Should I still be expressing for 13 month old in daycare, or what...?

[morningpaper]

My 13 month old takes two 4oz bottles to nursery (on the 2 days she attends). She seems happiest when she has both bottles - one in morning and one in afternoon.

I really hate expressing though, it's SUCH a faff and when I am only working such few hours it is a bit of a logistical nightmare, especially when I am out of the house.

What do other people do with babies of this age? Give cow-milk or what? Is it okay for her to be drinking this much milk still? She drinks a lot of milk overnight.

don't know

I don't think she eats THAT MUCH at home but I don't really tend to pay much attention - I just plonk a bowl in front of her and most it seems to get flicked around the room but she seems to eat quite a bit too

When she gets home from Nursery her Diary says "ATE ALL" next to every meal and snack, so she seems ok on that front.

She's not very tall I don't think, but quite fat.

I don't think a baby can have too much breastmilk. It is brilliant stuff. However, at 13 months a baby is not dependent on it in the same way at before weaning. Have you thought of putting other fluids in the bottles (water, juice etc) and just letting her breastfeed on demand when you are available?

haven't really thought about it at ALL

should I try that then?

what do other babies of this age do?

I used to send DD2 along with (organic) cows' milk by this point, and breastfeed her the rest of the time.

ok that is very interesting

I think that because I don't drink cows milk (gives me awful gut problems) that I just haven't given this any thought at all

i used to do this at 13 mos. i work ft though. she would not take water or cow's milk instead of bm. i think i dwindled the afternooon feed. she missed it a couple days but will take water in her bottle in the pm sometimes. she still gets 4 oz of ebm per day at nursery at 18 months. i am soft though.

I weaned both my dds from the breast at about a year. Neither of them was particularly interested in drinking cow's milk, then or now, but they had plenty of dairy in their diet, with cheese, yoghourt etc. It's pretty hard to avoid in our culture. I seem to recall that one of them wouldn't accept cow's milk at all, even on cereal. I wasn't worried at the time, and now both my dds are in good health and well grown at 12 and 10 years old. My ds was still breastfeeding at 13 mos but it tended to be just first thing in the morning and last thing at night. All my children drank fluids other than milk from feeder cups from the time they had their first solids. I was really glad I carried on breastfeeding my son because he had a really nasty tummy bug at 20 months - 40 degrees temp and floppy, not keeping anything down. But as he got better, breastmilk was the only thing he could digest at first.

morningpaper, my dd is 12 months and I have am working 2-3 days per week. I decided to express once a day in my lunch hour and get about 4oz.

Its 2 weeks now and dd doesnt seem that interested in the breastmilk. She wont take it in a bottle from the childminder so we have tried it in a cup and she will sip about an ounce over a longish period, but is much more interested in drinking water in her cup which she loves.

Have also tried organic cows milk but she is similarly not that interested in this as a drink.

I'm going to keep on expressing so that I can keep my supply up for the days when I am not working as she likes to feed quite regularly still. But if she isnt drinking it at the childminder I am going to stop faffing on with storing and sending it and just "pump and dump".

She feeds at least twice during the night, twice before I go to work, and twice between picking her up bedtime. So I figure she is getting plenty of milk, and as long as she eats some food during the day and drinks water to keep hydrated job's a good 'un.

Sounds like if expressing is a PITA, give it up!

O bumbleweed, couldn't you donate unwanted breastmilk to a Milk Bank at your local hospital?
A prem baby is about 10 times more likely to die of necrotising enterocolitis if fed artificial rather than human milk, and the mother of a prem baby often has trouble getting her milk started.

I was told there isnt one locally elastic, but I will check to be sure. You are absolutely right to suggest this.

I might also say, about breastfeeding a toddler, that it may not be necessary to express at all, in order to keep the supply going. My supply seemed to carry on even when suckling became very sporadic. If you were to stop expressing and it did adversely affect your milk supply, you could always start it again, but my guess is, you wouldn't need to. Lactation is very well established by 13 months.

I gave up expressing at about this age. Just gave water - my 18 month old has never taken a bottle...

Probably too late to start donating milk. Our local milk bank only wanted you if you started donating before your child was 6 months old. There's most demand for the milk you produce for a young baby.

I have donated milk for the first time when my child was well over a year, to the J R hospital, Oxford. I apologised for the paltry little amount I managed to produce and was told "that could be 10 feeds for a prem baby." It couldn't have been more than 1 or 2 oz.

I am in the north-east and I have been on the website for milkbanks and there isnt one near enough for milk to be collected. Shame.

Hi Morningpaper.
I went back to work f/t when Evelyn was 6 months old. I expressed every day at work and every evening so she had enough milk for the day at the CM's, and b.fed in the morning and evening.
When she turned to a year old, I made the decision to stop expressing. I give her C&G growing up milk (the already made up stuff) because she wouldn't take cows milk. I hate the smell of C&L but she seems to enjoy it! I'm now trying to get her onto cows milk for the day-time (I still b.feed in morning and evening) but she seems happy. She eats a fair amount, the CM regularly offers her water / juice which she'll drink. Still only 21lbs though at 13 months, but I think she's just going to take after her dad.

It is indeed much easier to donate blood than to donate breastmilk. There just isn't the political will, despite the overwhelming evidence of better health outcomes for children on breastmilk.