I have the opportunity to breastfeed at the nursery...should I?

[DuelingFanjo]

DS is EBF 'on demand' and will be going into a nursery which is on my work site. I have been told I can go over and feed him. he will be just over 9 months and I have been giving him a cup of expressed milk during the day to get him prepared for me not being there for every feed but since I found out a colleague breastfed her son while he was in the nursery I am wondering if maybe it's worth doing.

My initial thought was that it may be disruptive for him (and me) to have to say 'goodbye' maybe 3 times a day (including morning drop off) but presumably he will adapt?

What do you think, should I jump at the chance? I know I am lucky to have this oportunity.

I would have wanted to do this in theory but actually when DS was 9 months I know he would have been more unsettled by me coming back and going again. He still gets unsettled by things like this now and he's 2.9.

I think it could work with a younger baby, up to 6 months or so, but older I think they're probably too aware if that makes sense. But I know it must seem silly sitting there expressing knowing he's just a few feet away.

if it were me i would definitely try it.
if you find it upsets him then you can always stop. but yes, it's certainly something i would jump at

Personally I think it would be too disruptive for you both.

Of course you may both adapt brilliantly but I think it would be the exception rather than the rule IYSWIM.

I managed to maintain BFing with morning and evening feeds if that helps.

I would have, but DD was rarely upset when I left her at nursery at that age. Also she wouldn't take a bottle / cup so it would have helped massively, and stopped me worrying about whether she was drinking enough.

I don't think you can know really until your DS starts nursery and you see how he settles. You could always give it a try and if it doesn't work out because it's confusing and he's getting upset then you can stop?

thank you, he's really good with the cup and so I think by September he will be fine to go all day but my mum has recently been saying she thinks I should take the opportunity to feed him as it fits with my attachment style parenting. I think that because he will be 9 months I am slightly worried about the attachment thing and wonder if maybe I could settle him in and then after a while start going over to feed. My colleague says she has only just stopped going over to her son and he is over 1 however I think she may have put him in earlier than my DS.

I have the same scenario coming up except DS will be 6 months. It's so hard to know what to do for the best.

In theory it is a fabulous thing - I expect you are wondering whether to do it just because you can?

Why not give it a go? If it is too disruptive then you can always change to using EBM.

I didn't go back to work in the end, but having an opportunity like that would perhaps have tipped the balance for me.

If it were me, I'd give it a go - you can always stop again if it doesn't work for you both.

could you do it the same time each day? That might be less disruptive - I personally would give it a go in your circumstances

I did this with DS - he was 11 months when he started at nursery, and I went down just after lunch (his lunch) every day until he was 15 months. It was lovely tbh. Very relaxing, we got a cuddle in the middle of the day, and he was then put down for a nap when I went. I stopped because he was moving to a different room where they had very strict routines, and a mum coming in to feed would disrupt them (I tried for a couple of weeks, but it wasn't working for any of the children, and DS got very wound up by mummy being there.).

but in the baby room, it was fine - the routine there is less strict, as the babies are such differing ages, so nap at different times, and at our work nursery, there always seems to be a mum feeding - they have a special comfy chair for it, and pillows too. Although a couple of times I ended up in a pile of cushions on the floor because another mum had got to the chair before me :)

I would defintely try it. He may not have any issue with you popping in to see him. Much easier than expressing which is what I did for almost 1 year at work. I would have loved to go and see my dd at lunchtime

I did, though ds was 6m when we started. The 'on demand' thing had to go - I couldn't just leave work when he fancied some milk - but because he was a second child there had always been a bit of routine anyway for school runs and ds1's bedtime etc. He wasn't keen on solids and I was (irrationally) determined not to use formula and crap at expressing, so it worked for us. Though he also started feeding a lot more at night to make up for bigger gaps in the day, which wasn't great for the energetic professional look...

I did it too. Only stopped recently as at just over a year he's finally decided he can manage to go 9-5 without boobs (but I can't be late!).

Worked ok. Gave me a break in the day and kept me comfortable. It's one of those things to try and see how it goes. If it doesn't, do something different.

As a bonus, I have now had THREE different nursery nurses asking me for BFing advice, and saying that when their time comes they would consider BFing whereas before they had always just thought that they would FF.