Breastfed baby & nursery - shall we go cold turkey?

[louise987]

DD is 9 months, starts nursery next month. Is EBF, bottle refuser, feeds to sleep. She will take small amounts of water from a baby cup and eats well.

She'll be doing 2 long days (8-5.30) then increasing to 3 days a week after a month.

Am I mad to skip any stressful transition to formula, bottle etc? Anytime I've tried its been super stressful and I'm just not sure it's worth it.

Part of me thinks she'll be so tired from all the stimulation she'll go to sleep ok, and without boob she'll drink more through thirst... but I'm still very anxious about it all. What if she just cat naps, gets cranky, refuses drink...

Also I know milk is the main form of nutrition under 1, but given she won't have any for very long periods on nursery days will she struggle? Any tips from anyone who has been there? Thanks!

If she’s 9 months and eats well then I wouldn’t stress about pumping and bottles because she’ll make up for it when she’s with you. My daughter started nursery for 2 days at 10 months and used to have about 3oz of expressed milk once a day and then just fed when she was with me. To start with she wanted feeding the minute she came home and saw me so be prepared for that! We used to be apart from approx 7am til 6pm and I pumped for my comfort - initially twice a day but it tapered off to once a day quite quickly and within a few months I wasn’t pumping at all.

Try not to worry about sleep - nursery is magic and they are able to do all sorts of things that we can’t persuade our babies to do for us!

I did this because DD was a formula refused and I was never able to Express much.

In the month before she started nursery I gradually replaced her milk feeds with food. I got it to the stage where she was only on solids and water 8.30-5. Worked fine.

You may be surprised at how quickly both of you adapt. My DD was very similar and I went back to work part time. She had three days a week without me and I carried on feeding as usual on our days together. Slightly uncomfortable for me the first few times but quickly adapted. She never took a bottle or formula and I couldn't express. She had some water from a sippy cup in my absence.

Thanks all! @Treem did yours feed to sleep? I've tried giving her extra food some days and then the milk feed is purely a comfort thing to get her off to sleep so this would be easily doable.

Wondering how to crack the feeding to sleep too but like others have said nursery have all the tricks I'm sure!

I was in the same boat with my DD at the same age. I sent her with a couple of bottles of the ready made formula. Some days she took it, some she wouldn’t entertain it. She’d have a monster feed when I got in and managed absolutely fine. Good luck!

Exact same boat with mine at the same age, and she's now 17 months and still firm without feeds in nursery. She still feeds 2 or 3 times a day at home and feeds to sleep for her afternoon nap and before bed. She only has about 40 minutes' sleep in nursery and they probably have to forcibly hold her down to get her to sleep but hey ho!

Same boat here too - except my youngest was still on purees, he hated all food until 8 months ,😂
He was absolutely fine at nursery, as I wasn't there he wasn't looking for milk, happy with water from beaker. Lots of feeding at home tho!

My ds was only 6mo when he went to nursery as a bottle refuser. We sent some formula for them to use to make up porridge and in a cup as I was worried about calcium. He had that as well as normal nursery baby meals and yoghurts.

Yes she fed to sleep and woke up a few times in the night to feed.

As she progressed to less feeds and was really only feeding to sleep for comfort I introduced a few nights of DH putting her to bed instead of me without the feed. Then we went for a whole week of him putting her to bed( she would settle for him with no milk but not me). After that week I tried putting her to bed (tucked her up in cot and read to her until she fell asleep). Shes been fine with that ever since and has slept through the night ever since.