Our situation is this: My DD is 4 1/2 months old exclusively breastfed. I work two days a week and pump while I am away. Up until a couple of weeks ago she was drinking just 4 oz bottles every 3 hours the days I work. I sent a few 5 oz. bottles with her a week or two ago and she seemed to drink those up too, so I started sending all 5 oz bottles. Now, she seems like she could drink more, but I am pumping just enough to get 15 oz (3 bottles). She is a little peanut at just 13 lbs so I don't want to short her if she would drink more I want her to! It just have not been able to fit in one more pumping session during my day to get more ounces for her...while with me she will nurse every 3-3.5 hours, usually 7 x a day...
So, my questions, is it OK to mix the BM with formula? If so, do I just add a few ounces to each bottle of BM? Is this compeltely OK to do?
Thank you!
Thanks everyone!
She seems to follow the same eating "schedule" she does at home while at daycare, every 3-4 hours so I don't think she is eating when she isn't hungry. I am just trying to make sure she is "filled up" after eating. I had no idea what to start with as far as amounts when I came back to work a month ago, she hadn't had many bottles until then, so the 4 ounces was a starting point since I can't measure how much she gets while nursing...my friend that watches her has commented that my DD seems like she would eat more per bottle if there were 6+ ounces. She always tells me she "sucked" down her bottles! I guess I should just experiment and see what DD thinks!
K.
You have gotten great tips already.You could also try to pump once a day while you are home with her to send more BM. It is good for one week refrigerated and up to about 6 or 7 months frozen. Good Luck.
J.
You can, but you might also find out how they are feeding her and if she really needs the larger amounts or if they are placating her with food or using a bottle when they should try a pacifier.
kellymom.com has more info.
You could mix the two, or feed the two separately. When my DD went to daycare, she drank formula there and only breastmilk at home.
Yes - it's totally ok to do it. I'd mix the formula first, then add the breastmilk.
its fine. i would get similic early shield (the blue kind) and get the powdered. i would do like 2oz per bottle bc that is 7oz per bottle
I don't have time to read the other responses, all I want to add is that when you are adding the formula to the BM that you make sure the formula is mixed properly.
When I was going through this with my first daughter I made a huge mistake. I wanted her to stay fuller longer at night (so she'd sleep longer)so I added a scoop of formula mix directly to my breast milk. Well needless to say it was way too heavy on her stomach and instead of sleeping through the night she ended up vomitting through the night. I felt horrible. Not that you'd make the same mistake I did, I just wanted to put it out there! Best wishes to you and yours!
I did this with my daughter after I quit BFing - I had stocked up a supply of it and to transistion to formula we mixed the two - she fought the transistion, so this helped ease her into it. Mix the formula, then add the BM - but like someone else said, it's only good for like an hour once its prepared.
Yes it is. Or you could supplement by giving her a bottle of formula in between to allow your supply to build up.
Yes! It is totally OK to do. Its actually what I had to do to get my daughter started on a bottle, and to like formula. However, I don't believe the bottle will be good for as long with formula in it as opposed to just BM. I think BM is good at room temperature for like 4 hours but formula for just 1.
I actually just discussed this with a lactation consultant, because my daughter seems to eat way more pumped milk than straight from the tap. She told me that babies are like adults, in that they don't feel full until 20 minutes after they start eating. It takes more time & effort to get the milk from you than from a bottle. So if they guzzle down a whole bottle in 10 minutes or less, they'll still want to eat more, and they they'll get too full and get upset, but they might not be able to spit up the extra. Make sure you are using the slowest-flow nipples you can find on her bottles. Also explain to the people at her daycare to try to stretch her feedings out to at least 20 minutes or she'll get a bellyache. They may want to stop her halfway through the feeding, burp her, just stall and make it last longer. Hope that helps!
Yes you could, but I would do what an earlier poster suggested and find out if she is getting fed when she isn't really hungry and I would add and extra pumping too.
well, i dont know for sure. in all reality, one bottle of formula instead of the milk isnt going to hurt her either.
however, the most important part of breastmilk is the demand increases the supply. what would help is when you are home, nursing more often. she is going through a growth spurt, and she will do it again in another 2 months as well, and if you want your supply to keep up, you have to have that near constant nursing.
contact the la leche league for more information.
however, as i said, even if it doesnt work out, and you can only do so much, giving her formula once in a bottle, OR, when you are at work she can have formula and when you are home she can nurse, getting ANY amount of breastmilk is better than having none! :):) so do what you can, contact the la leche league, and just try to nurse her as often as you possibly can when you are with her. your body will adjust to the amount of milk you need at a certain time, so it might adjust so that you have more milk during the times you are with her than when you are not. (the pump doesnt stimulate the breast the same as the pump will anyway, so this might be the case, and why you arent getting more).
anyway, stress less. nurse often (day and night! night nursings are as important as day ones!).
you can do this!
I think it would be fine to mix them, but I would not do it simply to avoid the chance of wasting the BM. What I used to do would be to increase the bottle to what I thought she would eat, and then if I didn't have enough send one bottle of formula with the other bottles and keep the BM in the fridge at home. Every 2-3 days, she will have all BM.
My sister ran into a problem similar to this: she would pump what she knew would be enough for her son throughout the day, often times, leaving more than enough only to come home from work and find that her husband gave their son every single ounce to their son...throughout the day. I suggested to her that her husband may have been giving a bottle to their son when he wasn't truly hungry. Many times he would call my sister and tell her that he ran out of milk and she was absolutely beside herself because she was at work, pumping throughout the day in preparation for the next time she had to work and here her husband was calling her mid-day with the news that he was almost out of milk.
Much to her disappointment , she did indeed find that her husband was preparing a bottle just because their son was whining but may not have been truly hungry, sometimes giving him a bottle every 30 minutes. For your situation, I would investigate how much time is passing between one bottle to the next.
As for mixing breast milk and formula, yes you can do it. Use the breast milk, whatever you have and make enough formula to make up the difference you need.
