My wife was fortunate enough to produce a lot of breast milk (enough to feed our 7-month-old daughter and also pump a significant amount, which we froze). In the first few months of our daughter's life, she was exclusively breast feeding, but now my wife is back to work and her supply is naturally dwindling and she's now at the point where she's no longer pumping. We're guessing that on an average day, our daughter gets maybe 4-6 oz. per day from breast feeding, and about 22-24 oz. from our frozen supply.
We probably have about 6 weeks' worth of frozen milk left (2 months' worth at the most), and at that point, my wife probably won't be producing anything, so we'll have to transition to formula. Note that the milk is in a deep freezer, and it's unlikely that any will be more than 6 months' old when she drinks it.
My questions are:
- It seems better to me that we should start feeding her formula while she's also drinking breast milk, so it's not a big shock (and so we have breast milk to feed her in case we need to try different formulas, etc.). Is this true?
- If so, is there an ideal time to start the formula (e.g. when we have 2 weeks' worth of breast milk left)? At that point, how much formula vs. breast milk should we use? Should we introduce the formula slowly (e.g. start with 1 bottle per day of formula vs. 4 of breast milk, and then work our way up to 5 formula?)
- Should we mix the formula with breast milk (i.e. in the same bottle?) If so, similar question to above - should we start with a low % of formula in each bottle and work our way up to 100% formula in a bottle as a way to ease her into it?