Breast fed baby starting nursery

[Hicks123]

My DD is 10 months old, starting nursery in 6 weeks. Despite having 1 bottle formula each night for first 3 months, after that she refused to drink any formula or expressed milk from either bottle or beaker. Drinks water from a beaker ok. Am worried how she will manage at nursery. How do I get her to drink formula from a beaker? Do I need to or can she go all day without milk and just have bf morning an evening?

My 11 month DD started childcare a few weeks ago. I posted the same question! :)

She copes fine with water and food there, and feeds when she is with me. - she wont accept any sort of milk from the childminder!

just to add she would accept expressed milk from me just fine, so I built up a freezer stash just to find that she wont drink milk away from me . A tad annoying!

I now express just enough for comfort - my supply has dipped a bit I think during the day,but builds back up at weekends - and she feeds more at weekends - to make up I think.

she will be fine. she will probably want to nurse more during the night at first.
talk to the nursery, mine was very supporting and flexible when dc started at 9 months and nealy excliusively bf (were doing blw, so not much food intake at that age yet).

My DD started childcare around 9 months and had mainly 'normal' food and drink. She did have a formula bottle in the afternoon but this was mainly becasue of a little nap ritual we were into on my days off.

How long is her day at nursery? How many days a week etc?

Don;t know how you're feeling but I found that the days we were actually in then nursery/work routine it was much nikcer than the weeks before worrying about it.

My 11 month old DD is just starting nursery too. She just has food and water while she's at nursery and seems happy with that. She's only doing half day sessions at the moment but once she builds up to full days she'll just have BF morning and night and I think she'll be fine with that.

She's nearly 1, she will get all she needs to sustain her in a day at nursery from solid food and water /baby juice.

Breast feed am an pm- and probably all night if she's like my kids, but it works (they were only 6-8 months though when they started nursery, with the youngest I came home and fed her whilst she was at the childminder at lunchtime too)

Same experiences as above.
My DS started nursery at 7 months and refused expressed milk at nursery. After 2/3 weeks of him struggling at nursery and me struggling to get food quantities right, he is now a star pupil! Absolutely loves his own day at nursery and bf in the mornings and evenings.
At the weekend I try not to up feeds to much as my supply establishes again and I have had one or two leaky situations on Mondays.
You'll be fine!

Thank you so much, that's reassuring as I was getting really concerned as the time is going so fast until she starts. She'll be going 3 full days 8am to 6pm. I'm looking forward to going back to work, until I think about having to leave her... I know that's normal though. Thanks mumblecrumble thats good to know it was better than you thought as yes, I'm worrying about it a lot!

absolutely agree with mumble
I worried rather a lot about it, but as soon as settling in started I could relax. nursery staff were absolutely fantasic which also helped a lot.
good luck!

my DD was only 5.5 months when I went back and held out without taking a bottle for the first 2 days after which I think hunger (and sense) got the better of her and she happily drank her milk from them in a bottle but BF from me. Eventually she'd take bottles from anyone and self weaned at 15 months by pushing me away and asking for "ottle peeesss". If she's on solids (which at 11 months I imagine she is!) if she won't have milk in the day it really doesn't matter as tons of children are down to morning and bedtime milk only by then. I think my DD had dropped daytime milk in the main at 11 months as she was (and still is) a terrible eater but still seemed not to need it

Hicks123 I went through exactly the same worries when my DD, now 9 mths old, suddenly stopped drinking milk from her bottles at 8 mths old. And she was a week away from starting with the childminder and I was going back to work! She would only have milk with her morning cereal and I bf morning and night only. I was so worried then about the drop in daytime milk that I went to see the GP and health visitor. They advised that there is nothing to worry about as long as DD is not dehydrated and nappies are still wet. Now, to compensate for the lack of daytime bottle feeds, I mix milk with her solids, give her lots of yogurt and cheese. So far, she's growing well. Recently, the childminder has tried giving her milk in a sippy cup during the afternoon and she's accepting it so far.

Are your three days at work all together (Mon, Tues, Wed for example) or split up? I did 3 days and did Tues, Wed and Friday and made time on Mondays and thursday for breast feeeding, long snoozes together, breast feeding groups etc so I could still feel very much like a booby feeding mum.

Agree with above, make sure she has milk in foods. Our DD used to enjoy soups and liquid things with added milk (formula then cows - unable to express). We managed to feed really well till DD was 18 months and she came off naturally when i became busy and did a few weeks of full time at work.

I also found I was shattered on non paid work days so we had nice routine of doing stuff in mornings and booby milk nap in the afternoon while mummy slept too - lovely. And weekends too of course.

Someone also told me, cos I was feeling like i would miss the time with her so much was that there are 168 hours in the week and only 30 ish is spent away at work.