Do I need to buy bottles?

Nope, you don’t need them. You can always by them after if you need.

I would definitely invest in a pump and bottles. In my experience I can’t talk for everyone, I wanted to exclusively breastfeed however when he was born I found latching very difficult and breastfeeding painful. So I started exclusively pumping. 10 weeks on and it’s the only thing I do I exclusively pump and bottle feed. I can’t say that will happen to you, but pumping also can make feeding easier for you as it gives your partner time to feed baby rather than just you constantly. I might also add to help get a bigger supply it’s good to pump in the beginning as your supply still is regulating. I noticed from pumping from day 5 ish it really helped my supply and now I’m a huge oversupply and pump around 70oz a day. Whereas some of my friends who exclusively breasted then tried to pump would get hardly any milk as the milk regulated on what their babies needed from the breast. So depending if you want a freezer stash etc I would get a pump. But again that’s just my experience🥰xxx

Neither of my babies have taken a bottle so I wouldn’t go overboard with bottles and pumps.

If you want your baby to take a bottle though I’d recommend introducing daily from your milk coming in or very soon after that’s likely to have the most success x

My daughter is 16 months and not once had a bottle. I did the same as you, kept hold of the free ones as just in case. You can buy bottles and formula anywhere these days. If you needed to you could pick some up if you need them

I had bottle and formula ready on standby. I was going to buy a pump but just waited. Turns out I needed it asap as my baby was 14.5% weight drop within the first week so we were in and out of hospital stay so needed to order next day delivery as I wanted her top ups to be mine not formula.

Our LC/midwife recommended Kissaboobo 5 (£70 on Amazon) so I bought that until I got my expensive one. I ended up just keeping that because it was great.

I think it’s a good idea to have 1 or 2 as back ups. I only say this as my sister tried to exclusively breastfeed but she had difficulty with milk production and so she had to go out and buy bottles. Not having them meant baby was hungry until she did get them.