Formula Feeding General Chatter

[volcomkitty]

Being in a public hospital, I must have seen about 10 different midwives in the 2 days/nights I was in there, each one with their different techniques and opinions. Just when I thought I'd had one method sorted, well sorted enough for one feed, someone else contradicted what I was doing...

We're also on plain Heinz Step 2 (I love the giraffe on the tin, he's so cute!).

There is that fine line between persisting with something that eases out conscience, but places our children in a very dangerous position and that of swallowing our pride and dealing with the guilt in an attempt to nourish our children adequately. It seems so logical and simple when you put it in black and white - it is a pity it doesn't seem to help the situation between our ears! You are great mums and it isn't all about boobs at the end of the day!

Yep, that's exactly it!

[Party-of-five]

wow i could have written most of these posts myself lol how good we now have somewhere to chat.

The issues im finding atm is when ppl hold Milly and she turns slighty towards the boob they are like "wont get anything there" Its kind of a constant reminder that I dont BF and I get the look when taking out the bottle in public ppl can be very judgemental

I changed Milly yesterday onto Heinz because she seemed to not be satisfyed on Nan but she is still feeding every 3 hours so don't think its made a difference

[widdly]

BW - thanks hun. Yeah the plan is working, though we are away this week on holiday and though I am still maing good choices, it is hot and very humid here so I have not walked since we been here, Im sure that 1.5 kgs will be back by Sunday Never mind back to it when we get home I understand what you mean about it not being fair to Sam too, I have had those feelings also

storm - I just changed DS from step 1 to step 2 cold turkeya dn he was fine. But I also put him on ff from bf cold turkey and that didnt bother him either.

partyoffive - DS was feeding every 3 hours til he was a couple of months old

[ElleJay]

I'm the same with the guilt thing - but it doesn't help that I also have DH saying to me whenever they talk about breastfeeding on TV (the whole 'Breast is best!' thing that had a story on the news one day which kept getting repeated) - he'd say 'See, breast IS best!' I just stared holes through him.. Idiot

But, at the same time, with the guilty feeling, I have the 'I'm such a failure' feeling - Due to an emergency c-section, my milk supply took forever to come in, and when it did, there wasn't much anyway.
I'll stop dribbling on

[*TripleJ*]

dont do that LJ i like ur dribble lol

and this is general chatter so we can talk about all things but mainly FF lol

i noticed something with my bellybuddy group is that most of the ppl that are still BFing had a C/S i just found that weird coz dont they say that C/S makes it harder but i think it just makes ppl more determined

yes the giraffe is cute lol

party of five - DS done that too it will be a while before she spreads it out

the funny thing is the middie kept taking him in the middle of the night to settle and all he wanted was booby and trying to give him a dummy funny thing is he didnt take a dummy untill he was 4 days old he just wouldnt suck on it coz it didnt have milk at least i know for next time wont dwell on it anymore just look forward to the future lol

DS is having 3 bottles a day and 3 meals of solids a day it feels like hes eating all day lol and now hes skipping his early morning nap so down to 2 naps a day my little boy is growing to quick and he can stand using the furniture and crawl around the whole house

[Life is Good]

Partoffive - our boy was on 3-hourly feeds until well after 4 months. He drank a heap (to the point where our paediatrician said that we should start solids earlier) and I was also concerned. Milly will taper when she is ready and once her tummy is able to accommodate enough milk to keep her satisfied for longer. Our boy slowly moved to four hours between feeds, but even now he sometimes wants a bottle after 3 hours! Yet on other occasions he goes for 5 hours no problem. Our paediatrician said it is just fine to feed him when he is hungry.

LizJessie - The exact same thing happened with me. I wonder if the Emergency C-Section has anything to do with my milk also coming in late and not building up enough? All these questions and no answers Either way, I plan to give it another good go with our next bub

My husband was also quite persistent in my giving BF a very good go for the first time also believing that breast is beast etc. He would take care of all the formula, bottles, clean the pump, sit up with me while I expressed at night etc. It put so much pressure on me and I felt like I really had to sell the concept of formula to him. So I totally know how you feel . Now, however, he has totally changed his view on FF. He is so proud of how our little man has thrived (on his Neocate). He agrees to give it a good go with the second one, but he is far more open-minded and we will draw the line at a realistic point if things don't work out again. The reality is that if you, like me, didn't move to formula your baby may well have failed to thrive. That would have been soooo much worse!

I have a question about the whole "milk or food first thing". Our boy has been on solids since four months and I have always given him his bottle first. When did you ladies swap things around i.e. food first and then a bottle top-up afterwards?

[Queen]

Lovin this area!!!!

I too suffer bad from Mummy guilt. I still get those lovely glaring eyes
I b/f both girls for 4 weeks, but with DD1 it was four weeks of no sleeping, just screaming I was exhausted, and I just could not do it anymore.
With DD2 I suffered to PPH's and due to antibiotics, and various meds I could not continue.

I changed Milly yesterday onto Heinz because she seemed to not be satisfyed on Nan but she is still feeding every 3 hours so don't think its made a difference

She is only 3 weeks old hun plus, you only changed her formula LESS than 24hrs ago. Give her a couple of days to get used to your new routines, and the new milk. She is probably LOVING the milk and cuddles from Mummy so she has to wake every 3 hours, just coz she loves you so much!!!

