Its another nursery one.....

[Myusername101]

Ill try and keep it brief, DD is 8 and a half months old.
She has to eat/drink
breakfast at 7 (pooridge and a bottle of cows milk)
At bottl of foemula at 10
Lunch between 11.30 and 12
A bottle of formula at 2
Tea at 4.30
Bottle of formula before bed at 6.30

Nursery have been hinting for about two weeks that she doesn't need her 10am bottle, i have just sort of ignored the honts because tbh i dont thinm its their business, sometimes she drinks it and sometimes she doesnt but its up to me if i want to waste milk surely?

Anyway she is in nursery 3 days a week (M W F) on monday one bottle came home untouched, i thoight maybe i was going mad and gave her too many to take in, wednesday the same thing happened so i said something along the lines of "oh right i would prefer she still has it please even she doesnt drink it" they said "oh she has fruit and things with the other children now" i said "i'd still prefer her to have the 10 oclock bottle so i know shes drinking enough" and just got fobbed off with "oh but she is"

Fast forward to today ive had an awful few nughts with her having an ear infection, coulsnt possibly take today off and had no body to help me so had to send her in, we had been at GP's over her ear so she didnt go in until 10ish.

I specifically said when i dropped her off she hasnt had a very good night, (we had a nightmare at the GP's and i had to go and take her ear swab to the hospital myself ) so she hasnt eaten or drank since about 7.

She was asleep when i dropped her off but i said " i know dinner is at 11.30 but because she hasnt been very well and not eaten or drank since 7 can she please have that bottle when she wakes up" was told "yes absolutely no problem"

I rang nursery just now to ask how she is as i feel bad sending her in and they said "shes fine she didnt get up till 11ish though so we didnt give her bottle just made her wait till lunch"

Im fuming!! I specifically said she was to have it, ive had this conversation several times about her having that bottle but i know im really not assertive and suffer really bad anxiety and getting my point across can be really hard for me.

I dont think its nurseries place to tell me what i feed my baby! Im her mum and i pay them surely they should do as i say? Even if i wanted her to have a bottle on the hour every hour - that should be my decision not theres!

So lovely mumsnetters, AIBU? and if im not how do i make the nursery see my POV without coming across as a bitch or one of "those mums"

In regards to cows milk i always understood it to be a guideline that they couslnt have it till 12 months old and that 95% of milk intolerance is genetic so with there being no history of it in the family at all and the old guidelines being 6 months i introduced it slowly from 7.5 months.

The guidelines about not giving cow's milk as a drink before 12 months isn't because of intolerance, it's because giving cow's milk doesn't contain the nutrients that breastmilk/formula does but does fill them up so if they drink cow's milk they drink less formula (and get less nutrition). I'd really suggest you switch that first bottle to formula.

Same for our nursery Georgie. And actually no parents ever complain about other kids coming in sick. It's up to the parent to make a judgement call as to whether their kid is well enough to go in, and also whether their nursery is well equipped and caring enough to take on the kid. My nursery take kids and give them prescribed medicine including antibiotics all the time. My child has never picked up a serious infection in over a year or going there - yet. So I do think it's a little dramatic everyone saying they need to be off for an ear infection (maybe if it's serious yes, but a run of the mill common childhood ear infection is unlikely to harm the child by having someone other than its mother and father caring for it). I also want to know what everyone's job is that they can just drop it so easily for a common childhood Illness? Some jobs really NEED you there unless something seriously has happened, no?

And to answer the initial question. The nursery nurses are not the parent, so within reason, they should be doing as the parent asks. No question.

*You need to talk to your employer btw you are entitled to parental leave (its unpaid), they cannot discipline you for using it

You need to give a minimum of 21 days notice.*

Ahh Yes, I must have missed that bit. I think you can still have reasonable time off to look after dependants?

You are allowed to take time off in an emergency (www.gov.uk/time-off-for-dependants), and you can't be discriminated against for doing so. To be disciplined for it seems entirely unreasonable unless you've had a really excessive series of absences.

Parental leave is the name for a different type of leave, as you've described.

Ignore people telling you you shouldn't have sent your DD in, my DDs nursery say children can go in on Antibiotics as long as they're ok in themselves and they don't have a temperature, the nursery even offer to give Abs at the right times if they need them during the Nursery days so your DDs nursery may be similar.

My DD dropped her 10am bottle at around that age, she just wasn't interested or it'd effect what she was eating at lunch so don't worry too much about if she won't take it, but the Nursery should follow your lead if you want her to still have it.

Old guidance also had babies sleeping on their fronts.

There is no problem with sending an ill baby to nursery, so long as you are adhering to the nursery policy on sickness. Ours was they had to stay home if they had a fever or any d&v in the previous 48 hours. Otherwise, they were fine to go in. If she had no fever, I absolutely would have sent her. Mine pretty much had a cold from November to May her first winter. I never would have gone to work if I'd kept her home every time she was sick.

Yes, they should be offering her a bottle. You're paying them and she's your baby. It's their job to provide the service you pay them for. I think that's a big red flag, though I can see it happening in some nurseries. We looked at a few that were very commercial and very stuck on routines with all children doing the same thing at the same time. We intentionally chose one that wasn't for this reason.

I would put it in writing to them what you expect and ask for a written record each day that they have offered her a bottle unless it becomes clear what you expect. If she doesn't want it, fine. But they should be offering it and not trying to force some routine that she isn't used to.

Surely you could just solve this problem by giving her the formula at 7? They should have listened to you when you asked for her to keep having the feed but tbh I’m not sure why your so fixated on it especially as you give cows milk at other times?

You’re unreasonable to be fuming about her not having it before lunch. Try to see it from their point of view, another parent might be fuming that they gave her a bottle so close to lunch meaning she probably wouldn’t have eaten much. They used common sense.

Formula milk is food though. If she is thirsty she should be having water.

FurryGiraffe Milk is still so so important at 8 months regardless. I had a hoover baby, she really loved her food but she needed the bottles, very much so.

FurryGiraffe Milk is still so so important at 8 months regardless. I had a hoover baby, she really loved her food but she needed the bottles, very much so.

I didn’t say it wasn’t important or needed. You said that solid meals at 8 months were ‘tiny’. I was simply pointing out that that isn’t the case for all babies. Babies of 8 months: (a) very enormously in the amount of food (milk and solids) they eat in total; and (b) vary in the proportions that milk and solids make up their diets. At 8 months my DSs went to nursery and BF morning and evening and just had solids and water during the day on the days I worked.

The obvious thing, i think, is to give formula at home for the first bottle and then not worry about whether or not she has another bottle in between breakfast and lunch given that she's having a snack then as well.

@EvilDoctorBallerinaRoastDuck
They shouldn't be deciding when to drop feeds, you're her mother. YANBU.

^ This. I would keep insisting they offer it to her and even put a friendly but firm request in writing maybe a handover book or communication slip if your Nursery does that? I both work in a Nursery and send my DS to the same one and we are always parent led we would never try to drop a baby’s milk feed because ‘it’s too much hassle/work’

A previous poster said the baby needs cooled boiled water to drink. This is incorrect - after 6 months, tap water is fine.