The health visitor came round again today. She is a cheery, dark haired woman from Inverness. She doesn’t stay long, since we seem to be coping we get pretty much left alone. People aren’t interested unless you are freaking out, I suppose. My daughter was weighed again, she is now 10lbs, the wee butterball. However, we have a couple of questions about feeding, and the answers are actually pretty useful, so pay attention if you are going to have a kid.
Lynne has a gig at Hogmanay and the kid will be staying at home with me. I need to be able to feed the baby and Lynne isn’t really expressing the volume of milk required. Is mixing with formula feeds with breast-feeding allowed? All the literature recommends against it. In fact its absolutely fine to give formula feeds when you are breast feeding. The only things you have to watch out for is that if the mother’s milk isn’t regularly squeezed out, then the mother’s body will reduce the amount of milk it produces accordingly. And maybe the baby will be unconvinced by the differing taste and texture of formula compared to breast milk, but as far as I’m concerned the kid will get what its given.
The other thing is expressing. Lynne was coming round to the idea that it was a waste of time. She didn’t seem to be able to express more than 20ml in one go. It just doesn't seem like much. Any tips on expressing? Apparently 20ml is fine for a mother with a four-week-old baby so don’t worry about it. Vary the time of day that you try to express to see if that makes any difference and bear in mind that you don’t have to keep all the milk separate. Its fine to mix it all in one bottle in any 24 hour period. That way you can acumulate a decent feed over the course of a day.
This may all sound straight-forward enough, but these are the kind of things that you stress about when you are a new parent. As always, it all turns out to a fuckload easier than you thought.
Lynne has a gig at Hogmanay and the kid will be staying at home with me. I need to be able to feed the baby and Lynne isn’t really expressing the volume of milk required. Is mixing with formula feeds with breast-feeding allowed? All the literature recommends against it. In fact its absolutely fine to give formula feeds when you are breast feeding. The only things you have to watch out for is that if the mother’s milk isn’t regularly squeezed out, then the mother’s body will reduce the amount of milk it produces accordingly. And maybe the baby will be unconvinced by the differing taste and texture of formula compared to breast milk, but as far as I’m concerned the kid will get what its given.
The other thing is expressing. Lynne was coming round to the idea that it was a waste of time. She didn’t seem to be able to express more than 20ml in one go. It just doesn't seem like much. Any tips on expressing? Apparently 20ml is fine for a mother with a four-week-old baby so don’t worry about it. Vary the time of day that you try to express to see if that makes any difference and bear in mind that you don’t have to keep all the milk separate. Its fine to mix it all in one bottle in any 24 hour period. That way you can acumulate a decent feed over the course of a day.
This may all sound straight-forward enough, but these are the kind of things that you stress about when you are a new parent. As always, it all turns out to a fuckload easier than you thought.
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