Sending breast fed baby to nursery - bottles/ cups for formula

[stegasaurus]

DD will be going to nursery 2 days a week when I go back to work in Feb. She will be 8 months old. So far, she has only ever had 1 bottle when she was a few weeks old (I was too ill to feed her one day). Do I spend a few weeks trying to teach and persuade her to drink out of a bottle just to persuade her not to when she is 1yr, or can I just start giving her formula in her cup? She's not great at drinking from a cup and will only use an open cup (baby cup without the spouted lid on) but is getting better. I will check tomorrow, but I think nursery want formula feeds to be bought in made up in bottles each morning. What can I do about that if I use cups? I guess I will need to provide a cup for each feed anyway and sterilise them each night, but have no idea how many feeds she might want and how many cups to buy. I might have to give up breastfeeding completely because of the crazy shifts I work, so can I sustain her long-term with formula feeds in open cups for every feed everyday? Is there any reason why I can't make up formula feeds in cups, or should I make them up in bottles then transfer into cups for her to drink? Can you even put Tommee Tippee cups in sterilisers?

Sorry so many questions. More potential problems keep occurring to me. Oh, and before you say to express, I can't. I've been trying for the past 6 months and can only get 1-2oz in a hour with an electric pump on a good day, so that is not going to be a realistic option.

I would try to stick with the cup or maybe try a sipper cup like the Avent one (might have changed now, my youngest one is 6). In my experience a nursery may not be prepared to persist with an open cup. None of mine would drink from a bottle and there is no way I could have made them after 6 months, but it was a bonus that i never had to wean them off a bottle again.

I would definitely start practicing soon but don't stress about it- what a baby struggles with one week can suddenly be quite straightforward the next.

Sorry to bring up the expressing but I found pumps useless and sore but hand expressing easier. Although still not easy.

Ds would not take a bottle and as you say only to worry about getting them off it in a few months. I would go with the cup personally, its a skill you'd be working on anyway and I would expect nursery to support this. I find they always leak so carry water in a normal bottle.

Can you afford those cartons instead of making it up - no idea of the difference in price tbh so may be useless idea?

Do you need to steralise past 6 months? (Again no idea just something I heard somewhere).

stegasaurus...

...lots of questions!

I'd talk to your nursery and see what they suggest but bear in mind that your DD may also naturally change a fair bit by Feb so may be much better at drinking from a cup, for example.

I sent DS to nursery full-time when he was 9mo (settled in from 8mo) and I was frantic because he wouldn't take a bottle. ALL the other kids had two bottles a day. He would drink water out of a sippy cup, but not milk.

The nursery tried bottles at first (with yoghurt, which he loves, as emergency backup) and he still never took them. But I found that the nursery were really flexible and although there is a "usual" way to give the babies at nursery their milk, they were really accepting that DS had to keep to a slightly different routine.

So he survived full-time nursery with NO milk (except breastfeeds at night) and is fine. Perhaps you could work on getting your DD to take a cup with a lid on? That's probably not as easy as a bottle to use at night, but maybe she would prefer it. I'm sure the nursery will help with whatever plan you want to follow.

And I keep quite crazy hours at work sometimes with night events and so on, but have managed to keep breastfeeding for 16mo, so it is possible to do, if you want to.

I think you can sterilise cups too.

Good luck - it took my DS a long time to settle at nursery but he loves it now. And he still won't drink bloody milk in a useful way.....

Every 8mo is different but here's what my DD does at nursery. She takes 2 bottles a day, mid morning and mid afternoon. She takes only 20-30ml, so I think you can probably do that amount in a cup. She has 3 meals and a afternoon snack as well.

I don't sterilise the bottles. Just a wash with the bottle brush and hot soapy water. I reckon I don't sterilise her cutleries either. The nursery wants premade bottles, like yours. What I do is open a 200ml carton and pour a 100ml in each bottle. I was surprised a tin of formula has to be thrown away every 4 weeks. Based on 5 cartons a week for ft work, I pay slightly over £1 more a week using premade formula. For 2 days a week, you will be better off using premade!

As for open cup you should as the nursery. Also if you bring in a carton, they might be happy to save half for the afternoon in the fridge. Some free flow cups like TT first cup doesn't leak either.

Hope this helps.

agree, talk with the nursery.
dd was nearly fully bf when she started nursery at 9m. we did blw but she wasn't really interested in food yet. expressing didn't work for me.
I took in an avent bottle (that came with the pump) and a couple of different zippy cups. the nursery offered her formula at the same time as the other babies and sometimes she took it, sometimes not. her food intake really took off after a couple of days.
all in all it was a lot less stressfull than I imagined.

I managed to still bf her evenings and mornings and all through the night until she was 18m old.

Try not to worry about it - something will work out, you just might not find out what until you start at nursery.

My twins are breastfed and started settling in at nursery at about 10.5 months. At that point they didn't drink from any of the many cups I had offered with water or milk. First day at nursery, my daughter watched the other kids drink from a TT first cup, picked hers up and off she went They'll do anything to not be left out! DS didn't take long to get the hang of it and now they'll use the cups at home too.

On the breastfeeding point, I leave my two in various forms of childcare for 3 or 4 days a week. They take water/formula/cows milk from the TT cups when I'm not there and breastfeed when I am there. My mum puts them to bed two nights a week and they dont seem to miss the breastfeed - though there is no way they'll let me put them to bed without feeding them first! They give me a much harder time than they do my mum or DH!

I have several friends who have continued to breastfeed just morning and night, so you might be fine to do that if you'd like to?

just to say nursery really shouldn't be asking for pre made bottles. not good practise to do this (unless cartons). ideally they should ask for powder measured out (make sure you write on how much is in each) and they can make up for you, send sterile bottles or cup, which i wouldn't bother sterilising. this way they have spare too so they can try later if little one refuses.

Just to add that as dribble says, our nursery asked for pre-measured powder (or premade cartons) for formula. Not that DS ever drunk any, but that was the plan. They also sterilised everything each night before sending it home.

Thanks for all your advice. I was a bit panicked about how my breastfed, late sleeping, lacking routine baby will be ready for nursery in a few weeks, but now I've got some ideas.

Some nurseries don't have the time or staff to make bottles fresh. Premade is fine as long as its stores correctly and there's NHS guidance in what to do.

For 2 days though I'd try premade but she'll be fine of she does want any.