Milk for older baby at childminder

[funnyvalentine]

I'm planning to return to work (full time) when my EBF DS is 7mo and continue bfing morning and night. But, I'm not sure what to do about milk in the daytime. I haven't had much success with expressing so far.

What sort of age do babies drop their daytime feeds? What's an easy way for the childminder to give him milk? I was thinking of ready made formula, but not sure about sterilisation.

Any advice welcome!

You can use ready made cartons in a cup if he will take one shouldn't need sterilised or heated. Or if he will take a bottle, sterilise a bottle and give it to the childminder with the carton. Have you tries him on formula?

Ready made formula or just cows milk. You aren't supposed to give up baby milk entirely until 1years but seeing as you will still be bf morning and night he should be ok if he doesn't like formula. I would also use a beaker/ cup rather than a bottle at this stage.

I think some babies in this situation will 'reverse cycle' - feed a lot at night and not really need any milk in the day. If you want to stay EBF that might be an option. Though it's not necessarily a great solution if you have to work all day after feeding all night!

At this stage our DS had formula bottles during the day with the childminder and had a breastfeed first thing and again before bed (and often at night too). We just sent clean bottles every day and she made up the formula from powder. I think with a healthy baby after six months you can relax a bit about the sterilisation as long as you clean everything properly with hot soapy water.

You can also buy ready made bottles of formula which are v. handy but would get expensive if you were using them every day. We used them for going out/at weekends, but bought the boxes of powder for every day use at the childminder.

If your DS has never had a bottle you will need to introduce one a bit before he starts as he might take a while to get the hang on it. Our DS went on 'bottle strike' regularly for a while but in the end settled down and had no problem with a mixture of bottles and breast.

I have done exactly this with my DS1 and DD and about to with DS2. I always just give the childminder a massive tub of formula but cartons would work just as well :). I start swapping a BF at a time for formula when they're about 6 months.

Mine is starting in crèche next month - 8mo. I'm planning on sending bottles of expressed bm in with her. I've got some milk in the freezer in case in need it but the plan is to express one day and send it in with her the next. Though I'm interested to see what people say

Thanks for the advice :) I'm happy to cosleep if needed, so we'll be ok with all night sleeping, but you're right that I do need to get started with a bottle or a cup soon. Will get DH on the case, probably easier if it's him rather than me.

Is there a big price difference between powder and ready-made? Guess it'll only be 1 or 2 feeds a day for 5 months ish - will have to look up costs.

Powder is £10 and lasts my 6 month old ds a week,cartons cost about 70p for 1 feed. So a £10 = 35 feeds roughly or £24.50 a week on ready made if my maths is correct. :)