supplementing with formula at night?

im starting to get some anxiety about breastfeeding and how overwhelming it is going to be. i am seriously considering supplementing with formula at night. especially since i only plan on breastfeeding for a couple of months while im not working.

can anyone share info about this? how does this work? does the baby get confused? how did this help transition from mostly breast to formula.

Re: supplementing with formula at night?

I plan on doing the same thing. My hospital seems to discourage it but I know 4 kids that were breast fed during the day and bottle fed at night (although it wasn't at night exclusive bottle feeding it switched off). they all fed until they were close to a year old. So it's def doable even though I know every baby is different.

Re: supplementing with formula at night?

If you don't BF/pump at night, especially early on, you will likely not produce enough milk for the baby. And, you will probably get really uncomfortable trying to go 10 hours (or however many hours) without BFing. Your body produces what it needs and "expects" you to feed every 2-3 hours at first.

You might also confuse your baby switching back and forth b/w the breast and a bottle.

Re: supplementing with formula at night?

why exactly do you want to do this? its actually easier to bf than have to deal with prepping a bottle. Trust your body! It will regulate to baby's demand through growth spurts.
how long do you plan on bfing? they recommend not to introduce bottles until at least 4 weeks. i started supplementing with formula because i couldnt make enough for two. my twins never latched well enough and i didnt really stick with it. now they are bottle fed breast milk and they prefer the bottle. i wish i had stuck with it longer but with two tiny babies, it was really stressful.
kellymoms website is a good resource for those questions as well.

Re: supplementing with formula at night?

My only advice would be not to stress out and just see what happens. I bf and ff from day 1. I had twins. One never latched great. Plus in the hospital they dropped more than 10% of their weight (which is common) so we had no choice as they supplemented with formula.

My boys were never confused. I also pumped in the beginning bc it was nice to have some bottles too. I was so exhausted and I don't regret doing both for a second. I bf for 6 weeks. Wish I could've hung in there longer but I was a tired mommy. Because my boys had formula from the beginning there was no problem weaning them.

GL!