Introducing formula to my breast fed baby for date nights for eg
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We introduced a bottle of formula at bedtime at around 6.5 months. We didn’t give a full bottle straight off as worried how it would sit on her belly so mixed it to start with with breastmilk so like 3 parts breastmilk 1 part formula, then 50:50 then 3 parts formula to 1 part breastmilk and eventually a full bottle. Now she has that happily every night and would feel ok giving her more if needed now on a particular day. I don’t know if when you introduce it it’s worth keeping it regular rather than just when you go out. Hope it goes well. X
My little one wouldn’t accept a bottle until 9.5m (it was a nightmare for us 😅) but when she did, she accepted formula right away having never had it before, no stomach troubles etc and perfectly happy with it. Dad will put her to bed every other night now, and she has formula at nursery and with her Nanas… otherwise it’s all boob still at 13m! We chose Apatamil as we picked the pre-measured tablets so that it wouldn’t go off as quickly as an open tub. It’s not necessarily the “best” formula from what I’ve heard, but readily available in every supermarket and for our little one has worked out fine 🤷♀️ (We did try expressed BM previously but as she wouldn’t accept a bottle I stopped trying to pump as I too found it very stressful, and the milk I did have in the freezer was well past 6m old when she finally had a bottle!) Every baby is different, I’d say it could just be worth trying a small bottle when you’re home to see how they get on ☺️ Good luck, and enjoy your nights of freedom!
You don’t have to “pump” but many times I just put the Hakaa on the boob not feeding from, and I can get 1-2oz of just letdown from that, I used to do that 7-8* a day (every feed) and it’ll accumulate in the fridge and I froze it when it reached 3oz into the bm bags. Catch letdown w the Hakaa, that’s all you’ll need. A couple days of that and you’ll have 2-3 bottles worth of letdown, no time or efforts wasted pumping on your part. Because I find even if I don’t, when a letdown happens on one boob then the other will start leaking like crazy, all I’m doing is catching that instead of holding pressure to it.
I ended up getting a quite severe form of D-MER at 4 months postpartum which caused me to have to switch my daughter to formula very suddenly I chose a more sensitive formula and she had no issues and seemed to like it! I use the Happy Baby Organic Infant Formula, although it is quite hard to find I've only been able to get it off Amazon But all in all, it will depend on your baby and how he personally reacts to any formula you decide is best for him if you make the decision to supplement on date nights 😊