worrying about feeding when returning to university/work

[Superchop]

Hi all,

My ds is 8.5 months and will be 11 months when I start my teacher training course at university. The hours will be long (I think 8.30-4.30 are the contracted hours) and ds will be looked after family.

He is breast feed, he does take a bottle on the rare times he is babysat. We have no real established routine, apart from the naughty habits like being breast fed to sleep and demand feeding. He is usually asleep in his cot by 9 but wakes through the night and ends up co-sleeping, more so recently because he is teething.

So I was wondering if you could guide me in what I should do when returning to work?

I don't think I have enough spare time to commit to expressing, I have done it in the past and its not my favourite activity especially when I have limited family time. So he will be formula fed during the day- will this effect my breast milk?
Should I just give up breast feeding to make it easier for him?
Is formula feeding hard work- especially in the middle of the night?
Will I look like Dolly Parten when I'm at Uni?
Should I make a strict routine to make it easier for the family that will look after him?
How much milk do 11months need?

I am genuinely lost and worrying so all advice will be appreciated

Ff isn't a faff at all. I would establish some kind of routine for sure. Although at 11 months when you return there may not be much need for sterilising etc for long. Dd went on to cows milk at 12 months and no bottles so it was fine.

Good luck

I don't know about the formula feeding but looks pretty easy to me! At 12 months he can have cows milk as his main drink so that's even easier.

If you don't want to stop breastfeeding it's great to carry on, and your DS might find it very comforting. He will get used to breastfeeding when he sees you and having water/formula/milk when he doesn't. Your supply should adjust quite quickly.

I left DD with family for a day a couple of times at 12 months when I went to work. She wouldn't drink formula but ate lots, drank water and ate yoghurt. She was fine.

at Dolly! Maybe the first couple of days.

By 11 months your DS may be able to go through the day without breastfeeding. I went back to work at the same age, and continued breastfeeding until my DS self weaned at about 18 months.

The nursery gave him water (from a sippy cup) with food up until 12 months, and then gave him cows milk (sippy cup again) during the day after that. He would breastfeed in the morning, and then again in the afternoon when I picked him up, then into the evening as usual.

It's a bit pointless to introduce a bottle for formula/expressed milk when they are supposed to drop bottles at 12 months anyway.

Maintaining breastfeeding is a really nice way to reconnect with your baby after a day at work. I never found that I got too uncomfortable at work, as your supply is pretty robust at that point. I never had to express at work.

Wow you ladies are speedy with your responses.
Thanks!
I didn't think about moving on to cows milk! So by one children are getting most of their nutrients from food rather than milk. He's not very impressed with water in a sippy cup either, should I push this more?

New mum or what?!

Yes, by 12 months most babies will be getting the majority of their nutrition from food. With the sippy cup, I would just keep offering it at every meal. Eventually he will get better with it. My DS took a while to get the hang of it, and I think it takes a little while to associate the water with being thirsty.

I wouldn't worry too much about having a strict routine. I would think of it in terms of a sequence of typical events during the day, so breakfast at a certain time, followed by a nap when sleepy, then lunch 30 mins after he wakes up, followed by a nap when sleepy etc etc. Babies do adjust quite quickly to different routines in different places, so if your family members do things a little differently to you then that usually wouldn't be a problem.

Yes sippy cup practice sounds good
....

I used to buy cupboard fulls of the things to try....always went back to the old fashioned simple one with fold away spout ....

I found this page useful.

Re: water, your DS might prefer a different sort of sippy cup, maybe one with a straw or a doidy cup? DD liked a little open cup best at first but was messy.

I had absolutely no problem continuing feeding when I went back to work either time (11 months and 12 months) - I did express one feed during the day for the first few months but I could probably have done without and I adjusted easily when I stopped expressing, by that stage they were well able to go on just food and water (neither were mad about cow's milk) during working hours. Fed morning, when I got in from work, and bedtime. Did pretty much nothing to prepare other than make sure both of them could drink from a cup. I continued to feed DS1 til he was 2.5 and am still feeding DS2 at 20 months, so it definitely wasn't confusing for them!

Agree with Culture that more a rough sequence than a strict routine should work - both of mine had fallen into a sort of 2-3-4 nap pattern by then (wake up, awake for two hours, nap, awake for three hours, nap, awake for four hours, bed), and then worked feeds/meals around that. Both had no problems adjusting to nursery routine. You'll be fine!