@Rachel you do have to take some precautions but it can be done. Apparently nipple confusion is not really a thing, BUT baby can start to prefer the bottle because it tends to be easier (milk comes out faster), so they have to work less. This is why pace feeding is so important and use slowest flow teats and make the experience as similar to breastfeeding as possible (even latch the same, nose to nipple wait for baby to open wide rather than sticking the bottle in). In the early days you will probably need to hand express or pump while bottle is being given otherwise your body will drop production. We only gave one bottle at nighttime but the time varied which I actually believe that helped maintain my supply because my body couldn’t get used to any pattern. So that would be my recommendation.
Can anyone tell me what they're feeding schedule looks like?
Thank you all 😊 I'm so pleased it can be done effectively. I've read mixed reviews about nipple confusion ect but I think this will be the best option for us as my husband can be involved too xx
I pretty much did the same as Alice except towards the end of my BF journey, my boy preferred bottles so I just pumped instead of BF but it was due to a fast flow rather than any nipple confusion. I also sometimes mixed formula and expressed night milk into one bottle which we found worked really well - he was fuller on formula and also got melatonin from BM so he slept pretty well. Overnight I would just BF as it was just more convenient for me.
I also recommend MAM bottles as these are flat like how a nipple goes !