Bottle feeding a breast fed baby
Tuesday was our first full day at our holiday resort here in Spain and after two days of travelling and four days trying, Little Man has finally started drinking formula.
Up until Friday he was exclusively breastfed, I hadn’t even pumped out a bottle for a girls night out (that’s not to say I haven’t had one but I haven’t gone crazy on the booze front; frankly more because I’m a lightweight these days than for any other reason). But that all changed when a supposed yeast infection (sorry tmi) last week became a misdiognosed womb infection called Pelvic Inflammatory Disease (PID).
Now I’m on some lovely extra strength drugs that, since I’m almost over the side effects of insomnia, headaches and dizziness, have made me feel a SHED load better. But unfortunately they aren’t considered safe for breastfed babies like Little Man so our six and a half month old boob monster has had a bit of a shock.
Day one he just turned away, perhaps thinking I was joking; day two consisted of disbelief and confusion; day three anger, distress and pitiful wailing but he reluctantly took some gulps and today he drank almost a full 7 ounces before teatime. Thankfully he’s on three meals a day and that’s clearly helped to tide him over but its amazing what hunger can do.
While I’m relieved that he’s finally taking sustenance it also fills me with remorse and dread. Remorse that I’ve pushed him to desperation. Dread that he won’t come back.
For when this two week holiday is over, the drugs are finished, the Sun Sense cream is empty and the Lenovo tablet says adios to Spanish wifi, I want to go back to breastfeeding my baby for as long as he wants to.
What if he doesn’t want to?
I’m pumping three times a day to try and keep my milk supply up but that’s so hard to do when you’re travelling half way across Europe and after one uncomfortable engorgement I’ve already noticed my supply dropping dramatically.
What if he wants to and I can’t?
For now there is nothing I can do but keep pumping and hope for the best. I have enough formula to tandom feed if I have to, mixing bottle feeds with as much breastfeeding as I’m able to until my supply catches up. At worst he’ll have had just over six months breastmilk and a great start.
Lo siento mi hermoso bebe.
You have given him an amazing start whatever. So sorry you’ve been so unwell. Sending huge hugs x
Fingers crossed for you, would be crap for the decision to stop to be taken out of your hands in this way. But you know that 6 months is an awesome achievement no matter what.
he has had an amazing start, but I know how you feel. Here is hoping he returns to the boob, and that you continue to feel better lovely x
Thanks so much for this Ruth. Will definitely go and check out your posts. Oh and my bad on the tandem feeding thing – definitely couldn’t cope with that too right now! X
What he’s already had is amazing! And anything extra would be amazing too, but it couldn’t be helped the situation you’re in. I’ve had to feed my boys with a mixture of breast milk and formula (I have what’s called IGT, so can’t physically produce enough milk to sustain a pre-solids baby’s appetite), but I like to think that whatever they have from me is worth it. My 2 year old still has some mummy milk at bed time at 28 months, and my 7 month old is a keen breastfeeder, even though he has formula too. If you haven’t seen any of my posts on an SNS – this could be useful for you when trying to get back to breastfeeding after having to introduce a bottle (search SNS on my blog and lods of posts will come up – the ‘at-breast supplementation’ one from last June would be the best place to start). Thinking of you, and hope you can get to where you both want to be soon
p.s. I got a bit confused about tandem feeding in your post – I thought that meant feeding a toddler and baby at the same time rather than mixed feeding one baby breast and formula milks 😉