PARENTHOOD: Struggling with Combination Feeding when baby has a High Palette

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Combination feeding was always the aim, but the journey there wasn't the simplest. In October of 2019 we welcomed our third baby and first son Rory into the family. As with each of our children I was nervous about being able to breastfeed him, but within 20 minutes of being born he had successfully latched on and our breastfeeding journey began. I was extremely lucky that he latched well, I only had the usual pains you experience when you initially start breastfeeding and it all seemed relatively smooth sailing. That was until we had our six week check-up and Rory had dropped from the 75th centile to the 50th; although he was gaining weight it wasn't at the rate he should be. I had also noticed that he was making a clicking sound every time he fed, then getting upset due to trapped wind. It all became a vicious cycle of struggling to feed without taking in a lot of air, then getting uncomfortable, and then needing feeding to calm down etc. I began to become concerned that he might have a posterior tongue tie, so mentioned this to my health visitor who recommended that we attended one of the county's breastfeeding clinics.

PREGNANCY #3: Preparing my Hospital Bag for the Third Time

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It's that time again...time to pack the hospital bag. This is when reality hits that there is actually going to be a baby here soon, a reminder of how small newborn baby clothes are and the excited feelings of what is to come. As we're expecting our third baby I'm certainly not new the packing a hospital bag, but it still feels like quite a daunting task to me. I think it's the unknown that makes it trickier; not knowing the kind of birth you're going to have, how long it will be, when it will happen, where it will take place etc. Obviously we all have some level of a plan in place, but babies are notorious for just doing whatever they want to, aren't they? When it came to packing my hospital bag this time around it is with the vision of giving birth in hospital and not having a c-section. Only time will tell whether I end up needing an emergency c-section, but at the moment it is not part of my birth plan so have therefore not packed for one. 

MOTHERHOOD: How will I know when to stop combination feeding?

Combination feeding has been a big part of my life for the past three years or so and still is to be honest. Back in 2015, when Isabella was born, we were hoping to be able to establish breastfeeding over the first few weeks and then move to combination feeding from around six weeks. I was incredibly lucky with my breastfeeding journey and only 20 minutes after being born Isabella was latched on and feeding away. Other than the usual aches and pains of those early weeks of breastfeeding, I had a very positive experience. That was until Isabella was three weeks old and going through a growth spurt; I simply felt like I couldn't keep up with breastfeeding alone. I was barely sleeping, feeding what felt like constantly and still Isabella wasn't satisfied. Seeing my struggles and anguish over the situation my husband suggested we gave her a small bottle of formula milk as a 'top up'. 

BABY #2: Our Struggle with Combination Feeding and Tips that Helped

Combination feeding (breast and bottle) is something that we choose to do when Isabella was a baby and it worked really well. We had planned to wait until she was six weeks old, but after what felt like hours of constant feeding we ended up giving her a bottle when she was 3 weeks old. We started with the tiny bottles you can buy with ready made Aptamil in that also come with the teats. Isabella happily guzzled away and that was the start of her combination feeding journey. She would happily swap between different bottles, expressed and formula milk and drank it without a problem. Naively that was what I expected this time around. How wrong was I.