Our feeding experience - I need your input (1st results in!)

[erin]

Hi all,

Since Maya was born I've been struggling with breastfeeding and have been juggling between breast, EBM and formula. I've had a few problems and have always wondered what it is like for other women.

I'm beginning this poll in the hope of creating useful statistics on what is involved when feeding our babies. To start with, I'm looking for information on how we get on feeding our babies on a weekly basis, up to week 25 or whatever week you are up to so far. If enough people answer then I shall make more graphs to show more information, such as feeds per day, ml/oz per feed etc.

For now, the information I need is whether feeding involved:

A. Exclusively formula
B. Exclusively breastfeeding
C. Exclusively expressing
AB. Complementing breastfeeding with formula (no expressing)
BC. Breastfeeding and expressing (no formula)
AC. Complementing expressing with formula (no breastfeeding)
ABC. Complementing breastfeeding with formula and expressing (all three)

The format of the information I'm looking for is:

Week 1: B
Week 2: B
Week 3: BC
Week 4: ABC
Week 5: B
Week 6: AB
...
Week 25: A

I realise that you may have changed categories in the middle of a week. If that's the case, choose the category that applied for most of that week.

When I have enough - say more than 30 - replies for each week I shall post a graph for that week so that each person can see where they are in relation to the rest of the people in the forum who answer for that week. Of course, by the very nature of the graph, this will be anonymous. To maintain anonymity, please send your info as pm to me - unless of course you prefer to post it as a reply.

Because I imagine and hope that more and more people will respond to this in time, the graphs for each week will evolve over time. Please respond with information you would be interested in as well.

Thanks for your replies in advance!

 

[Snuggle]

Ok mine is pretty easy:-

Week 1 - AC
Week 2 - AC
Week 3 - AC
Week 4 til present (week 14) - A

 

[erin]

To start it off, here is my experience so far:

Week 1: B
Week 2: B
Week 3: B
Week 4: BC
Week 5: ABC
Week 6: ABC

I'm currently on week 7 and am doing ABC.

Please feel free to pm me your input if you prefer.

edit: I posted second after all

 

[Becky&Willow]

mine is very easy

week 1 til present - A

 

[Emmylou]

Week 1 - 10: B
Week 11-12: BC
Week 12-14: AB
Week 14+ A

 

[maybebaby]

Weeks 1-5 (inclusive) - B
Weeks 6-26 - BC
Weeks 26-38(now) - AB

 

[KJ]

Easy for mine.

Week 1 to present (week 11) - B.

K.xx

 

[MissThing]

Mine is all bumps Wouldnt wish this to anybody.

Week 1 - B
Week 2 - AC (Daniel lost lots of weight, so was advised in hospital to express + formula)
Week 3 - AC
Week 4 - A (Got fed up with expressing)
Week 5 - AB (Decided I am not ready to give up bf yet)
Week 6 - ABC
Week 7 - ABC
Week 8 - ABC
Week 9 - AC ( Daniel realised, that getting it from the bottle is much easier)
Week 10 - AC
Week 12 - AB (Finally managed to relactate him again)
Week 13 - ABC

 

[nefisher]

Mine is:

Week 1-11 - B
Week 12-present (week 27) - AB

 

[nikkif]

week 1 - B
Week 2- B
week 3 - AB
week 4 to now (week 13) - A

 

[valentine]

Weeks 1-3 B
Week 3+ BC
Week 6+ (currently in week 21) B (not sure what to put here - I've never used formula to date - but only express once every few weeks, not very often - I did build up a supply for the freezer from when DD was 3 weeks old and went through a period of expressing every 2 days for about 3 weeks taking me up to week 6 or so. I do express now but very rarely).

erin - hope you are doing okay - please PM me or post here if you'd like any help, support or advice with breastfeeding.

I'll be interested in seeing the results of the poll.

Valentine Xxx

 

[kelly'n'jack]

week 1: abc
week 2+: a

 

[Tangerinedream]

Week 1-present: A

 

[leckershell]

Week 1 - AB
Week 2-6 - BC
Week 7-12 - B
Week 13-17 - ABC

That's as far as I'm upto

 

[Melanie]

From week 1 until present are all B's (I just worked it out, we are at week 60! 1year,1month, 3weeks and 5days of only ever boobie feeding!!)

 

[erin]

Bump (for more feedback)

 

[batgirl3111]

Erin - this is a great idea and should be very useful.

For me it has been AC for the first six weeks which is how old he is now.

 

[trixipaws]

up to week 27: B (breastfeeding only)

weeks 27 & 28: AB complementing breast with formula

 

[Hells]

Week 1: C (baby in scbu)
Week 2: CB (struggled to get him to feed from me not the bottle)
week 3: B (cracked it)
week 4 to 10: B (still going)

Interesting idea, I can't wait to see the results.

 

[erin]

Here are the first results. I'm only showing results for the first 10 weeks, as the total number of replies for each week after that, drops significantly compared to week 1.

What I can see from what we have here is that about 1/3 of us experiment a bit in the first six weeks and then most of us settle between exclusively breastfeeding or exclusively formula.

Of course there aren't a lot of replies to provide any statistical significance, but at least they show how we compare to each other. Keep those replies and updates coming. They will make the results more meaningful.

Thanks!