Milk at 11.5 months

[monal]

I have a question. I will be going back to work when my DD is 11.5 months old. She will be with a childminder. I plan to continue BFing when I'm with her, mornings and evenings and at night if she wants, and presumably she'll be getting a lot of her nutrition from solids by that point. Should I try to express milk to give to the childminder (that is, to give to the childminder to give to the baby, I have no plans to feed the childminder EBM), or would it be ok by that point to give her cow's milk during the day? It'll be a long, ten-hour day though.

It may be a moot point because no-one will be able to take her until September of course.

My DD went to CM at the same age and I didn't bother expressing and just put her straight onto cow's milk. I figured that a couple of weeks before one wasn't going to hurt her and she's been fine.

I'm in exactly the same position, my 11 month old has just gone to the childminder for the first time today. I've expressed some milk for the childminder to give her in a cup (she won't take a bottle, but will sip from a cup). I'm planning to try and phase in cow's milk once she's over a year but for now wanted to keep expressing so that there's still plenty of milk for her on the days when she's with me. Hope that helps.

Thanks both of you, that is helpful yes. TheKurgan, I hope the first day at the cm went well for your baby :)

How old is your baby now and how many feeds are you doing during the day? It may be that by that time she's dropped her daytime feeds anyway. DD is 9.5 months and just dropped down to 2 daytime feeds (plus first thing and bedtime). I do express for her 2 feeds with the cm, but it's a faff and takes time out of my already too-busy work time. I'm persevering out of bloody-mindedness but if I were you I'd go straight to cows milk for any feeds you'll miss. Your supply will be fine, so I understand it, to just miss feeds when you're apart but do them when you're together, iyswim

If expressing is easy for you and you can get a good amount of milk then any more BM she gets will do her good but if you can't be bothered to express (it is a pain) then cows milk during the time she's with the CM will absolutely fine. The recommendation is cows milk from 12 months. 11.5 months is close enough

I went back to work (long days) at 10 months and she stopped her daytime feeds them, just had water and food. Seemed simpler.

So she had morning, bedtime and one night feed. We dropped the night feed at 14 months because I was cracking at work! Still going strong at 16 months.