Breast feeding and returning to work advice

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Hi all,

Baby 1 expected anytime this month. I've been trying to think about feeding. I'm Indian, raised in India and come from a very EBF culture and family and frankly, have grown up seeing way more boobs than bottles, babies suckling behind sarees :-) we have a big deal weaning ceremony at 6 months and while i live in the uk, and I won't be having that, I do intend to bf for about 6 months.

My question is about managing the return to work. I return when he is exactly 6 months completed. He will be going to a childminder, she lives locally.

To manage the transition, would it be an idea to start offering him either (1) EBM from a bottle from about 2/3 months or (2) bypass the bottle and try our luck with a variety of first cups meant for use from 4 months? Both TT first cup and doidy cup seem to suggest they can be offered at that age. I know babies come in all temperaments of course....

I confess I'm quite intrigued by the idea of bypassing the bottle. In terms of the content of what goes into these cups/bottles when baby is at CM, I think one idea could be to express and freeze over months 4 and 5 so that over 6-7 months he can gradually be offered part EBM from cups and moved onto formula.

If you went back at 6 months, and EBF-ed for 6 months, what did you do? How did you manage the transition?

I expressed at work from 6 months and used a bottle. We gradually got rid of the bottle by 1 and I bf at home and they had cow's milk in cups if they wanted it.

I think I picked the bottle as I thought I'd be easier to get a decent amount of milk into them. (Anxious mummy!) I'm sure I've read on here about people using cups instead though, so hopefully you'll get some tips

The first baby had regular bottles of ebm to get used to it before I went back, second we tried a couple and hoped for the best I think.

We didn't use any formula but it seems like a good plan to gradually change over

Good luck with it all!

I went back to work almost full time when my daughter was 6mo but managed to bf until 16mo.

She had small cups of expressed bm earlier on, which I expressed at work, then she gradually moved to feeding only morning and night.

She's never had a bottle.

My son never had a bottle, I went back to work when he was 10 months,by that stage he was happy to have some formula ( cows milk at 12 months) from a sippy cup. He was down to one bf in the middle of the day by that stage, on the days didn't work bf as normal.My boobs seemed to adapt to missing one feed with no problems. I never expressed and bf till he self weaned at 2.

My situation is a little different as I expressed (prem baby, never got the hang of breastfeeding) so I didn't have the issue of bottle/cup but I did go back to work at 6 months.

We started mix feeding at 5.5 months and then I expressed at work. Even when they start weaning, milk will still be their main source of food for quite a while so I wanted it to be breast milk for a while longer. We gradually increased the % of formula until I stopped expressing at around 8.5 months. Other mothers I know have carried in bfing morning and night when they have gone back to work. So it doesn't have to be all or nothing.

And I assume the ceremony you mention is a mukheybhaat (sp?) or similar? You can absolutely have one in the uk if you want to. I've been to two.

Thanks everyone! And euro chick indeed it's the mukheybhaat, I know we can have it, we don't want to, that's all! :-)

So let me get this right. What's the earliest age any of you introduced any form of something like a cup? Would introducing a cup at 3/4 months be okay? To give us time to transition?

Great, thank you very much! Any cups you recommend?

Ahh great, thank you! We are having a boy.

I used a cup within a day as my DD1 wouldn't latch on at all. Fun fun fun. It is to be honest a very messy method and a lot of milk is wasted, which if you struggle to express any sort of volume is very disheartening.

A friend started using a doidy cup around 4 months, and a sippy cup soon followed. Bedtimes were bottles though so her son had a mixture of everything. So long as there was milk in it, he was happy

My DD1 was pretty much mixed fed from birth as we had issues establishing BFing and I despite my best efforts never got back on track. Her 1-2 bottles of formula a day ended completely when she started weaning. She started to teeth and refused a bottle completely just when I was going back to work. V helpful and vvvv stressful as i had to travel for work so continuing to bf part time was not an option.

I think it's important to realise that your childminder may have a preference and that is likely to be convenience related. There is little point spending hours training a small baby to drink from a cup that they can't hold themselves if due to the volume and ages they look after, a childminder simply wants to hand him a bottle and put him in a bouncy chair [for the angle] to feed, while they get on with feeding a toddler for example.

I went back to work at 6 months with both my children. With DD2 I was able to BF in the morning and evenings and wean more gradually. She eventually cracked and accepted a bottle. We stopped giving her a bedtime bottle [though never in a cot] at 2.5 yrs. With DD1 we tried every bottle, teat and cup known to man, she point blank refused to touch milk again for another year.

So you can make a plan but there are no guarantees that your beautiful son will read and agree to it Best of luck.

I'd suggest keeping an open mind on how it all goes and see how you and your baby feel at the time.

Hopefully as you've been so surrounded by it BFing will work out well for you.

It certainly did for us, DD is just stopping now at 28 months. I went back to work 4 days a week when she was 7 months.

I think seeing if you can introduce a bottle or cup early is a good idea but bear in mind that a lot of exclusively breastfed babies won't take to either for a while. I can think of lots of friends getting very stressed as they tried to do exactly what you have in mind: introduce a cup or bottle from about 4 months so their baby was used to it. Some of them just won't play ball for quite a long time. So don't let that freak you out, if that happens.

We introduced a bottle (expressed milk only) far earlier than is recommended (2 weeks) the upside of this for us was that DD was reasonably comfortable with it throughout. Although it was a faff I made sure she was offered a bottle every couple of days, whether she took it or not (never tried to force her).

So she was ok on that. Then I expressed for her at work while I went back, I thought it would just be for a few weeks, but actually I did it until she was 1yr (so 5 months). Once I got into the swing of it I found it manageable, and our nanny reported that having EBM seemed to really support and soothe DD while I was at work.

And carry on had great benefits: the connection / reconnection we got especially when I got home from work has been really brilliant. During the first year its easy to think breast feeding is all about nutrition, but her first birthday I could really see how important the emotional connection it maintained supported DD.

We've had very little of separation anxiety, crying as I leave that lots of Mums going back to work find, and as toddler's go she is a dream, despite a strong personality and sense of self.

She would feed when I got home, and bedtime and morning. We've gradually cut down on those feeds as she's got older, usually as she started to drop them herself, so now its just one quick feed at bedtime.

So all I wanted to say is, yes, great to plan. But also be open to things not going to plan, and in particular to making choices that best reflect what you and your baby want and need, rather than arbitrary deadlines.

Not planning. Just musing. And asking for experiences :-)

Can't plan the prefs of a baby that's still kicking my ribs and hasn't seen a blink of this world!

Yeah, we've got a couple of bottles and some cups, and my copiously leaking boobs! Will take it from there!