeds with formula your milk will deplete because your body works by supply and demand and if your baby is having a bottle instead of you your body will not make as much. Same goes for the breast pump since no pump can extract as much milk as your baby your milk supply will start to dry up slowely
.
Keep up with the breastfeeding as much as you can if your determined to do it because if it stops completely you can't start it back up again.
Your breasts will be engorged in the first couple of weeks but then they will empty a lot and most women think there milk is going when its not. Its just weaning down to your babies demand so don't think its stopping.
Of course if something is wrong and your baby isn't getting enough (doesn't seem satisfied after feed) then switch to the bottle.
Good luck hunny.x