introducing a bottle of ebm

[siany]

Hi all,
I have a five week old baby who is breast feeding well. I would like to introduce a bottle of expressed breast milk for her 11pm feed from six weeks onwards. I need some advice on what time of day I should express milk. I am worried that if I do it before her feed there will be no milk for her and if I do it after her feed there will be no milk to express . I want to have a small supply before I start next week. At present she feeds from the breast every 3-4 hours. Things are going so well with this that I am a little scared of upsetting the flow, but my OH is going back to work next week so I will be getting less sleep and think it would really help if he was able to give the 11pm feed.
thanks for your help.

 

[drea b]

I'm pretty sure they say that the best time to express is after her first feed in the morning. That, or the middle of the night - personally I would go with the morning

 

[charlie84]

When i express it is usually after the first morning feed. When Calleigh was sleeping through this was the best time for me as i was very full and she never drained me completely on her first feed.
Remember your boobs work on supply and demand, so if you were to express once a day, your boobs will produce more milk. Same as when LO has a growth spurt they suckle longer and more often which in turn makes you produce more milk.
So your LO will never be short of milk. If you think she is still hungry whilst feeding just keep swapping boobs till she is satisfied.

If you only express little amount, you can store it in the fridge and if you continue to express in the day you can add that to what you earlier expressed, then freeze it.

I recommend the breastmilk bags you can get to store the milk in I stored it in amounts of about 3ozs so that when it came to using i could defrost only what i needed without wasting huge quantities.

You wont upset the flow of her feeding hun, she may take a while to get used to the bottle and that someone other than her mummy is feeding her.
My LO never took to the bottle in the end, so now i have alot of milk in the top of my freezer thats not gonna get used. So i ended up donating any further milk expressed to the milk bank at my local hospital.

 

[Charlie:-)]

I startd to express at 5 weeks for the very same reaso so Hubby could feed Maia at 11pm.

Initially I did start to express in the morning whilst she was napping usually after she had had her feed but now I just express as and when I can. Maia doesnt normally feed from both so I know I can express from one and I will always have enough to feed her from the other.

I have even expressed form one while she's feeding from the other. Another good time I found was at 10pm because that was the feed she was going to be having in her bottle, although supply can be limited at that time and I always nearly had to express from both. By expressing at this time you dont get a back up of milk in your boobies which might be uncomfortable if your LO doesnt wake for a while for the next feed.

If you do express at different times during the day and store it in the fridge just remember that if you are adding to this throughout the day you will need to cool the milk down before adding to the stored milk, I made the mistake of not doing this and maia had an upset tummy because I added warm milk to very cold milk. Now I cool the milk by siting the bottle in a jug of cold water and shaking occasionaly then add it to the very cold milk after about 5 mins.

Maia took the bottle no problem and initially had no problem going back to boob but after a few weeks she started to get nipple confusion. So I switched to using a bottle that had a teat shaped like the nipple and I switched her dummy too. I now use NUK bottles and dummy theres a few on here who use the same brand as recommended by Sherlock, im sure she is on commission Something to watch out for if you start to experience problems.

Good luck hope your LO take the bottle ok.

 

[lfc_sarah]

The morning is best IMO

Fuller breasts

 

[siany]

thanks for all the advice, especially about cooling the milk as I would have definately made this mistake. Had a bit of disaster after my first try at expressing today, I knock over the pump bottle and spilt the lot I WAS SOOOOOO annoyed as it had taken ages. OH didnt help when he glibly remarked that there is no point crying over spilt milk

 

[kazzie-bo]

hi sorry to hi-jack
but i wanted to ask about adding freshly expressed milk to milk in the fridge as i did this today.....

i had 1 oz of milk on fridge from this am and added it to 3 oz freshly expressed milk at 4pm to freeze. have i ruined the whole lot? will it make my baby ill? should i now throw it away?

and to the OP i find after the first feed of the day the best time to express!!

 

[flowergirl]

I find that expressing a bit after each feed from the opposite boob to the one I fed LO from helped to increase my supply and meant that my boobs had time to refill before the next feed. Initially I would aim to collect 2oz per day and have gradulally upped the amount to 4-6oz a day depending on how often I manage to express.

but i wanted to ask about adding freshly expressed milk to milk in the fridge as i did this today.....

i had 1 oz of milk on fridge from this am and added it to 3 oz freshly expressed milk at 4pm to freeze. have i ruined the whole lot? will it make my baby ill? should i now throw it away?

I'm not sure I would risk giving this milk as the cold milk has effectively been warmed up and then cooled again. It is true however that breastmilk has anti bacterial properties which when stored below 4 degrees in the fridge will keep the milk fresh for up to 8 days. Do what you feel is right xxx

 

[Charlie:-)]

hi sorry to hi-jack
but i wanted to ask about adding freshly expressed milk to milk in the fridge as i did this today.....

i had 1 oz of milk on fridge from this am and added it to 3 oz freshly expressed milk at 4pm to freeze. have i ruined the whole lot? will it make my baby ill? should i now throw it away?

and to the OP i find after the first feed of the day the best time to express!!

When freezing milk it should be frozen immediately after expressing, so you should freeze the 1oz then freeze the 3oz seperately.

Hope that helps

 

[kazzie-bo]

ok thanks girls
i thought i could add to expressed milk throughout the day then freeze a reasonable amount together.

should i throw those 4 oz down the sink then? who would risk it?

the milk i had added to the 1 oz was prob at room temp when i added it as it took me 20 mins to express it and i always pump for 5 mins after the last drop had come out.

 

[charlie84]

Ok girls
Have a looky at these recommendations for storage of breastmilk
http://www.babycentre.co.uk/baby/breast ... ilkexpert/

 

[kelsey]

Firstly well done for doing so well with breastfeeding. Sometimes its better to express in the mornings as your breasts can be fuller at this tiime but this isn't always the case. What you could do is everytime you breastfeed, either a) espress from the other breast or b) espress immediately after you've fed or like me i did both. It increases your milk supply and done often enough the milk supply will increase enough to express more at a pumping session.

You can store breast milk for up to 3 days in the fridge as long as the fridge is below 10 degrees - there's some great info here about it http://www.breastfeedingnetwork.org.uk/ ... toring.pdf