After struggling with breastfeeding and pumping I eventually started doing combined feeds which is where the baby has a top up of formula if they are still hungry. From the time he was 4 months he was fully on formula. Below is my formula feeding guide, it’s what I wish I had known when starting.
Combined feeding was something I really wanted to stick with however after complications I had to stop breastfeeding fully. Combined feeding involved either breastfeeding or bottle feeding my milk to my son and then topping up with pre made formula to make sure he had enough.
What I wish I had known how much my mental health would improve by formula feeding. When you make the decision to stop feeding your baby breastmilk you sometimes feel like you have failed as a mother, or that you simply were not good enough. This is not the case, you have not failed – a full baby is the better option no matter what choice of feeding you make all that matters is that they are healthy and so are you.
At the beginning formula feeding was something I didn’t want to do at all however using Cow & Gate pre made formula was a life saver in many situations especially leaving the house and going out for the day. I used the formula with Nuk baby bottles as he seemed to struggle taking other teats that weren’t latex. A really important tip is to try and match your nipple shape to the teat you are going to give your baby as they might reject it otherwise. Using formula and the Nuk bottles helped me increase his weight so easily I decided to stop breastfeeding.
Nuk is a brand I have stayed with since the beginning, When he first started taking bottles we used the Nuk Latex 150ml, we then moved up a bottle size to 300ml bottles he still used the latex teats in them until he was 4 months and then we used the silicone teats. The steriliser I use is for microwave steaming and can take 4 bottles at a time.
The reason I have stayed with and will continue to use Nuk in the future is that they have temperature control build into the bottles, this means even if you forget to test the temperature of the milk on yourself you can see the blue line meaning it’s ready to drink. Another reason I use NUK is they are BPA free and have an anti colic vent build into each teat. For those of you that like Winnie The Pooh Nuk has a Disney range available.
For the formula we now use Anti-Reflux this is a thickened formula from Cow & Gate as my son struggled with reflux, before trying please seek medical advice. If your baby doesn’t suffer from reflux I would recommend First Infant Milk. We use the Tommee Tippee Perfect prep machine to make our formula if you don’t mind second hand I got ours on Vinted for 15£. The reason we use the machine is it enables us to make a bottles in about 3 minutes rather than messing around with the kettle. I would also highly recommend filling up powder pots with the amount of formula you need as this means you already have this stage done when making a bottle.
Hopefully this guide makes it easier to start formula feeding, any other tips for formula feeding please share them.