How realistic is my utopian plan?

[Mombojombo]

DS is nearly 8mo and has about 8 BF's in 24 hours - maybe more if we're at home, plus 3 meals a day. He's a big lad on 91st centile and mostly wolfs his solids, we're BLW with loaded spoons of sloppy stuff and a little help occasionally. I don't think he knows the whole 'food is fun...' theory!

I'm luckily not going back to work until he's very nearly a year old. Is it realistic by this point that he'll be doing the whole morning/bedtime/overnight feeds, and little or nothing during the day?

I know the calorie figures for BM vs Supplementary foods at different ages, and that cow milk shouldn't be main drink before 12 months, however, if I were to start cow milk a leeeeetle bit earlier, say at 11 months, so he was used to it before I go back to work (as long as he was getting plenty of BM) would that work?

His diet is very dairy rich already - a meal isn't a meal without Philadelphia or yogurt. I'll only be working 3 days a week and will of course offer boob on my days off, I just need to know how likely it is that I'll need to express at work if I hold off on cow milk until he's properly 12 months.

I realise it's a way off and he'll have totally different habits and schedules by then, but I do love a plan! (and work need to know if they have to provide for me expressing). We don't do formula, so that's not an alternative. I guess my questions/issues are:

1. Likelihood of being on first/last/overnight boob by 11-12 months
2. Problems with starting a cup of cow milk at 11 months
3. Likelihood that he'll even want cow milk/ebm during nursery hours but will reverse cycle all night long

Thankee!

Well, I went back to work a bit sooner than you, my DD was ebf, but I didn't get on well with expressing, so on the days she was at nursery/I was at work, she mostly drank water as she didn't like formula and wouldn't take a bottle - bf in the morning and again at night, she did feed during the night too, but that stopped at about 14mnths as I needed to sleep, so she started sleeping in her own room and we stopped offering night feeds.
I wouldn't have thought introducing cows milk at 11 months would be too much of a big deal though.
It's up to you really about night feeds, by that age, plus if he eats well, he will be ok without it. I did night feeds for about another 5 months after I went back to work and it was a killer. But there again it's only a few months of your life and it is nice to have that closeness with your baby, especially as you see them less during the day.

My DS is 18mo and feeds morning and night (occasionally if he wakes during the night too, but then this usually replaces his morning feed).

I went back to work when he was 10mo he was away from me for 10hours a day, 4 days a week, and at that point was probably feeding 3 times a day, he managed fine at nursery and with my DM. BLW and would drink a TINY bit of water from a cup. I'd have rather been able to get more bm into him but he wouldn't take it from any other vessel ;) so I didn't bother pumping.

I think the point is that they are all different and who knows how he'll be in a a few months time. It is perfectly possible he will adapt. I have found DS to be much more flexible than I give him credit for and wish I had wasted less time stressing about such things, but I did stress, in the end I had no other option so had to go with it and fortunately he was fine.

It really will work out.