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I supplemented with both of my boys. I nursed for about 10 months with my first, and I made it about 13 months with my second.

I pumped 3x a day when I was back at work at 4 months old for both babies. It was around then (4 months) that I started introducing a bottle of formula here & there for each. They would only get about 1 every other day early on. Then around 6 months they were definitely getting one bottle of formula a day, plus pumped milk and nursing.

And then as they approached a year old they were getting more formula and less breast milk... but I was also pumping a little less so maybe getting 1 bottle a day, plus nursing and more food.

It worked really well for us. I didn't have the best supply, so it took a lot of pressure off to supplement I would have liked to make it longer nursing, but I dried up... I know a LOT of people are successful nursing just at night, but it didn't work for me.

I supplemented with both my kids and I credit formula in keeping me able/motivated to put up with the hassle of BF and pumping.

When they are still feeding MOTN, I like to give formula and then pump afterwards. I actually found that was faster because the baby could feed quickly with the bottle and go back to sleep on a full belly while I quickly did a 10-15 minute pump and go back to bed myself. (Even better if your partner bottle feeds and you pump and everyone goes back to sleep that much faster!) If I nursed instead, the baby would just conk out after a few minutes and then we'd be in a sleep/nurse/sleep/nurse cycle for hours. Any milk I pumped at night would be stash. I also pumped after the morning feeding to totally empty out and that would be stash.

Once the baby is STTN and my supply is well established, we give formula at the 1030pm dreamfeed. It was the designated bottle feeding that DH did every night. I would pump during the 1030pm feed.

While I struggled with supply with DS1, I was able to bank 6-8oz of milk a day with DS2. Which means I definitely made enough milk for him to be EBF, but I liked the flexibility supplementing provided me. Breast or bottle, formula or BM or a mix of both - DS2 ate it all like a champ. And I was able to pump wean at 9-10 months and have enough of a stash to get DS2 mostly breastmilk past a year old.

ETA: When they dropped the dreamfeed, I just made the bedtime feeding a formula bottle and pushed my last pump to 9 or 10pm (i.e. I dropped a pump).

With DS we did formula for the last feeding before bed and I pumped before I went to sleep.

@Pollywog: I LOVE this approach. Hoping next time around I will keep this in mind and not drive myself crazy over every bottle!

I did not supplement from the beginning, but ended up adding in formula around 10 months when my supply dropped and my freezer stash was getting low. I pumped once a day on maternity leave and twice a day at work when I returned at 12 weeks, and do still have a little stash in the freezer now at 12 months.

At 10 months, I was pumping maybe 1 1/2 bottles a day with three pumping sessions, and it was just too much pumping without an adequate payoff. I went down to 2 pumping sessions, then 1, and started feeding what I was pumping and topping the bottles off with formula, which she took like a champ. We're still nursing nights and weekends with no issue, although I suspect LO is getting lots of nutrition from solid food and drinking plant-based milks from a straw cup too.

@Revel: I had an oversupply at first and would pump one breast at my 5am feed and nurse off of the other. I ended up getting 6 ounces at a time for months. I wound up with 200+ ounces that way (that I had to donate due to MSPI ) I plan to try that approach with my next baby

We supplemented with LO1.

I think there are a few things I wish I had done differently ...

Most of all, I didn't really see any of those "this is how big your baby's belly is at this age" graphics until I had already started giving her more formula than she probably needed. Obviously, it likely had an impact on my already low supply.

We introduced formula sometime between weeks 1-3 (because she was losing weight). We did supplementation via an SNS for quite awhile - so my supply wouldn't take a huge hit.

Eventually, we just moved to nursing + bottles when needed.

I was able to BF about 90% of her needs at first, but it slowly faded until she was nearly 90% formula fed at 1 year.

I think it's important to look at WHO standards for weight (a little lower, since it leans more towards BFing), and remember your specific child will have their own specific needs. I freaked out so much that I wasn't giving her enough (which, I wasn't - I genuinely had low supply), but I think in retrospect, she was getting too much formula.

One last thing: our bodies tend to build more gland tissue with each pregnancy, so there's a chance your supply will be greater this time around.

I had to supplement from the beginning. For us, it was a supply/demand issue. We started supplementing the first night, because although I was feeding her constantly, she was still screaming. (I had some other medical issues from delivery that led to a long delay in her first nursing session, and I think that had a lot to do with it too.) At her first visit, the pediatrician recommended nursing first and then if she still seemed unsatisfied, offering a bottle to see how much she would take. We eventually settled into a routine where we supplemented with formula for her second feeding of the morning and her last feeding before bedtime and we nursed for all other feedings, and we kept up with that until I went back to work.

When I went back to work, pumping made my supply decrease further, so we gradually increased the ratio of formula. Thanks to supplementing, we were able to primarily breastfeed until 4 months, and I nursed her until 6 months, when she self-weaned. I think she just wasn't getting much milk at that point.

I probably could have pumped more or tried harder to increase my supply, but supplementing worked just fine for us, so I didn't want to add any additional stress to our routine. And I was still happy that she was getting the benefits of mostly breast milk during that time.