Introducing a bottle & expressing, advice needed

[J_Anne]

My little girl is 3 weeks old today, she has been EBF since birth with no issues. I've just read that if we ever want her to have a bottle, now is the time to introduce it so she doesn't reject in the future. And to bottle feed her once every other day. Is this correct? I don't really want her to have a bottle at the minute but it will be inevitable that she'll need feeding at some point in the future when I'm not there.

If this is correct, I need help! I don't want to give her any formula so would express but I have so many questions! Do I express in between feeds? How much do I need to beable to express for a feed-I have no idea how much she has now! What type of pump do I need etc? I basically need a dummies guide to expressing and introducing a bottle! It just seems so soon to have to think about this.

 

[nicky1987]

Daddy gives jasmine one expressed bottle a night (so I can have a break And he can have some bonding time) and she's had no problems swapping between the two. Only other time shell have a bottle is if we are going out and there's nowhere for me to feed her x

 

[tiggy85]

The website Kellymom has a guide for how much expressed milk for a bottle....depends on how often they feed per day but the average for babies over one month is 25oz over 24 hours , so divide that by number of feeds.

As far as pumping I pump at the time that I would normally feed if practicle or I pump after a morning feed as I normally have enough left over!

I have a Avent manual and electric pump and I find the manual much better as I can mimic how my baby feeds throughout thus gain more milk quicker!

I started the odd bottle at 4 weeks and he took it straight away no problems then at 8 weeks started refusing bottles! It took till 12 weeks for him to start accepting them again ......little devil! I have heard it doesn't matter when you introduce a bottle.....but as Long as your sure breastfeeding is going well!

 

[l_maclean]

If bf is going well, I'd introduce bottle sooner rather than later. There are some stories about nipple confusion, bit that's rare. Far more people seen to have problems leaving it too late.
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