Feeling our way onto formula

This post was started at the beginning of August 2011 and finished at the end of Septemeber 2011. Some things take a long time to write when you have a small one.

I am still breast feeding curious George once or twice a day (he's 15 months now) but we are very blessed that he is slowly weaning himself. I guess it’s true what they say, if you leave them to it they'll decide when they're done with breast feeding. On that note though some gentle persuasion never hurt anyone and so although we have not gone cold turkey from breast to bottle we have steered CG in the bottle direction from around 1 year.

First let me say that I have exclusively breast fed for the whole of CGs first year. I am assured that from a year toddlers do not need milk for its nutrients, in fact, they need to get their nutrients from solid food and too much milk can hinder their appetite. The main thing they are getting from the milk is calcium. So you need to make sure they are getting their daily requirement of that.

As I said earlier on we are now down to 1 feed some time during the night, which is very small, and/or 1 feed on waking, these are both what I call tandem feeds (I'll explain this later). He also has between 150 and 300 mls of formula at bedtime.

So how did we get from 4 or 5 breast feeds a day at about 10mnths to this point?

The feed after his first sleep was where we first tried to introduce formula. This was a disaster and almost put him off bottles all together. We tried mixing formula and breast milk but that did not work either. So after a few days we went back to breast feeding. It was then that a friend suggested I just try substituting the breast feed for a snack and some water. So instead of offering breast I slyly offered the snack holding thumbs that he would not ask for breast. He didn't and with that the 10am feed was gone. There were a few hiccups like we needed to get that milk or liquid in somewhere else in the day and for the first little while that milk was needed in the night but the kinks worked themselves out and we were down to 3 or 4 feeds a day.

After his 1st birthday we decided to give the formula another bash but he still did not take to it. This time I tried some myself. Yuck. We were trying the hypoallergenic NAN 2 and no wonder he didn't want it, he probably didn't like the taste. So I asked the same friend who had given me the snack substitute advice if she would give me a few scoops of the formula she was using so we could try it. She gave us some S26 Gold 3 to try which he is still using. Its expensive and now we are trying to slowly move him to another formula by sneaking small scoops into the s26.

My best friend had been giving her little one milky tea and I decided to try this disguise approach. So we made rooibos and added a half teaspoon of formula to 150 ml of tea and offered it as a drink with breakfast. He drank it and we stood back in excited amazement. Could this be the answer? Slowly we increased the formula in the tea and offered it as a drink at breakfast and dinner.
Finally he was taking to the formula. At one point when we were close to giving the right amount of formula powder in the tea, he stopped eating dinner and I realised he was filling up on milk. So we started only giving the milky tea at bedtime.

So at this point he was having one sippy cup (150 ml) of milky tea in tandem with his breastfeed before bed.

Around 13mnths I went to the clinic sister and we discussed the need for breast milk or formula, as I talked about earlier at this stage it’s really the calcium and other supplements in formula that they need.
It also seemed that the afternoon feed (before the sleep) was affecting dinner. One day when we were out CG was to distracted to breastfeed and its then I realised he didn't really need the feed in the afternoon. So we dropped that feed as well by offering a snack and water after the sleep and distracting him with a story before the sleep.

Now we were down to 2 feeds, 1 before bed and 1 during the night. In an attempt to train the night feed out I started to offer a breast feed on waking. So now we were having 3 feeds. It didn't work in getting rid of the night feed and he never really took to it. He always just had a tiny bit but was very impatient to get up and get moving for the day.

Then on day when he was 14mnths old we went to a wedding. That night my mom used the last of the breast milk from the freezer and as usual the sippy cup with formula.

At this point I should also say that expressing has become near impossible as the milk only seems to arrive when CG is drinking. When I try to express I get just about nothing, maybe 30ml or so. Not enough for a feed.

So I thought 'well that's is now, no more going out at night until he's weaned because I won't be able to build up another feed it will be too frustrating. However the next evening he happily took his sippy cup, we read stories and he never asked for breast milk, so I didn’t offer and he went off to sleep quite happily. That was it for him, no more breast feeding before bed.

He was still having a feed in the night and some on waking but we were making progress. The next thing that happened purely by accident is that we discovered if he got 300ml of formula at bedtime he slept a lot better. He even slept through a couple of times.

This was also around the time that he started to drop down to one sleep a day. I was pulling my hair out because he was only sleeping for an hour but then would not sleep again during the day. This just meant that I had a tired grumpy child all afternoon. I was chatting to my friend and she suggested I tried giving him some formula at this sleep. The sleep was is over lunch time and his little body was still programmed to wake up at 12 o' clock wanting food. The milk made all the difference and he started sleeping for around 2hrs at a time.

This gave me the confidence to try and subsitute a formula feed during the night instead of the breastfeed. Oh boy no wonder people give bottles at bedtime, it makes life so easy. No crying or fussing just pop in the milk and little one goes off to sleep. I know the issues with teeth and allowing a bottle in the cot however the NUK sippy cup we use is a different story. It has a one way valve in the teat which only allows liquid out of if is bitten or sucked on hard and the cup has big heavy handles. There is no possibility of him falling asleep with it in his mouth and the milk pooling and rotting his teeth.

So now at 16mnths he has a 150ml sippy cup at nap time, a 300ml cup at bedtime and another 150ml during the night (we stand the cup in the corner of the cot when we got to bed and he finds it in the night). What bliss. I am by no means sorry that I breast fed for so long, I know the benefits for my child far outweigh the sleep depravation for mommy and daddy but I am certainly enjoying this new stage.