Breast feeding

If you’re going to combi feed, I would say do it from the start and make sure someone else feeds the formula if possible! Look into pace feeding too. My daughter hated formula compared and feel we left it too late because of being told to wait for supply to establish, but if you’re always going to be missing a feed because of formula I don’t see it will impact supply as your body only makes what it knows you will use. Just make sure you don’t miss when you would usually breast feed or pump during those times because you do not want mastitis 😭 second hand pumps are fine imo as they’ll be sterilised anyway, hospitals loan them etc, it’s more if you’re worried about the motor not lasting as long and may have to replace a few parts if they’re worn like the valves

My son would never take a bottle so we didn't manage to combi feeding. With the pump, I'd say it's your choice but it's worth noting that pumps need parts replacing to be fully efficient so you might need to consider that x

My first combi fed for a little while when I was weaning him off of the boob at around 8 months was considering doing it this time round for night feeds to try and get longer stretches of sleep over night, if baby doesn’t take to it very well I still I plan to pump and breastfeed anyway so that my partner can also do feeds to take some pressure off as that is what I struggled with most with my first, I also bought second hand elvie wearable pumps and just bought new parts/valves etc! Managed to get one for £25 on vinted! Hope some of it is helpful! X

I think you need to be consistent with timings of when you formula feed if you want to get your supply right for the breast feeds. Eg friends I knew who did it gave formula at the same time every evening (by partner) while they slept, and all other feeds were breast. Also breast feeding over night in the early weeks if important to establishing supply so if you try to do exclusively formula over night, you might not get supply. Finally, I (and a lot of friends) didn’t get on with pumping at all - all my nipple pain was caused by pumping not breast feeding and I found pumping really hard to fit in with a newborn, so I gave up and only started when I returned to work at 9 months.