Breast-feeding and formula feeding support

Looking for successful transition to exclusive breastfeeding stories

Hi! So I have been doing combination feeding since birth due to poor latch, slow weight gain etc. I’m pumping 8 times a day. I wanna connect with mommies who are or were on a similar journey as mine and were able to fully transition to exclusive breastfeeding. Please share your experience
Thanks!

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Are you breastfeeding at all or pumping and formula

I don’t know if you’ll consider this a success or not!

My daughter struggled to latch from birth, and I had a traumatic birth with no breastfeeding support in hospital. She first latched at 19 days, but breastfeeding was so difficult for her. At 6 weeks, an IBCLC lactation consultant checked for tongue tie but said the issue was my supply and started me on my pumping journey. I was pumping enough for 1 feed/day.

At 10 weeks, she nursed 2-4x a day with about 200ml formula and the rest expressed milk. She was checked for tongue tie by a woman I was seeing on the NHS and turns out she did have tongue tie. It was corrected at 13 weeks but now her bottle preference was so strong, she only nursed at night.

By then, I’d increased my supply enough to stop formula completely and we kept nursing til 5mos. She’s still EBF now at 7.5mos, through pumping. I think if the tongue tie had been fixed earlier, we’d be nursing still but I’m super proud that she’s EBF even if it is through pumping.

Hi! I was able to do this but then became sick 3 times back to back so now i am rebuilding my supply by pumping.

That being said, my son still latches with such ease even though i don’t have a lot of milk for him at present moment.

I’m happy to go into detail via messages if you want to hear what worked for us to go from thrashing and crying at the breast to absolutely bliss and comfort for us both.

🫂♥️

My son is 7 months old today and didn’t latch until 3.5 months and used a nipple shield until 6 months. I thought the day would never come that he would latch with ease but we have arrived and it is worthy of celebration!!

I started my journey not being able to bf due to poor latch. When I was in the hospital, my baby barely ate because my nipples were so cut up and sore that is physically hurt in order to latch him.

The minute I got home I started pumping in order to provide my baby breast milk because I knew I didn’t want to start off with formula which was a success so I knew my baby was fed. For the next couple weeks we pumped and just gave my baby the bottle while every so often, I would try to work on his latch.

It wasn’t until around 6 to 8 weeks that he finally latched without hurting me, but by that time I didn’t know much about regulating of supply and my supply started to regulate. However, I thought it dropped so I wasn’t pumping enough in order to feed my little one anymore, and I was starting to run through my stash

So I started to add in formula and I’m happy that I did because it has now given me a break during the day from breast-feeding .

At 6 months The schedule that we have today is I breast-feed in the mornings and at night and any other time he gets formula. He get more breast milk than formula now. so he is only having about 2 to 3 sessions snacks with formula.

We plan to start giving solids and weaning out formula and keeping my breast-feeding sessions

I currently do not pump anymore because I do not get any output and I’ve tried four different pumps and fan sizes

am breast feeding, topping up with formula and then pumping as well

I think instead of give formula start putting baby on the breasts. But if you are pumping too then you probably are good and just need to stop giving formula.

yeah the thing is am so pissed with pumping. Because I get some output at some times when I pump, other times I don’t. Sometimes pumping hurts a lot. Sometimes it doesn’t. The pattern is so random, that I’m unable to find out what am doing wrong. And I have very less support figuring it out

I feel you! Am also currently trying to figure out what pump to buy. Because my momcozy doesn’t work anymore and the hospital pump gives me output sometimes and sometimes it doesn’t

I have DMed you

You can dm me if you’d like and I can help figure it out if you want. Either way start putting baby on the boob first then give bottles

I really thought it was just me then I called my friend and she is still breastfeeding at 3 her 3yr old LO and she said she was never able to pump out her LO is always able to get what she want from her. I just started trusting my boobs and said to hell with the pump.

Besides when I was able to get output from the pumps, pumping made me sick for some reason. Like actually felt like I was catching the flu or something

in our community

Should I wake baby up to feed?

First time mum here, my baby is 2 months old today. Should I be waking her for night feeds? During the day she feeds every 2–3 hours, but at night she usually sleeps from around 11pm to about 3am, and I’ve been waking her then. Is that okay, or should I let her sleep?

Night time help!

Hi! My baby boy is nearly 6 months old and every night he wakes up anytime from 2am onwards and will be awake for well over two hours.
I’ve tried changing his naps during the day, changing his bedtimes and yet nothing seems to help!
Any tips that might help this exhausted mummy?
I don’t mind the wake ups if he would settle straight away but he views it as a whole wake window.

