Baby refusing expressed BM at nursery

[JacqueslePeacock]

My DS is 12 months old and for the last two weeks has been refusing the sippy cup of expressed milk I send to nursery for him. It really upsets me that every day the nursery ends up just throwing away a full bottle of my milk!

DS is waking more in the night to BF at the same time (and is absolute hell to re-settle). I'm BF-ing when he wakes in the morning and before he goes to bed in the evening during the week, as well as 4 or 5 times a day at the weekend.

Does anyone have any advice? Should I just give up trying to get him to drink expressed milk at nursery? I have 3 worries about this:

1. he is a low weight for his height - he doesn't always eat solids well and won't touch cow's milk - and I don't want him to lose weight!
   
2. he tends not to drink much water at nursery either and always comes home very thirsty.
   
3. I fear that my supply will drop if I stop pumping. We're definitely not ready to give up BF-ing yet.
   
   TIA!

[combinearvester]

Have you changed the cup, the stuff you use to wash the cup, has nursery changed the worker who gives him the cup, does he drink BM out of the cup at home?

At 12 months supply should adjust fairly easily, I have a few friends with babies younger than yours who refused milk at nursery and their Mums ended up making up the lost feeds at night and randomly at the weekend with no issues.

My youngest who happily had expressed milk and indeed some poisonous dairy free formula out of bottles once or twice a day from a very young age, decided one weekend at about ten months that he wouldn't feed from the bottles I left with my Mum. This ruined my weekend away when I had to come back early to feed him . I discovered Mum had sterilised the bottles with Milton which must have left a grim taste.

[gallicgirl]

My DD was FF but the same think happened when she started nursery just before she was 1.

After a week of throwing away formula, we decided to allow nursery to offer her cow's milk......which she also refused.

So she only has water at nursery. She still had two bottles of formula at home in the morning and before bed so I didn't feel it was a problem because she was also eating well.

You might find he eats a lot better at nursery once he gets used to it. perhaps you can replace with lots of high calorie foods?

[sleepdodger]

Ds started nursery at 10mo but dropped his milk during day by 11mo- to exciting doing stuff to stop and drink and then more room for food (greedy boy )
He stacked on weight if anything
Still happily had milk morning & night

[JiltedJohnsJulie]

I think it is pretty normal, my two did this anyway. One didn't touch cows milk until he had stopped bfing for about 2 months, the other one would accept body temperature cows milk at a push, but she was older.

I don't think your supply will suffer if you stop pumping, so don't worry about that but ask Nursery how they are giving the pumped milk. If they are using a bottle (which isn't recommended anyway after 12 months) then perhaps this information will help them get him to accept it.

If they are using cups, perhaps take his favourite from home. How is he with straws, could you try to get him to drink more with a straw?

If he does refuse all milk at nursery though, its not such a worry, as long as you are happy to top him up at night. Not drinking water is an issue though and you need to ask the nursery to make sure he does drink plenty.

[JacqueslePeacock]

He has the milk from his sippy cup from home, which I send in to nursery every day (and no change in the washing liquid etc). He accepted it with a bit of coaxing for the first 2 weeks after starting nursery, but in the last 2 weeks he just pushes it away. He apparently does the same with water, which is worrying.

I'm not hugely happy about topping up at night as I've just started a stressful new job with an early start, and I'm up at least 3 or 4 times a night with him. I'm not sure what else to do though.

[JiltedJohnsJulie]

Yeah, it is hard isn't it. Mine just adopted the policy of I'll just wait but I only worked two days so it wasn't too much of a problem.

Think you are going to have to work with the nursery more on this one. They need to make sure he has enough to eat and drink at least while he is in their care.

It does sound like he is reverse cycling but don't think you can do much about it unless you have the nursery on your side.

I don't think that night weaning would help you either at this point but have a read of 12 alternatives for the all night nurser, you may get some more useful tips.

If your sleep is a problem, do you think sticking him in bed with you might help?

[JacqueslePeacock]

Thanks for the suggestions and the links. The nusery staff don't seem too worried so are brushing me off a bit, but I will talk to them again. We do end up co-sleeping for at least part of the night as it's often the only way to settle him, but he is such a wriggler and moaner, so I don't really get any more rest, sadly!

[JiltedJohnsJulie]

Well, the nursery staff shouldn't be brushing you off if he is coming home hungry and thirsty there is an issue.

One of my friends is a CM and she's had a couple of babies that have been moved from the local nursery to her by their parents. The same sort of thing was going on. She is very bfing friendly and has worked with the parents to get the children back on track. Perhaps if they don't take you seriously next time it might be worth considering a CM.