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Infant feeding

Heading back to work - stopping breastfeeding worries

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Jessabean · 29/03/2020 11:50

So I'm heading back to work next week (work in healthcare and current pandemic means am doing this now about a month earlier than I was initially planning to so this is all now a bit last minute panic!).
My DD has just turned 11months old and has been EBF since she started (and carried on believe me Ive tried!) refusing a bottle about 3months old. She's really good with solids and eats three square meals a day plus snacks and drinks water out of a sippy cup no problem. Currently she has a morning 7am and bedtime 7pm full feed plus one feed sometimes two overnight. Managed to drop mid morning and mid afternoon feeds and replace with some yoghurt and water (keep trying her with formula and milk in a sippy cup but she just doesn't seem to like either 🤷‍♀️ ) with other snacks. If I was going to be going back to work a normal 9-5 job that would be fine to keep to this but I have to work an on call rota as part of my job which means every now and then having to do 9am-9pm and 9pm-9am night shifts and am just at a loss for how to go about this. Is it safe to completely wean off breastmilk and formula at 12months? Only alternative really is trying to express and for in a sippy cup but I only seem to be able to express max 60mls between both boobs since they 'softened' months ago and that doesn't even seem worth giving in a cup!
As it stands I don't have a long shift until she's almost 13months but given the current pandemic that may well change and I'll have to do long hour shifts a lot sooner.
Anyone been in this situation with shift work and weaning before and have any advice? Will be hard even not thinking about it nutritionally as she gets so much comfort from it and I'm sure would be one of those children happily continuing indefinitely if allowed to!

Also sorry had also posted on weaning page but wasn't sure which was best place to put post & had no reply so have duplicated on here.

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JiltedJohnsJulie · 29/03/2020 22:04

If you do want to continue, I think you'll be alright.

I'd do the 7am and 7pm feed when you're there and if you're not there, she can have cows milk in a cup.

She may however decide to try and make up the missing time with you and the odd missed feed by wanting more feeds at night. Once she's reached 12 months, you can do some gentle night weaning.

If you do go down the route of stopping all formula and BFs, be warned that neither of mine would touch a drop of cow's milk until they'd had completely stopped all BFs.

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