BF/BM ?

tnt7409

Tinsley was in the hospital for the first two weeks of life, she had surgery at one day old and I couldn't feed her until day 5. Anyway, I pumped at the hospital and have a decent stash in the deep freeze.

She's a great nurser, and I am not going back to work, so I don't need to introduce her to a bottle. However, I'm thinking it would be a good idea for her to try a bottle, so she would be used to it, just in case I ever get the courage up to leave her for a few hours...

By this point is my bm supply established enough to give her a bottle for a feeding, without pumping? Is there a better time of day for a bottle in terms of my bm supply? Also while I was pumping at the hosptial, I pumped and stored colostrum before my milk came in. Is it ok to mix that with milk?  Or should I give that to her by itself? We have an appt with her pedi in a week and a half, so I'll check with her too, just wanted to get some opinions. TIA

Mrs.Greeko

You can do an occasional bottle without pumping, but you might get engorged and want to pump!  To keep Max from being a bottle hater we do 1 ounce once a week and that works well.  I just feed him after he does the ounce from the bottle so I don't have to pump...   You can definitely give the colostrum, it's got all kinds of good stuff in it! And if you aren't going to use your frozen stash, consider donating it.  I donated a couple years ago and it is soooo easy to do!

tnt7409

Mrs.Greeko:

You can do an occasional bottle without pumping, but you might get engorged and want to pump!  To keep Max from being a bottle hater we do 1 ounce once a week and that works well.  I just feed him after he does the ounce from the bottle so I don't have to pump...   You can definitely give the colostrum, it's got all kinds of good stuff in it! And if you aren't going to use your frozen stash, consider donating it.  I donated a couple years ago and it is soooo easy to do!

Thanks, that makes sense. I was thinking I had to try a bottle daily, but once a week would work.

Do you think the colostrum will tast any different to her? It's such a different consistency, I don't know how she'll react to it!

Im sure I'll use my stash eventually. We did get info about donating from the hospital though - good to know its easy to do! 

EngagedinVegas

I would mix the colostrum in

sucredee

Yes, definitely introduce a bottle sooner than later! I started at 2.5 months and it was a struggle. I couldn't be anywhere near and DH didn't have enough patience after a long day of work (and DD would be tired from the day) because she would just fight him. I finally had to have one of my friends come over and she "fought" with her for about 45 minutes before she finally took it. After that we would do an ounce once or twice a week and that was it. My DH would give it to her and then I would just finish by nursing her so I wouldn't need to pump. If you give her a full feed by bottle though definitely pump. I started pumping daily after first morning nurse at about 2 months (I would get about 1-2 oz on each side, usually about 1) I ended up in the hospital at 11 days post partum with PP hemorrhage from retained products. DD had to have formula for 12 hours (at that point she did not have a problem taking the bottle) because of the anaesthesia. It made me really paranoid so I wanted to make sure I had a stash in case something like that happened again. I have a huge stash but we have a deep freezer so it is good for a year. She is currently taking milk from May (she only goes to daycare 3 mornings a week and the rest she still nurses). I did donate about 200 oz but did that through Human Milk for Human Babies and Eats for Feets (they are on facebook). I wasn't able to donate through the milk bank because they have very strict rules and since I had a blood transfusion I couldn't go through them. The HM4HB and Eats for feet is donating your milk directly to another mom. There are always lots of people in the Denver area looking for milk (not so muc down south unfortunately). It probably wouldn't be a bad idea to have a little bit of a stash just in case something unexpected comes up. As far as the colostrum, I don't see a reason not to give it to her or mix it.

d.f

B.  had to take a bottle very early because he had a weak latch and a lazy eater.  By about 3 weeks we didn't need to triple feed (nurse,pump, feed pumped milk) but I kept the habit of pumping and giving him one bottle a day. That way DH could participate and he didn't reject the bottle. 

One thing I do suggest is when you do give a bottle use the frozen milk at least once to test it even if you do pump.  I didn't find out I had high lipase (makes the milk smell sour unless scalded before freezing) until be was 7.5 months.  We were leaving him with the IL's for a few days at 8 months.  I ended up trashing something like 600-700 ounces from the early days when I had major oversupply.

tnt7409

Thanks ladies, we'll give it a whirl