Nursing vs. Expressed milk fed through a bottle

Hello,

I just had my second child 9 days ago. My first is 21 months old. At
this point, I'm expressing breast milk and feeding it to my newborn
from a bottle. However, while I feel that this is an optimal solution
for my situation, I am having regular guilt trips because of this.
Here are the reasons:

1. I hold my newborn as much as I can, but not on my breast. Is this
enough?
2. He's a big baby (born at 9lb). By feeding him through a bottle
(with my milk, not formula), am I increasing his risk of obesity?

What do you think? Are my concerns valid, or am I just making myself
crazy?

Thanks,
Elana

"elanamig" wrote in message
oups.com...
Hello,

I just had my second child 9 days ago. My first is 21 months old. At
this point, I'm expressing breast milk and feeding it to my newborn
from a bottle. However, while I feel that this is an optimal solution
for my situation, I am having regular guilt trips because of this.
Here are the reasons:

1. I hold my newborn as much as I can, but not on my breast. Is this
enough?
2. He's a big baby (born at 9lb). By feeding him through a bottle
(with my milk, not formula), am I increasing his risk of obesity?

What do you think? Are my concerns valid, or am I just making myself
crazy?

I don't know about the stats on that second one but basically I think you
are making yourself crazy with those particular concerns. If you are
holding him (or someone is) for each feed I certainly wouldn't loose any
sleep over the bonding.

I do think that exclusive pumping is much more difficult in the long haul
even though it seems easier right now. It is also riskier as far as your
supply. It may be worth it to try to get him back on the breast for those
reasons, I don't know?


--
Nikki, mama to
Hunter 4/99
Luke 4/01
Brock 4/06
Ben 4/06

I don't know about the stats on that second one but basically I
think you
are making yourself crazy with those particular concerns.

I don't think it's entirely crazy, for a long time, it's been known that
formula fed babies are heavier and 1yr than breastfed babies, but not
understood why, more recently the belief seems to be that this is
because babies take a larger amount from bottles than they would
naturally require from that feed - kind of like the way a baby can
appear satisfied at the breast, but if a bottle is then offered, might
take it and eat some. I think the numbers came in at 1-1.5oz extra per
feed, which is a lot extra per day and it will add up. I'm not aware of
any studies comparing ebm in a bottle to either formula of breastfeeding
directly, but it wouldn't be surprising if the same thing happens,
though as it's more easily digested, the affect should be less. Obesity
in toddlers is getting surprisingly common.

Even so, I don't think it's a big factor in bottle feeding breastmilk or
breastfeeding directly, maybe just something to keep at the back of your
mind if baby starts climbing up the centile charts, to keep an eye on
whether it is just there natural variation from the norm, or if it's the
start of being too heavy.

Cheers
Anne

On Jun 25, 2:05 pm, elanamig wrote:
Hello,

I just had my second child 9 days ago. My first is 21 months old. At
this point, I'm expressing breast milk and feeding it to my newborn
from a bottle. However, while I feel that this is an optimal solution
for my situation, I am having regular guilt trips because of this.
Here are the reasons:

1. I hold my newborn as much as I can, but not on my breast. Is this
enough?
2. He's a big baby (born at 9lb). By feeding him through a bottle
(with my milk, not formula), am I increasing his risk of obesity?

What do you think? Are my concerns valid, or am I just making myself
crazy?

Thanks,
Elana

I think you needn't be concerned. DH bonded well with DD and he never
nursed her ;-) (and rarely bottle fed her). You can bond in many ways.
I guess I'd wonder why you'd choose to exclusively pump, since that is
so much more work than nursing, but if you're happy about that, then I
wouldn't worry about it. I do think baby gets something special from
the skin to skin contact, but you can also do that without nursing.

I wouldn't worry about obesity either unless you're consistently
overfeeding. Let babe feed as long as he wants, don't force him to
finish a bottle if he doesn't want to.

