Which baby milk?

mrsbez_2

EAT as much as you can!!! Big pieces of fruit cake and massive dinners! and drink plenty. I ate loads and when i finished breastfeeding i was two stone lighter than before i was pregnant! So don't worry about putting on weight.

I breastfed for 8 mths. The early weeks are very hard, baby growing fast and you're absolutely shattered! Keep going as it's worth getting past the hard bit. I used to keep a bottle on standby and if i felt i couldn't do it i would give my daughter a bottle (she was 9lb 2oz born and very hungry).
Then i noticed i relied less on the bottle and breastfeeding was alot easier.

The formula we used was cow & gate. (we didn't get on with any other make, and we tried a few) To be honest the formula won't fill them up anymore than breast milk, it just gives you a break, b ut then your boobs get really full because you've missed a feed.

You could also try expressing, but i could never manage it so i don't know how that would be.

Also its very warm at the moment and baby will be needing more fluids, so they will prob feed more often.

It really does get easier with time and your doing a fantastic job, keep going. Everyone is different and hope that it all works out for you.

gwinnie

Jay-Jay, I hope you don't think that my boobs-as-public-property comment was directed at you. I personally have no problem with people offering advice or looking at issues around a question. That's how you learn about things you might not have known to ask about, after all. It's the MWs and HVs that reel out this latest party line, never allowing for individual cases, that get my goat.

xmaslolly76

My little lad was very hungry and our health visitor advised us to use milumil milk in a yellow box. She said it is one of the best if you have a very hungry baby adn there to young to wean. :-)

julienetmum

If it is Ok I would like to answer the OP in two parts.

Firstly it is not clear whether you want to give up breastfeeding. You say you have been advised to top up. In general if you want to breastfeed this is bad advice. At 17 days old topping up with formula is going to have an adverse effect on breastfeeding and will more than likely lead to the end. It is possible to sucessfully combine the two, but not usually with such a young baby and not when there are supply issues at the outset.

I imagine that your baby is going through a growth spurt which, if you feed little and often should only last a few days. Feeding your abby regurlaly, including during the night will help your supply to build, little and often is the key. You also need to be sure that your baby is removing the milk from your breast effectively. You should be able to observe three disctince stages of a feed. First the fast furious sucking to initiate letdown, this should then move to slower, more rhythmical gulps and you should be able to see the baby's ear wiggling up and down. Then towards the end of a feed the sucking changes to flutter sucking. This helps stimulate milk production for the next feed and is comforting for the baby but it is OK after several minutes if you wish to remove the baby from your breast at this point.

Some ideas to help you cop with a baby frequewntly feeding are to have a babymoon, take your baby to bed with you. Ask a breastfeeding counsellor or knowledgable health profrssional (sadly many midwives and HV's know little about breastfeeding) to help you perfect feeding lying down. Co-sleeping, if youfollow certain guidelines is perfectly safe and can help you to get some rest.

Giving formula does have certain health impacts, it will alter the gut flora and increase the chance of allergies. It is also harder for a baby to digest which may explain the vomiting. You need to be aware of all these things in order to make an informed decision.

When I was breastfeeding I did give formula but in my case it was not becasue of poor supply but a baby who wouldn't latch on. I weighed up the disadvantages of doing this and decided that it was better to use one formula feed a day to give me a bit of breathing space from expressing than give up totally.

Only you know your own situation and what YOU want to do but it would be a shame for you to give up breastfeeding due to poor advice and support if that is what you want to do. It is all very well for midwives to push the breast is best message (and I SO hate that phrase) down everyones throat but if the proper information and support isn't there it is pointless.

Onto the issue of which formula to use. My advice to anyone wishing to formula feed is to chose a first formula that is a well established brand (so more liklihood of any adverse effects being documented) is cheap, and easy to get hold of. Don't go for hungry baby or follow on as these are hard to digest due to the different whey/casein ratios. Don't fall for the marketing of particular brands that claim to be closest to breastmilk (none of them are, not even aptamil they just have the best marketing).

I personally chose Cow & Gate organic as they didn't contain LCP's and not much research has been done into them or fish oil/algae which is what many brands derive their LCP's from. Some people like Omneo Comfort but I find its list of ingredienats a bit scary, potato starch and the like.

One thing to consider is that it is now advised that newborns are given ready to drink cartons ratherthan powder as the cartons are sterile whereas powdered formula is not and can contain salmonella or enterobacteria.

Nicki

I'm just not sure I agree with the advice that introducing formula as a top up is the beginning of the end. I'm not a professional just a mum, but my experience was this:

Baby no 1 born 2 weeks early elective C section. Didn't want to Bf at all for first two days. Against my wishes at time, was made to top up in hospital. Started with breast milk each feed and topped up at end of feed with formula (SMA gold in our case). Top ups continued but lasted for less time over about 2 week period, after which time BF was fully establised, baby didn't need any more top ups and continued fully breastfeeding until no 2 conceived.

