Returning to work - how much milk for a 11 month?

[HabitualLurker]

I hope you knowledgeable lot can help!

I'm going back to work in 4 weeks time ( and ) and am wondering what my baby should be getting in terms of milk by then. Up until now he's been pretty much exclusively breastfed with the odd bottle of formula here and there when I've been out. Obviously he's well into weaning now and has 3-ish meals a day. He's a keen eater, though he never actually eats all that much.

I've always BFed so and have no idea how much he really takes. A typical formula bottle feed would only ever amount to about 100ml. At the moment we're at about 5 feeds a day (two at night, two during the day and one at bedtime), but I've just started to try night weaning this week and am also slowly replacing the two daytime feeds with formula. I'm aiming to be at the stage where I BF just first thing in the morning and evening by the time I'm back at work in a month.

Today he had a feed when he woke up, breakfast, 100ml formula + short BF mid-morning, lunch, 100ml formula mid-afternoon and will have dinner and then probably a BF before bed and another at about 11 or so.

I'm wondering:

a) is this enough milk? It doesn't seem like all that much. But then I really have no idea how much he's been drinking up until now.

b) when I go back to work if he continues to only take around 100ml from the bottle/cup then he'll be having 2-3 BFs a day + 200ml formula. Will that be enough?

I've generally got no concerns about his growth or appetite. He's on the diddy side (25th centile), developing well and active. But I don't want to short-change him and am mindful of the 'food is for fun before one' adage.

Thanks!

Oh a ps:
He likes water a lot and we offer it whenever he has solids or if we're out and about, so 3 times a day at least. Is it possible he's having too much water? Should we replace some of it with formula/cows milk (once he's closer to 1 year)?

Hello!

I am no expert but in a very similar position to you with 11 month old DD, going back to work in 3 weeks.

The schedule we are now on is as follows:

7am bf
10am 200ml bottle
3pm 200ml bottle
7pm bf

Once she's 1yo we will gradually try to replace the bottles with cups of cows milk, but she loves her bottles and keeping them for an extra couple of months will ease the transition as I go back to work.

She has breakfast at 8am, lunch at noon and tea at 5pm.

Good luck!

Forgot to say: I am sure your DS will be fine if his bottles are 100ml rather than 200ml. I wouldn't cut back on water if he likes it.

Thanks for sharing. I'm sure it will be fine & I should trust that he'll continue to regulate his intake as he has been doing up until now. I just get the heebie-jeebies slightly when I see other posts that talk about babies of a similar age having 500ml a day. There's no way I can see him getting that much!

I have a friend whose little girl didn't want any milk from a bottle or cup at nursery at all - just had water. She made up for it by lots of bf in the morning and evening (and unfortunately sometimes night) and was fine. Try not to worry - I think by this age they are quite good at making sure they get what they need!