Mixed breast and bottle feeding
Many mums who choose mixed feeding say it offers the best of both worlds. Their baby still gets the benefits of breast feeds, yet it gives mums more freedom to bottle feed if they need to be away from their babies.
Many women will express and store enough breast milk to give to their babies via a bottle for when they are unable to breast feed.
For women who are unable to express and store enough breast milk to meet their baby's requirements, they may choose to combine breast feeding and some formula feeding.
Mixed feeding can also enable your partner to be more involved in feeding, especially with night feeds. However dads can be more involved in many other aspects of baby care.
It's important to realise that the less your baby breastfeeds, or if you do not express breast milk, the less breast milk your body will produce and it can be difficult to switch back to breast feeding once you've introduced formula.
If milk is not regularly removed from the breast and remains static, your body will produce less milk. Babies are also more effective at removing milk than most commercial pumps or hand expressing, although these are still workable solutions. The point is, that to ensure good supply there is nothing better than a baby put to the breast and allowed to feed on their individual hunger cues.
Mixed feeding is a big decision and one that should not be taken without consulting your health care professional first.
