Formula & breastfeeding

I am planning on going back to work for a couple of days a week in Jan. I am currently breastfeeding Ella and would like to continue until she is at least 1, however I am hopeless at expressing milk- I can express a little bit but not enough for a couple of decent feeds a day. I have worked out that Ella wil need to have about 4 feeds during the 2 days that I will be working and am thinking about just giving her formula during that time (in a sipper cup as she doesn't drink from a bottle). I am fine with giving her formula, but I don't want it to interferce with breastfeeding.

Would be interested to hearing if anyone has done this and if they have had any problems? any thoughts or suggestions (negative or positive) would be greatly appreciated as I haven't fully made up my mind yet.

We ended up giving Daniel formula for his dream feed because I got sick of expressing (DH has always given him this). After a while though I think Daniel preferred the bottle and formula over me so eventually feeds were just a constant battle but I worked out my milk caused his reflux so in the end we gave up breastfeeding.

I'm not sure if thats any help.

Caleb is about the same age as your wee girl and I've just gone back to work and DP is home with him. I BF in the morning before work, when I get home from work and for his dream feed. If we meet up for lunch I will BF him again. Otherwise he has two bottles a day of formula and is fully breastfed in the weekends.

Once you open a can of formula you need to use it within a month. We get through a can in about three weeks I think. Like you I intend to BF morning and night until he is at least 1. I just use the regular formula. I figure he's getting antibodies from me so I don't need to pay extra for the gold range of formula.

Yeah if she is gonna have formula for just those 2 days you will need to express those feeds otherwise like .mel said your boobs will get really engorged and sore on those 2 days. If you gave her formula at those feeds everyday then your supply would reduce to meet the feeds that you are doing.
My SIL went back to work when her little girl was 6 months and she is still being breastfed morning and night and is 16 months now. She also wouldn't take a bottle but has EBM through a cup.

I think you won't really now till you try, some babies seem to go off the breast when a bottle/cup is introduced and some don't.

Hi mum2ella,

I has this issue with my second when I returned to work, and will have the same one again when i go back to work in Feb, and I have to say I agree with Mel and Cuppatea.

I too had trouble expressing with a pump, but before I went back to work I started manually expressing off one side, while Quinn was feeding off the other - I got about 30-40mls each feed. Then when he had totally drained the first side I would switch him to the other side to finish his feed. I was always carefully to just express off small amounts at a time so he didn't get to hungry and this also helped increase my supply, during this time though I did feed every 2 hours. I thought manually expressing would be hard work, but it was fine. This allowed me to build up a supply to send to Daycare with him from day 1.

While at work I would wait until my breasts were fuller than normal (not to full though) and then use the pump. I recommend getting an electric one if you can. It sounds like alot of work, but once we were in the grove of it all it was fine.

By the time he was 9months old he would have 2 am feeds before daycare and just have solids and water at daycare and then BF at home with me throughout the evening with the last feed at 10pm(he did have a shorter day though 9-3pm).

Not sure if this is helpful, but it worked for us until Quinn got a little older and didn't need as many feeds in the daytime.

Good Luck.