We use S26 Gold here, as DD2 was 6 months last week we went up to step 2 but it casued MAJOR constipation , so under GP advice we have gone back to Step 1.

Anyhoo, love this place to chat!!!

[*TripleJ*]

i say bottle first but DS never eats at the same time as his bottles so it very different and his bottle in the afternoon always has a bit left they say untill one year the milk should still be most important

[ElleJay]

Thanks ladies

Sambo - I went to a mothers group meeting and they said that if you put bub on solids at 4 months, you do bottle first then a teaspoon or two of solids after - then at the 6 month mark, you swap it around - food then milk

Queen - I fed DS unti 4wks too, he sucked so hard that he make me bleed, and that I was crying when it was feed time cause it hurt so much (it wasn't attachment problems, he just sucked so damn hard) I, too, get the judgemental stares as well and it drives me batty.

[butterfly_warrior]

We did bottles before solids (with about an hour in between) until Sam was 12 months old. He's been fine with things that way. I don't think there's a hard and fast rule, do what works for you and your family.

BW

[Life is Good]

Thanks for the feedback. Our nurse said to give him his bottle first until 6 months and then afterwards from then on. I am, however, inclined to keep giving him his bottle first because I just feel it is way more important and I don't want to have him filling up on solids and not having his milk afterwards!

[FabFiona]

Just wanted to pop in here - good to have some chatter. My little man has been exclusively FF since 6 weeks.

I try not to dwell on the fact that breastfeeding didn't work out for us. I had low supply and tried everything for 6 weeks. I gave it my best and in my mind and in the end the emotional rollercoaster of my low supply was ruining my precious first weeks with my son.

Can I ask about feeding frequency? My little man generally feeds every 4 hours. I'd never let him go longer than that during the day. I'm not so routine orientated that if he's doing hungry signs after 3 hours that I won't give him a bottle, but that seems to be his rhythm. He does 6 in a 24 hour period and his weight gains are good (1 kg each month).

I'm wondering how frequently your babies feed and whether that has any impact on their sleeping?

Cheers,
Fiona

[Jakabella]

Wow so much chatter! I cant catch up!!

We did bottles before food till about 9 months then food took over and DD dropped a bottle then another and was on 2 bottles a day at about 11 months I think.

I really think that we all gave BF a good crack and we should be proud of ourselves!! I try not to dwell on it either or see it as a failure but some days its easy and some days hard!

DD was feeding evey 3 hrs from birth and that pretty much stayed that way till she got the hang of solids..

We started on NAN HA gold but gave DD huge wind pains so switched to S26 gold and stayed on that - we switched to step 2 and DD would not have a bar of it so we stayed on step 1 till 12 months and it worked very very very well!!


sorry trying to answer sone of the questions that I can remember seeing!

[Life is Good]

Fionaw, I think 4 hours is perfectly fine and very normal. When I was formula fed as a bub that was the pattern that I followed. Our little man was the opposite in that sometimes he demanded a feed every 2.5 hours! Our paediatrician advised me to feed him what he wanted, when he wanted it. Eventually when we moved onto solids (at 4 months) he cut back to 4 hours.

I have just looked up what the average formula is for a 2 month old bub (thanks Robin Barker!). At eight to twelve weeks they should be having 5 to 7 bottles (of between 150 and 210ml) every 24 hours. The total volume per day can be worked out by multiplying your bubs' weight in kgs by 150ml. As long as he is within that range, in terms of his total formula consumption, it is all fine! How frequently he drinks is of lesser importance

Regarding the sleeping, we have never had a problem at night. For a long time he woke up for just one feed. He stopped waking for that bottle at night when we started him on solids at four months.

[ElleJay]

Fionaw - DS feeds every 3 hours but ends up sleeping from 9-10pm to 7am with one bottle at around 1am.. And DS is on S26 Gold

[ss_storm]

Fiona - DD was having a bottle every 3 hours, since we've started solids I'm stretching it out to about 4 hours, between 2 solid meals a day and dropping down to 2 sleeps it's easier to have 4 hours between each bottle! Lol. She's always been a fairly good sleeper overnight, it's day sleeps we've always struggled a bit with. She is getting better though, although each day I don't know if it will be an hour and a half or a half hour sleep

After struggling trying to work out how to incorporate introducing solids into our routine, I give her solids about an hour before her bottle. I found if I gave bottle first she wasn't interested in solids, if I gave solids too close to bottle then she wouldn't drink her bottle. I think we've now found a happy medium though and we are both settling into our new routine.

[Party-of-five]

With DD1 she used to have solids about an hour after her bottle until she got the hang of eating and then she prefered her solids before her bottle.

Fionaw DD2 has a bottle every 3 hours

Just thought Id throw this question in...Where does everyone stand on steralising?? We started FF whilst still in hospital and i was quiet shocked to discover they dont steralise (sp?) any more. I steralise but I know other ppl that don't. With DS I steralised everything until he was one but with DD1 i stopped when she started licking the floor...just kidding I think she was around 10months.

[butterfly_warrior]

Sam's 13 months old... and I'm still known to sterilise sometimes. If I forget to rinse the bottle quickly, and it gets festy, icky dried up bits of formula... I'll scrub and sterilise. But if we get to them quickly enough, they just air dry. But I also still boil his water, too. I do for myself anyway, so it's not an issue for us.

BW