Fleur - you will be so proud of me - we have been doing mostly bfeeds since Monday! Yay! Still very painful at the start, but it usually subsides, so I figure it's just that initial pain and will stop in the next couple of weeks. I am still expressing sometimes if I need a rest, or when DH does the early morning feed. Now I understand why people say breastfeeding is easier! But I also don't think expressing is as bad as people think! Thank you so much for your encouragement - lots of people had been telling me to try bfeeding again, but it was your comments and reassurance that made me finally do it!

Hi Starangel - congrats on your impending arrival! I tried bfeeding for a couple of days in hospital, and was on the pump full-time from day 4. I pretty much expressed exclusively until 7 weeks, which was this week. I tried a couple of breastfeeds in that time - prob 5 all up. Now have successfully gotten back to bfeeding, but still doing at least 1 feed a day by bottle.

I haven't had problems with supply. If anything, I have too much. I expressed 5 or 6 times a day from the beginning, with a couple of 7 and 8 hour breaks, which I'm told breaks all the rules. I also used the avent teats which are too fast for some babies, and I even introduced a Medela teat with no problems. I started using a dummy from week 4 (he really obviously needed to suck and wasn't getting that with bottlefeeding). All these things break the rules and he is doing really well. However, I think it very much depends on the baby and on you - I'm saying this because I was paranoid about breaking the rules for several weeks, until I realised it was all ok for me.

I have been having lots of oats, raspberry leaf tea and occasionally activite for supply - don't think I've necessarily needed them, but I like them all anyway!

Have so much more to tell you but need to get some washing out (cloth nappies!) - please keep asking your questions and we'll do our best to answer.

PS If you want to find more info about exclusively expressing (not that you are planning on that, but it's good to hear from women who spend a lot of time on pumps!), in the US it's called 'exclusively pumping' - you'll need to use that in Google rather than 'exclusively expressing'.