Is your baby comfortable with both BFing and bottle?

[BridalLace]

i will have to go back to work in August. i am curious about hearing from those moms who both pump EBM (and feed it to their baby by bottle) and breastfeed in the same day. such a thing is possible, right? or did your baby start to reject the breast once he/she got used to bottles? i don't want to just get stuck pumping for the next 10 months while i'm at work...i want my daughter to accept BFing in the evenings when i get home...but i realize this might become confusing for her. :(

i really want to continue BFing, i enjoy/like the closeness it brings with my daughter and of course, the nutritional/beneficial aspects aren't so bad, either. ;)

any insight from Mommies who both bottle feed(EBM) and breastfeed at the same time would be welcome - tips/advice etc.

thanks,

Heather

[BTB]

DD switch-hits no problem. She had her first bottle at 4 weeks exactly, and has had one bottle of EBM per day since, almost always from her daddy, though she'll take it from me too. We started with the Playtex ventaire bottles and the natural shape nipples (same as natural latch but for the ventaire system) and the nipples started repeatedly clogging. We switched to Avent bottles, much better! The LC advised us to keep her on wide-based, newborn (slow-flow) nipples as long as possible, that faster flow once she got used to it could frustrate her at the breast, and also to latch her onto the bottle the same way I'd feed her instead of 'plunking' the bottle into her mouth. So far, so good!

[Cohl]

My DD has taken both since a very young age and we've never had any problems.

[Dally]

We also introduced a bottle at 4 weeks (Avent, newborn nipple!) as part of our supplementing. Now, at seven weeks, DD has taken a bottle (mostly EBM--and entirely EBM lately) once almost every day from her Daddy. I was worried it would affect BFing, but it hasn't at all. She definately prefers BFing. :)

[sparkle&shine]

My DS will take both but prefers the breast. I use only Avent bottles with the slow flow nipple so he has to work at sucking harder which is more like the breast. I started giving him bottles at about 5 weeks or so but that was very sporadic until I went back to work. Luckily I live close enough to go home everyday at lunch to BF him so he only takes 2 bottles a day. Pumping is going great and we haven't had to sumpliment at all and he is 8 months old. My first day back at work he totally rejected the bottle and didn't eat much at all. After we got our routine going everything was great though! He will take a bottle from anyone but me.

[BooeyJ2]

I gave birth to a pirana......she'll take anything! LOL.

[Jessie]

DD has had no problem. She usually only gets a bottle (of EBM) once or twice a week.

[SiValleySteph]

I'll be an obligitory other.

Now, my DS takes both with no problem. 3 bottles a day at daycare of EBM and breastfeeds like a fiend right after work, before bed, and 2 times overnight/when he wakes up. Of course, he is a wiggle monster now, so it is a PITA to breastfeed during the day on the weekends. :p

Before, back when I went back to work (at 4 mo), DS went on a hunger strike protest and there were several days when he would only eat 2oz a day while I was at work. My mom watched him at the time and she was very patient with him and he had it down within a couple weeks and even ate as much as 26oz some days! Mondays he would eat less after a weekend of breastfeeding as he relearned the bottle. When he started daycare at 7mo, it took him a few days to get a hang of the new place, so he ate less for a few days.

He now gets 16oz of EBM a day at daycare as well as lunch and snacks. He is 9mo old and I haven't had to supplement with formula ever. I'm hoping to make it to 1 yr. Keeping my fingers crossed!

Oh, and to be extra weird, we used stage 3 nipples since about 2 months because I had/have a strong let down and they matched my flow better.

ETA: So he never rejected the breast, but we had a lot of bottle rejection going on around these parts...

[mamacita]

I voted with the majority, but really I should second Steph's answer. With both of my girls, we've had bottle rejection. With my older daughter, there was a solid month or so that we had the hardest time getting her to take any kind of supplementary feeding (which was a big problem because I had supply issues). With her little sister, who is about 12 weeks old now, it looks like we may run into some of the same issues. She's had bottles from the beginning (I had to pump after every feeding to boost my supply and she would get what I pumped in a bottle immediately), but she pretty intently spits them out unless you're *very* patient with her and she's pretty hungry.

By the time you head back to work, most babies are pretty fond of the boob and it takes more than a few bottles to change that. ;)

[BridalLace]

thank you for all the advice - the newlymoms community on LJ seems to have the consensus that Playtex VentAires are good and Avent bottles leak - but a lot of you seem to like the Avent ones - so i might try both. i just bought a set of VentAires yesterday. hmm...

i am encouraged to hear so many success stories. please keep them coming. i am getting a lot of ideas and reassurance from hearing about your experiences. more tips and advice, first hand knowledge etc is very much wanted and appreciated!

thanks,

Heather

[SiValleySteph]

BridalLace, I was going to say that I never had a problem with the Avent bottle leaking and then I realized I've only given him a bottle like less than 10 times! :D

But my mom watched him for 3 months and she never said anything to me and I make up the bottles and I've never had any problems with leaks. :)

[Katie]

Just wanted to reply to the Avent bottles leaking. My DH complained of that when he fed DS a bottle of EBM. I read somewhere that tightening it too much will cause it to leak and we haven't had a problem since.

