Combination Feeding?

[cookswithwine9]

Hi Breastfeeding Board!

My DS is 3 mo old and has been exclusively breastfed. I just started back to work this week and I have been pumping at work. He takes 3 5oz bottles while I am gone. As I'm sure many of you know, pumping at work can be difficult! I was wondering if anyone has experience with combination feeding? Example: replacing his 3 bottles while I am away with formula but still continue to nurse him when we are together. I don't want to quit nursing him yet but I am not sure how much longer I can last pumping at work. Thank you for any insight you can provide!

[lilyelayne]

seamonster combination fed for a lot of the first year, though she did pump too. Any advice?

[emmyg65]

How long are you away for? A 5 oz. bottle is on the high end for a BF baby, especially at just 3 months. Is your provider using paced feeding? It's really common for care providers to over feed, making it very hard for a pumping mom to keep up.

It is possible to combo feed, but if you're at work for like 8 hours, that's a really long time to go without pumping or nursing, and it's not likely your supply would keep up, especially if you start so early.

[cookswithwine9]

Feb 10, 2017 18:40:48 GMT -5 emmyg65 said:

How long are you away for? A 5 oz. bottle is on the high end for a BF baby, especially at just 3 months. Is your provider using paced feeding? It's really common for care providers to over feed, making it very hard for a pumping mom to keep up.

It is possible to combo feed, but if you're at work for like 8 hours, that's a really long time to go without pumping or nursing, and it's not likely your supply would keep up, especially if you start so early.

I nurse him at 630am and then again at 530pm when I get home. He gets the bottles spaced in btw those times. I'm not familiar with what paced feedings are. But if you try and take the bottle away while he's eating he starts screaming.

[lilyelayne]

Feb 10, 2017 19:16:07 GMT -5 cookswithwine9 said:

Feb 10, 2017 18:40:48 GMT -5 emmyg65 said:

How long are you away for? A 5 oz. bottle is on the high end for a BF baby, especially at just 3 months. Is your provider using paced feeding? It's really common for care providers to over feed, making it very hard for a pumping mom to keep up.

It is possible to combo feed, but if you're at work for like 8 hours, that's a really long time to go without pumping or nursing, and it's not likely your supply would keep up, especially if you start so early.

I nurse him at 630am and then again at 530pm when I get home. He gets the bottles spaced in btw those times. I'm not familiar with what paced feedings are. But if you try and take the bottle away while he's eating he starts screaming.

Paced feeding is a method to make bottle feed more closely mimic a nursing session. Protects against overfeeding and bottle preference.

youtu.be/UH4T70OSzGs

kellymom.com/bf/pumpingmoms/feeding-tools/bottle-feeding/

[bazinga]

cookswithwine9, I combo fed DS1 when I went back to work when he was 12wks old. I would BF as you described - before leaving, when I got home, bedtime and MOTN. He would get 3 bottles of formula during the day. I phased into this between 8 and 12 weeks replacing daytime feeds gradually (I'd planned to give up BF after a very difficult time and aversion to pumping but found this worked for us). We kept this up until he was 6mo when he was STTN and my supply started to drop. Given I thought I was done at 6 weeks I was happy to know is made it to 6 months.

I plan to try and do the same for DS2 when I return to work late April. My target is 6 months. I'd like to try and go longer the time if I can.

Good luck whatever you decide.

[seamonster]

Three 5oz bottles, while on the high end is not unusual. If you look at the research summary Kellymom has to get their average this would actually be quite normal for a 3 month old depending on how much they nurse otherwise.

I would continue to pump to keep up your supply. How many times a day are you pumping? Four killed me and three was hard, but pump at least twice at work a day to maintain supply. Depending on your response to to pump you might be able to do it in two sessions and meet your need.

You can do an ounce for ounce substitution of formula for breast milk. As a backup for extra hungry days, I gave daycare a few little prepackaged bottles of formula. I did this when I found I couldn't pump enough even with 3 or 4 sessions. But I didn't pump on weekends and drank nursing tea all the time to keep up my supply.

[seamonster]

Feb 10, 2017 19:16:07 GMT -5 cookswithwine9 said:

Feb 10, 2017 18:40:48 GMT -5 emmyg65 said:

How long are you away for? A 5 oz. bottle is on the high end for a BF baby, especially at just 3 months. Is your provider using paced feeding? It's really common for care providers to over feed, making it very hard for a pumping mom to keep up.

