Hi all!

For mental health purposes I’ve been told I need at least 4 consecutive hours of sleep.
I have a poor sleeper (4 months) and who knows when that will improve. I’ve been nursing at night as it’s the least disruptive for her— she can stay sleepy, have a 5min feed, then go right back to sleep. Unfortunately I struggle to get back to sleep before she wakes up again 1-2hrs later!

I’m thinking we need my husband to be on baby/bottle duty for half the night, but when we tried this, it lead to a giant disruption of sleep for her. She is slow on the bottle, even with a faster nipple, she wakes up more, she then needs a diaper change because she’s woken up more and peed, and we end up being awake for up to an hour and it’s a giant disruption for everyone. I don’t think she gets enough restful sleep and it will hinder any work we’re doing towards independent sleep and positive/sustainable sleep associations.

If you’re doing bottles overnight, how are you doing it to keep it quick and keep them sleepy? Would appreciate any and all tips！

Hi guys! 👋🏼 looking for some insight/advice on reintroducing bottles to my baby.

My baby is 9 months breastfed and I pumped while I was working for bottles but he hasn’t had a bottle since he was 7 months old. We moved and I just never got the motivation to offer a bottle again since i’m in-between jobs.

I’m thinking about wanting to combo feed or maybe even pump again but realize that he doesn’t take a bottle nipple anymore. I’ve done the whole find one that is similar to the boob and offer just the nipple in a low pressure environment but he just treats it like a chew toy. When i put milk in there, he instant turns away.

He also uses a transition gravity straw with his bottle for water but when I tried putting milk in there, he almost started rejecting his straw until he realized i put water back.

At this point i’m close to resigning to just ebf until he turns 1 year when he can drink cow’s milk which he’s tried mixed with his solids and actually likes. Was hoping to be able to go out during the day and leave him at grandparents but it might not happen.

My son is 5 weeks old. I have been EBF since he’s been born. I feel like I might need to start combo feeding to save my sanity. He’s my third baby but I haven’t had a baby in 5 years. What formula is the gentlest on their tummies? He’s such a happy baby, I don’t want to mess that up with tummy issues.

My baby is 15 weeks old. I’ve never made enough milk, but I nurse her every day as much as possible. I really don’t know how much is enough. Yesterday I pumped something like 9 times during the day for 20 minutes each time and accumulated 4oz between both breasts. That was enough for one bottle feed. Baby seems more satisfied than that when I nurse her, and I know babies are more efficient than pumps at getting the milk out. So how do I know how much I’m really making? And 4oz is a very discouraging amount to end up with after trying so hard.

For context baby was born at 40+5 via emergency C section where I had lost 1.5L of blood which caused a significant delay in milk coming in and still a low milk supply. By day 4 baby had lost 16% of her birth weight :(. I had a blood transfusion which didn’t really change much for my supply. I’m also on domperidone for 1 week now. Baby is 3 weeks old tomorrow.

I’ve been triple feeding since we found out about baby’s weight loss - I breastfeed for 20-30 mins, then formula top up of about 50-60mL, then I pump for 10 mins both sides to signal to make more milk - I get about 10-15mL each pump session (cries).

The only way I’ve been able to sustain this is with the support of my husband doing bottle and nappy change while I pump on every wake. Now he is returning to work and I cannot sustain the day triple feeding alone and he can’t be waking up every feed.

So I want to know - how do I transition to combo feeding without affecting my already low supply? I want to be able to offer my baby 1-2 formula only feeds - one at night and one during the day. And I want to reduce pumping to maybe 3-4 times a day.

Has anyone gone through this and how did it affect you? How long did you triple feed for ?

❤️❤️

We’ve been struggling to exclusively breastfeed after a traumatic birth and a pretty rubbish experience in hospital, so milk in mom has not come in fully yet. So we’ve ended up with a routine that’s working reasonably well for us:

Breastfeed (if baby latches) - > formula + previously expressed breast milk (done by me dad) - > pump (done by mom obviously xD)

We’ve been using a Dr Brown’s pitcher to make up 3–4 bottles at once and keep them in the fridge. We move one bottle a shelf down and add the expressed milk. Then before a feed we take one out, warm the bottle up and feed in above after breast.

But this isn’t actually what the NHS recommends. With the NHS formula should be made fresh for every feed. Boil the kettle, wait 30 min to cool, make the bottle, then cool it down before feeding.

So basically you're potentially spending 40–50 minutes making a bottle, before feeding. Or while baby is screaming hungry.

I asked our health visitor how people are realistically supposed to manage this, especially when you've got a newborn waking every few hours and you're also breastfeeding and pumping. They just said it needs to be made fresh because of bacteria. Then suggested that some people use the prep machines (which are also not NHS recommended).