I have been pumping since day one practically and have given DS bottles of EBM. He definitely prefers the breast. When I have left him for a couple of hours he won't eat from the bottle unless he's starving. Otherwise he does this choking sound when we try to give it to him. :rolleyes: I'm anxious to see how we will do when he starts daycare in 2 weeks.

[tin roof rusted]

OT:

mamacita, i swear, your av never fails to crack me up.

[kmmommy]

Kaeden was comfortable with both from the start. We use the playtex bottles with the drop-in liners. I don't know if that had much to do with it, but it worked for us.

[moderngal]

DS takes DrBrown's bottles of EBM while I'm at work and BFs while I'm home- no problems. I'm switching jobs in 2 weeks and will hopefully be able to BF at my lunch hour a few times a week. He also takes a pacifier with no problems.

[seattleguamgirl]

DS has been able to switch b/w bottle and breast since he was three weeks old with no problems! We also use Avent bottles (he is now on stage 2 nips) and have had no leak issues.

I give him a bottle of EBM every night.

[emschwar]

We first gave Noah a bottle at 4 weeks, no problem. He goes back and forth like a pro now, BUT won't drink EBM in the bottle, only formula. Weirdo.

[December27JJB]

My baby accepts both the breast and the bottle.

When she was born, I ended up having an unexpected c-section. Much to my dissappointment, they gave her a bottle (Formula) before I could breastfeed her. (My blood pressure dropped so much during the operation that I had to go to the recovery room so I couldnt be with the baby.) Thankfully, she prefers the breast now.

However, she gulps a lot when she drinks so I prefer her to get the breast because she gets so gassy from all the air in the bottle. I use the Medela bottles and they work ok--sometimes she will make a mess so I have to pull the bottle away to clean her off. I give her the bottle if I have to, like if we're in the car or in a public place.

[HGMorgann]

My daughter is mainly exclusevily breastfed by the breast. She really dislikes any bottles. However, formula (Alimentium) works better than EBM, kinda like Emchwar's answer. She gets like one bottle of formula every 2 weeks, so I am not a good answerer really, huh? I SAHM so it is not worth the bottle fight every day.

[cynder]

DS has been going back and forth from the bottle and breast from day 3 and does fine. We use Avent bottles and had a few leaking incidents in the beginning but now I learned to check the tightness of the top when making bottles. My friend who is FFing her 4 mo uses the same bottles and noticed that DS latches to the bottle nipple differently since we are breastfeeding.

[Renrel]

We have gone through all three options, takes both, takes only breast and takes only bottle. It took time and patience to get through the rejections and it was emotionally tough but we made it to the other side. We are still BFing at 20 mnths.

It is hard to remember much from year one these days but I remember we did offer formula bottles the first week or two at doctors orders due to slow weight gain. I knew the problem was me not offering enough breast though, so I pushed more boob and DS took maybe 4 oz of the formula offered during that time. (We were told to offer after he bf so I pushed to make sure he was full before the bottle was offered.)

I forget when we started offering relief bottles but it was probably at about whatever age they say they are passed likely nipple confusion but not yet so anamoured of the boop that they refuse all else -3-4 weeks maybe? DH would try to give one bottle of EBM a day when he was home, he was away 3 days a week every other week. Other than that that it was almost all bfing. Maybe one or 2 small formula bottles when my mom was squish about me bfing in public.

We went through a period of time, maybe a few weeks I forget, when Gabe was totally refusing the bottle which was very hard on DH. He felt so rejected. I am guessing that was around 4-6 months but it is hard to remember. I eventually got him to take the bottle from me an ounce or so at a time and that moved back to him taking it from DH.

We went through breast rejection around 10-12 months. Gabe was very excited about how holding the bottle himself. It gave him control and mobility. I was lucky to get him to nurse for 5 minutes a day first thing in the morning. But I was heck bent on getting to one year so I pushed for that 5 mintues. Then the weekend of his birthday he got sick with a stomach bug and suddenly he was all about bfing. And he has been every since then. He did really like his bottle too but we took them away as an experiment at around 16 months, just to see how he felt about weaning off them. He was fine so we did not give them back.

He drinks out of sippy cup, regular cups, straws and water bottles now. We bfing first thing in the morning, before lunch and at bedtime most days. Often he also squeezes in one more right after daycare and before dinner. Not sure how much milk he is getting but there is still something there.

[BridalLace]

thank you for all the personal anecdotes. i now have a set of Avent and a set of Playtex VentAires, LOL!!! we will try both and see which is best. i hope it all goes well in August...i have a feeling we may end up with bottle rejection at first too.

[Renrel]

For what is is worth, my neices both had trouble with anything but dr.browns so we went straight for those and they worked well for us till the bottle rejection period. Then we switched to the playtex drop ins and they worked. I loved them because I got a kit to pump right into them which meant I no longer had to clean all the bottles I was pumping into and then pouring into bags for storage. My LC told me that when baby start rejecting bottles later on they often will accept the playtex ones.