Hi

I am due soonish with our first baby and am wanting to know when you can begin using a bottle in conjunction with breast feeding. Obviously i would be expressing milk for the bottle.

I know that some people think only the mum should do all the feeding and that is fine but my father helped feed all of us and he loved it, so my partner wants to be involved too - which is awesome smile

So anyway when do you start introducing a bottle and how many bottles should i get in preparation?

Thanks for your help

I just wanted to let you know that there is a reason why a lot of mothers exclusively feed there babies and this is because any type of expressing and bottle feeding has the potential to make breastfeeding a lot more difficult, there are things like nipple confusion and supply issues when u start using a pump. There are lots of other things daddy's can do to bond with their babies, baths, playing, burping and taking bubs for a walk when u need a break ect ect i would highly suggest leaving the feeding to you. Breast milk is the best thing for your baby and its the mothers job to give this to them if you can, after 6 months dad can get involved with feeding by giving solids ect.
If you are sure you want to express and let dad feed bubs then i suggest only doing it very occasionally and definitely not before the 10 week mark before breastfeeding is well established.

Sorry if its not the answer you were after
xx

Personally I wouldn't start introducing a bottle until after 6weeks when your milk supply is established. If you give a bottle before then you will have to still express at the time of feeding so that your supply doesn't decrease (especially if it's not just a one off thing).

As for how many bottles that depends. How often you want to give a bottle? If its only a once a day thing then you could easily just use one or two bottles just wash it as you use it.

Just to mention, expressing is hard work for some (me included) and can take time to get used to and get any milk out. And some breastfed bub don't take to bottles very well (both mine have not liked bottles). So don't stress yourself trying to express for your partner if it is too hard.

I know it's great that he want to be involved. For me though and my personal experience I would much rather do night feeds myself than to express everyday and wash bottles. But that's just me. All i'm trying to say is if it's not working don't feel bad and like your excluding your partner from the feeding.

Goodluck with your birth and breastfeeding smile

I personally loved having a stock of ebm in the freezer and DS had bottles from only a few weeks of age (I think 3-4 weeks from memory) XDP was always up late anyway, so on the days when he fed him a late night bottle (probably 1-2 times a week) it meant I could get a solid 6+ hrs sleep! It's really a personal thing, if it suits you then do it!

As others have said, it can affect your supply but it also depends on the individual. It never worried me as I reckon I could have fed half the town and still had enough to stockpile in the freezer! lol.

With our first daughter I waited till she was about 6 weeks old to give her expressed breast milk in a bottle. She was fine with it every second day until she was about 12 weeks old then we went away for a long weekend and she didnt have her bottle- that was the end of it! She wouldnt take a bottle after that no matter what I tried (and I tried EVERYTHING!!!)

With our second daughter she had her first bottle when she was about 4r weeks old, took a couple of diiferent teets to figure out what she would suck but once we figured that out she was sorted.

At first I was so worried she would start to refuse it like her sister but so far she has been fine. She only has a bottle about once or twice a week now. I think in my case it has been the personality of my babies when it come to taking or not taking the bottle.

Make sure you're well informed before you decide what you are going to do. There are lots of breastfeeding support services out there that you can go to for help and information.

All the best for the rest of your pregnancy smile

Thanks for those helpful replies, i was thinking of seeing how it goes i thought somewhere between 6 - 12 weeks smile

DS had his first bottle at 4wks as a practice run for the following week when I had to attend DF's graduation in another town an hours drive away.

He was fine with it, but we only used it the twice while BFing. Due to my health from before I had DS I began FF about 8wks, but this had nothing to do with supply, etc.

If I could have, I would have breastfed for as long as I could but I had to go back to work when Milla was just over 4 months so I had to express milk and put it into her bottles sad