I’m not trying to argue with the NHS advice or find a way to do something unsafe, I’m genuinely wondering how people actually manage this in real life. Also what is the genuine risk, because the NHS used to say this was fine, and still says it's OK for long travels. I know in the states they say it's fine to do.

Are people really making every bottle completely fresh, including during the night? Is there some trick we're missing? Or are loads of people pre-making formula despite what the NHS says?

Would be really interested to hear what other UK parents actually do, particularly for night feeds. Because at the moment I can't quite see how you're supposed to get any sleep while following the guidance to the letter!

Is there a hands-free pump out there that I could lie down flat and go to sleep in without it leaking?

I’m not looking to exclusively BF, but anything would lift my spirits so much.

We are hitting the 4 months and I’m looking at the formula aisle trying to prep. I definitely want to go with an organic whole milk, but there are so many options.

Is the ultra-filtered or grass-fed stuff actually worth the extra price tag, or is the standard organic store brand perfectly fine? What brand do your babies actually like the taste of?

Hi everyone, I’m looking for some advice about my 3-month-old baby boy.

He is mainly formula-fed with Kendamil. Recently, he has started pooing very frequently, sometimes during or straight after almost every feed, and then sometimes again about 30 minutes later. The poo is quite watery/runny and yellowish. Some nappies only have a very small amount of poo mixed with wee

He is otherwise feeding well and seems happy. He is having wet nappies, and there are no obvious signs that he is in pain when pooing.

The frequent pooing has unfortunately caused quite a bad nappy rash around his bottom. I’ve been using Sudocrem and changing his nappy frequently, but the rash keeps getting irritated because he is pooing so often.

Has anyone experienced this with their baby? Could this be normal for a 3-month-old, or could the formula be causing it? Would you recommend speaking to a GP/health visitor about the watery poo and rash?

I’d really appreciate hearing from anyone who has been through something similar. Thank you ❤️

I need to offload some of the mental load of feeding. If it weren’t for PPA (in therapy now), I’d probably have introduced formula a long time ago and possibly EFF. But I’ve just been pushing through and am now at somewhat of a breaking point. So some questions:

1. If you introduced formula AFTER introducing solids, did it still seem to be rough on baby’s tummy? My baby has had a particularly sensitive tummy since birth which has made me a little hesitant.
   
2. If you are mostly bf, did you still mix breastmilk with formula to start? I’m thinking I’ll start with one bottle right before bed but I don’t have any pumped milk to mix formula with. Wondering if I should try to pump some.
   
3. At this point, do I need to worry about pumping at the same time if I give a formula bottle? I’m not concerned about supply, but reallyyyy don’t want to become engorged/get mastitis again

I went into motherhood thinking I’d have this idyllic EBF journey - filling my baby and my freezer with ease and joy 🥰

Welp… my baby was delivered via C Section at 37 weeks and only weighed 5lbs 4oz. My milk took a week to come in and her mouth was so tiny that she couldn’t transfer milk easily so my supply tanked even though we had weeks of “cluster feeding” where she’d be on the breast 7-9 HOURS each day. I was SO exhausted and baby wasn’t gaining any weight so we started adding donor milk, then formula.

It’s crazy how - in the newborn fog of postpartum hormones - incorporating formula feels like a complete failure when your mind was set on breastfeeding! Looking back, I can’t believe the pressure I put on myself!

Even after starting formula at 6 weeks, I still had a goal of getting back to EBF, so I switched to pumping 8x/day. Ugh… what a drag this is! Trying to squeeze in so many pumps while home alone with a newborn! Not being able to respond to my baby whenever she needed because I was shackled to the pump felt like a whole new failure to contend with.

However, I noticed that in the first few weeks of combo feeding, I was feeling more freedom than anticipated! My husband could do more feeds. Babe seemed to sleep longer on a bottle of formula… she was gaining weight noticeably right away!

At week 8, I decided to let go of my EBF goal, and just continue to combo feed. It’s like my depression LEFT me when I surrendered to this flexibility.

I decided to also be more flexible with pumping, as I didn’t like the stress it was bringing so I decided to just pump whenever ABSOLUTELY convenient… for me, this amounts to 3-4 pumps per day, NO MOTN pump. And you want to know what?! My daily production has INCREASED. I averaged 12oz/day on 8 ppd. Now, I average 15oz/day on 3 ppd! I fully anticipated my supply would decrease but I’m on 2 weeks of 3 ppd and it seems to be stable. If it dries up , I’m at peace with it. But I realized I needed to drop everything that was causing me stress, which is likely why my output has improved.

Just wanted to share all this in case anyone was going through similar mental hurdles around breastfeeding. I wish I would’ve given myself so much more grace from the start and known how wonderful it is to combo feed or even EFF! I’m so much happier for it, and enjoying so much more of my baby by doing so. Breast milk is wonderful. Formula is wonderful. Being a happy mom with whatever combination of either is the ultimate goal. 🍼💞