On Jun 25, 3:05?pm, elanamig wrote:
Hello,

I just had my second child 9 days ago. My first is 21 months old. At
this point, I'm expressing breast milk and feeding it to my newborn
from a bottle. However, while I feel that this is an optimal solution
for my situation, I am having regular guilt trips because of this.
Here are the reasons:

1. I hold my newborn as much as I can, but not on my breast. Is this
enough?
2. He's a big baby (born at 9lb). By feeding him through a bottle
(with my milk, not formula), am I increasing his risk of obesity?

What do you think? Are my concerns valid, or am I just making myself
crazy?

Thanks,
Elana

Bottle feeding breastmilk versus straight from the breast is not a
contributing factor to the *risk* of obesity. Unless you have a nipple
that flows so fast baby can't stop sucking to give a ready to stop
signal, babies really can stop sucking on a bottle and give a signal
or two that they are done. Also, my breastfed baby has 10 pounds on
his 2 siblings that were formula fed. lol. I just feel compelled to
share with you that pumping becomes a complete drag after a while,
although it can appear to be a solution to a problem here and there. I
had never been so happy as the day I put that darned thing away. lol.
A baby will stimulate your supply much better than a pump will. Also,
trying to exclusively pump can be a contributing factor to a shortened
breastfeeding relationship, and in turn in many cases, a shortened
length of time the baby will receive even the pumped breast milk. It
isn't always the case, but it is more often the case than not.

elanamig wrote:


1. I hold my newborn as much as I can, but not on my breast. Is this
enough?
2. He's a big baby (born at 9lb). By feeding him through a bottle
(with my milk, not formula), am I increasing his risk of obesity?

What do you think? Are my concerns valid, or am I just making myself
crazy?

My sister bottlefed her twins with ebm five years ago. She's now about
to have another baby, and this time she's definitely going to
breastfeed. Her reasons:

1. It's easier (no pumping, no sterilising).
2. Her twins slept very badly and were very attention-seeking for the
first couple of years. She thinks they might have been insecure because
of missing skin-to-skin contact (sort of your reason 1). However, I
think it might have had more to do with the fact that she was a single
mother at the time and (despite lots of help, especially from my
parents) somewhat overwhelmed by taking care of two babies.
3. Both twins didn't develop their mouth muscles properly, because they
didn't have to suck enough. However, this was mainly because my sister
is impatient, and she increased the size of the teats' holes with a hot
needle.

Neither of them is overweight.

Obvisously this is just one non-representative example.

HTH, Karen

In article .com,
says...
Hello,

I just had my second child 9 days ago. My first is 21 months old. At
this point, I'm expressing breast milk and feeding it to my newborn
from a bottle. However, while I feel that this is an optimal solution
for my situation, I am having regular guilt trips because of this.
Here are the reasons:

1. I hold my newborn as much as I can, but not on my breast. Is this
enough?
2. He's a big baby (born at 9lb). By feeding him through a bottle
(with my milk, not formula), am I increasing his risk of obesity?

What do you think? Are my concerns valid, or am I just making myself
crazy?

Thanks,
Elana


You are right to be concerned, you are just focusing on the wrong set
of potential dangers.

You face other problems you don't mention here. Currently your baby is
a newborn, and your supply is primarily hormone driven. As your baby
gets older, your baby will need more milk, and your supply will become
almost exclusively demand driven, and your may become pump resistant,
which will limit your supply. Couple that with the increasing amount
of time that it will take to express an adequate amount of milk, this
strategy has a high failure rate among those who try it.

You are not likely increasing his risk of obesity. Your main danger
is increasing the risk of needing formula supplementation and
replacement of breastmilk, and the attendant health disadvantages for
both him and yourself.

You say that you think this is "an optimal solution for my situation."
Is this for emotional or practical reasons? If it is for practical
reasons, there are many people here who can offer useful suggestions,
and direct nursing becomes much more easier than expressing as the baby
gets older. If it is for emotional reasons, it may be more difficult
to work through to a successful nursing relationship, but again, the
people here are supportive, mostly non-judgmental, and can offer
encouragement and support as well as practical advice.

Please post again and let us know how you and the baby are doing.

Good luck,
Larry