It is possible to combo feed, but if you're at work for like 8 hours, that's a really long time to go without pumping or nursing, and it's not likely your supply would keep up, especially if you start so early.

I nurse him at 630am and then again at 530pm when I get home. He gets the bottles spaced in btw those times. I'm not familiar with what paced feedings are. But if you try and take the bottle away while he's eating he starts screaming.

Mine did that. He did ok with paced feeding, if they ignored his fits. The burping with paced feeding helped with his reflux, as did using anti-colic bottles. He eventually got really strong and would fight his caregivers for his bottle and feed himself. Don't miss with giant hungry babies.

[cookswithwine9]

Feb 12, 2017 23:50:28 GMT -5 seamonster said:

Three 5oz bottles, while on the high end is not unusual. If you look at the research summary Kellymom has to get their average this would actually be quite normal for a 3 month old depending on how much they nurse otherwise.

I would continue to pump to keep up your supply. How many times a day are you pumping? Four killed me and three was hard, but pump at least twice at work a day to maintain supply. Depending on your response to to pump you might be able to do it in two sessions and meet your need.

You can do an ounce for ounce substitution of formula for breast milk. As a backup for extra hungry days, I gave daycare a few little prepackaged bottles of formula. I did this when I found I couldn't pump enough even with 3 or 4 sessions. But I didn't pump on weekends and drank nursing tea all the time to keep up my supply.

I have to pump 3x at work to get the 15oz. Normally I pump a little more than that, 16.5-19.5 depending on the day but only 2 sessions is not enough to get me the 15. I was hoping to avoid pumping on the weekends but I think I will have to because I need some extra bags for when I leave him with grandparents.

[seamonster]

Feb 13, 2017 9:15:39 GMT -5 cookswithwine9 said:

Feb 12, 2017 23:50:28 GMT -5 seamonster said:

Three 5oz bottles, while on the high end is not unusual. If you look at the research summary Kellymom has to get their average this would actually be quite normal for a 3 month old depending on how much they nurse otherwise.

I would continue to pump to keep up your supply. How many times a day are you pumping? Four killed me and three was hard, but pump at least twice at work a day to maintain supply. Depending on your response to to pump you might be able to do it in two sessions and meet your need.

You can do an ounce for ounce substitution of formula for breast milk. As a backup for extra hungry days, I gave daycare a few little prepackaged bottles of formula. I did this when I found I couldn't pump enough even with 3 or 4 sessions. But I didn't pump on weekends and drank nursing tea all the time to keep up my supply.

I have to pump 3x at work to get the 15oz. Normally I pump a little more than that, 16.5-19.5 depending on the day but only 2 sessions is not enough to get me the 15. I was hoping to avoid pumping on the weekends but I think I will have to because I need some extra bags for when I leave him with grandparents.

I think you'd be OK to drop down to twice at work and use formula to cover the extra that you need. I would get 8-9 ounces over the course of the day and needed 15oz. So I would make one 5oz bottle and save the rest for the next day and combine with that day to get two 5 oz bottles. The other bottles for daycare were formula (these were 5-7oz depending on age; I had a big baby so we were always on the high end of intake needs).

You could leave formula and some pumped milk for the weekend with the grandparents. I rarely pumped on the weekends because I just didn't have time. If you go the formula route, giving a probiotics powder in the bottle (add at feeding time) can help with digestive issues with formula.

[cookswithwine9]

Thanks seamonster!
Can you combine breast milk and formula in 1 bottle? Or the bottle has to be either totally breast milk or formula? Ex: I have 4oz of breast milk and I need 1 more oz. could I add 1oz of formula to that bottle?

[seamonster]

Feb 13, 2017 10:54:40 GMT -5 cookswithwine9 said:

Thanks seamonster!
Can you combine breast milk and formula in 1 bottle? Or the bottle has to be either totally breast milk or formula? Ex: I have 4oz of breast milk and I need 1 more oz. could I add 1oz of formula to that bottle?

You can't combine them into the same bottle. That's why if you don't have enough for a bottle one day save it and combine with pumped milk the next day to get a full bottle or freeze for later.