Introducing bottle of expressed milk to EBF baby
I’m a FTM with a 6 week old baby who has been EBF since birth. Initially we planned to give baby one bottle of expressed breastmilk a day to allow my husband to give one feed and give me a break (whether that be to sleep or time to my self!). And also to ensure she can take a bottle incase we needed to leave her with someone else at any point. We waited until the 6 week mark to introduce it following midwife and lactation consultant advice. I’m since realising it’s not that simple/easy! I used a manual pump on Wednesday for the first time and did this whilst she was sleeping in the day. I got 1.5oz from one boob and 2.5oz from the other. My husband gave her the bottle of expressed milk that afternoon and she took it despite not being sure and some cries in between.
I thought great, we can introduce a bottle a day now. However I am finding that I never actually have the time or desire to pump, especially the last few days she’s been very clingy/cluster feeding. Her day time sleep isn’t great at the moment so I never have a hand free to pump and when she will be put down for 30 mins, the last thing I fancy doing is pumping! Second, there’s absolutely no routine with her feeds, which I know is normal. The evenings have been hard work for a few weeks and she’s on and off me 6-9pm. The mornings she doesn’t have a consistent wake time, sometimes it’s 6am, others it’s 8 (by which point my husband has gone to work). Therefore it’s hard to plan when my husband would give her a feed since times are so unpredictable.
I’m interested to know how others do it and if you find it’s worth while? And if you do give an expressed bottle, how do you maintain your supply? Currently I’m feeling like it’s more hassle than it’s worth! I’m contemplating just giving a bottle once a week instead but worried she would be more likely to reject it if I did this.