Baby no 2 born normally but mum very poorly day after delivery and doctors and midwives concerned may be infectious. She was bf two or three times after the birth, then totally bottle fed (again SMA) for about a week during which time I was in hospital and far too ill for them to even consider expressing milk. After this, though, bf gradually reintroduced and by the time I left hospital on Day 10 baby fully breastfed. Stayed fully breastfed until 6 months when formula introduced again when I was unavailable to feed.

On the basis of my own experience therefore I strongly believe that you can combine breast and bottle without milk supply failing completely.

Also OP isn't saying she wants to give up completely. Baby is still getting some breast milk so more antibodies than a child who was solely bottle fed. I do think we need to look after mum's health and well being as well as baby's so OP should do whatever is right for her.

CharleneUK

I wanted to give formula every now and then, but my baby also threw it up all the time (that's why I only ever bought the ready made cartons to avoid waste!)

Recently, I've been trying again, and have found that cow and gate Omneo comfort is great and she doesn't puke this up at all. It's quite pricey though (over £7) but she drinks 4oz a day and that's enough to give me a break when I need it.

However, I WOULDN'T advise you topping up just yet, as your supply is still getting to grips with it's new task.

I'd wait a while, I understand you feel your baby is hungry, but it's common for breastfed bubbies to feed frequently in the early days.

Good luck.

x

Girl_least_likely_to

When my LO was weeks old she just breast fed and fed all day. Usually at least 12 times a day, anything from 10 -15 minutes a time up to an hour :eek: . It was knackering. When she was about 5 weeks we decided ourselves to feed her a bottle as her last bottle, mainly to give me a break and also give me peace of mind that she could drink formula from a bottle rather than be completely dependant on me. This worked for us. We got a few different kinds of the ready made formula before getting a massive tub of powder. We tried Aptimal first which she wouldn't take then SMA Gold which she still has now.

With my DD as each week went by she got better and quicker at feeding from me which resulted in less feeds per day and I felt I didn't dread her walking up . When I stopped breast feeding her at 14 weeks she was down to 6 breast feeds and 1 bottle. She suddenly decided that it was easier to feed from a 3 month bottle teat rather than from me I think! Once she was on the bottle I have to say it was the most liberating thing since bra burning when on :rotfl: .

You'll will find something that works for you. Listen to all the advice that everyone gives you whether they are a health prof or a mother and cherry pick from it. Good Luck, it will get better

looby75

funky-footprints wrote:

This post wasnt about telling the op to put some time and effort into breast feeding, or persevere a little longer or what ever ......... op asked a question about formalae and we should respect that.

fair enough but from my own personal pov I wish someone (who knew what they where taking about) had told me that my dd's nursing demands were normal and not the life threatening situation my family friends and health visitor persuaded me they were. :mad:

Sometimes a bit of support and informed advice is all a new mum needs to boost her flaging spirits.

jellyhead

hi,

congratulations on your little bundle

breastfeeding didn't work for me so i can't comment personally, except about milk. omneo comfort is good for reflux, it's thicker because they add starch to make it stay down. you can't buy it ready made in cartons, also it has to be mixed with the water quite warm. it won't be lactose intolerance causing the vomiting because your breastmilk contains lactose too, but omneo comfort is low in lactose so it's popular with mums of lactose intolerant babies too. all milks seemed awful to begin with, my expressed breastmilk more than any other, omneo comfort was great. we changed to aptamil during a holiday where we needed to use cartons, it's been great but only because we have lactase drops to sort out the lactose. he's still on aptamil but i don't think it would be fair to say that the other milks we tried in the beginning were unsuitable, just that he had lactose intolerance that wasn't treated straight away (and reflux).

my sister is breastfeeding and she hasn't had any problems with giving a formula bottle (just one a day) but she struggled to find a bottle and teat that suited the baby. once she found his favourite teat and an anti-colic bottle he stopped vomiting the milk back up. he's quite a vigorous feeder so maybe he swallows too much air when he's on a bottle and that was cauing the vomiting. all the talk at the baby groups seems to be about finding the right bottle for supplementation, it seems to be a common problem but i'm no expert.

while one bottle a day might not seem like the best idea to everyone here the health visitors seem to push it. i suspect it's nothing to do with baby's weight, and more to do with the mums being shattered - if daddy gives a bottle at night mummy can have a rest. my sis was very distressed, and i think if she hadn't had this break for a couple of hours while daddy took over with a bottle she might have given up breastfeeding altogether. perhaps.

blackste

hi
my little fella is 10 months now and we had a similar problem with him wanting to feed allt he time but throwing up. my other half really struggled with breast feeding, and had to give up altogether, and we went to sma gold. we tried the little and often route at first and sure enough the throwing up eased off, but he was still hungry all the time, so we crammed in as much as possible, with winding about 4 times during the feed and this really sorted him out to the point where he slept through from 4 weeks old ( only 10 hrs though), but i think the wind is a big issue. anyway hope this is of some help. stick with it and good luck.