Newborn sleep for 9 hours

Hello mamas, my newborn is 6 weeks old. Last night she slept for 9 hours without waking up for a feed. The previous night she slept for 8 hours as well. During the day she had quite a lot awake periods and she was eating well. She also gained 1kg for a month which the midwife said it's very good. Is she okay like that and should I wake her up to feed her during the night?

Feel like I’m solo parenting

I’m so sick of arguing with my husband over this.

My daughter is 11 weeks old, and my husband works Monday to Friday. I look after her all day every day, and on the weekends and some evenings he goes out cycling. I don’t mind this, he gets extremely ratty and stir crazy if he doesn’t go out, and it drives me mad.

Lately. My daughter’s sleep pattern is all over the place in terms of the second stretch. She tends to go for 6 hours, then has a feed, then either goes for another 4 hours, or starts to fuss at about 5:30 am. (I realise this first stretch is a dream, please believe me I’m not complaining about that.

My husband starts work at 7 am from home, or leaves at 6 am if he’s going into the office.

This means that he comes home, feeds her once while I’m in the shower, while I handle all of the other feeds/ settling her off at night. I rarely go back to sleep after as I’m so wired. He also struggles to sleep once he’s awake, so when she fusses for her night feed, he’s up from around 4 am regardless of feeding her or not.

I see him for around 3 hours a day apart from weekends, and in that time I cook, he does the dishes and cleans the bottles. We then bath/wash LO, he feeds her, then we watch a film or show until her next feed at 9:30 pm.

He has gone up to bed early to try and get more sleep because he feels like he’s exhausted to the point of headaches. (I am too, but it seems like this isn’t as important because I don’t go to work. He acknowledges that it’s hard work looking after her all day, this isn’t the problem). I have stayed downstairs with her, because to me, disturbing a sleeping baby only to put her in a crib for 30 minutes after settling her again, to feed her and then have to restart the process is ridiculous when she’s asleep already.

I feel like I do everything. I feed and settle her every time. When he can’t calm her down within 10 minutes he passes her back despite me having her all day and him not seeing her.

I love my daughter more than anything, and my husband is lovely, I swear. It’s just a really tough time with her sleep, and I’m struggling to cope. I’m so, so tired. And he doesn’t seem to realise this, because he is. We have talked about this so many times, but it just turns into an argument. Please tell me this will pass?

Crazy MIL??

I’ve always found my mother in law tricky - she has a hideous nervous energy about her and finds everything absolutely hilarious which sets me right on edge. We’ve just had a baby and she came down to meet her. It was very soon after baby was born so we were pretty knackered and I’d suffered bad hypertension in hospital and had had to stay in for a week. She had wanted to come and see me there but I managed to get my husband to say no- she would have not made my blood pressure any better!
So she came to see the baby a couple of weeks after with her partner- who btw had a chest and they didn’t tell us.
My MIL was at her most hyper and difficult. She stayed hours and hours and held the baby all the way though- fed her her bottle (just took it off my husband) without asking and took photos and posted them without asking.
Then I was changing the babies nappy. Baby had terrible nappy rash at the time and was screaming with pain - making me want to cry. My MIL just sat there watching - hooting with laughter. 🫠
But the worst thing is she made these WEIRD comments - there was a photo of baby just wearing a vest and she said she “looked a hussy.” Then later when we were describing about the baby having phototherapy- which was horribly traumatic- my husband said how he tucked her into his denim jacket to keep warm - his mothers response was “ah so she likes a bit of rough???”
I think in her mind she was being really funny but I was appalled by her comments. In the end I made and excuse, went upstairs to have a shower and then sat there until they left. I used to feel fed up and weary at the thought of her but now I feel pure anger. It’s tricky as obviously she’s my husbands mum. She also gave us the deposit for our house and is generally generous in that way. She and my husband have a really odd relationship in my opinion- I’m super close to my fam and they all live nearby so we see them a lot
His mum lives in Devon and we’re in Kent which is something to be thankful for.
After they finally went she messaged my husband and asked to come and stay for a week. Thankfully he has the sense to say no. But Christ what is wrong with the women? Those comments have made me feel so hostile towards her. Should I just get over it??

Baby won’t sleep

Somebody please help me.
She’s crying, I’m crying. Idk what to do. Husband isn’t here rn and my mom’s asleep.
She’s not hungry, diapers freshly changed, she doesn’t seem uncomfortable in any way. She just seems tired but can’t fall asleep. She’s been doing this for a few days now, just fighting sleep. I refuse to let her cry it out and I’m doing everything I know and can do at this time. She’ll take the boob but keep stretching away every few seconds. She keeps chewing on her hand like she’s hungry but won’t eat cause she already did 30 minutes ago. I’m just at a loss and starting to get stressed. Nothing is helping.