Demand bf baby starting nursery next week.....

[liath]

Any advice/tips appreciated!

He's 6 and a half months old and I only work fridays so he's going to nursery one full day a week.

Started solids two weeks ago but he doesn't take much yet. He can take a bottle and has a good daytime routine of naps but BF still very much on demand and I'd rather caryy on that way for now. I'm building up a store of EBM in the freezer.

Just wondering howm others have got on - is he likely to just adapt to the nursery day being different? Is it worth getting him used to a cup? Should I try and structure his feeds?

Feeling a little at sea as dd was FF when she started nursery.

I went back ft when DS was 4.5 months old, and was fully bf demand fed - I told the girls that he could have as much milk as he wanted, when he wanted it, and it worked fine. They seemed used to demand bottle feeding, and I was able to leave frozen milk in their freezer so that he had a backup if he had a really hungry day.
He dropped his EBM feeds of his own accord by the time he was 13 months old, but is still bf at 17 months.
You might find that he doesn't want to have much milk at nursery and will make up for it in the evening.

liath, bottle is fine, you don't need to get him onto a cup now if he takes the bottle. You might very well find he behaves differently in nursery, and feeds according to their schedule.

But I would make sure the nursery is prepared to demand feed, where necessary.

His intake of solids will increase within the next month or so. And once he is well onto solids, you will find he will probably take less milk anyway or not much during the day at nursery and as dibbler says, make up for it in the evenings.

My ds drinks only 3-4 oz in nursery. We co-sleep and he can feed all night, if he wants to. But usually he will feed only 2-3 x per night, sometimes not much. On weekends, he feeds during the day. By Mon, my breasts will start to feel full again around afternoon, but by the next day, would have adjusted to the weekday pattern.

Thanks! I was planning on leaving 6-8oz of EBM with them & some frozen backup if they'll store it. Does that sound about right? I can express 4-5oz off one side & he usually only takes one side per feed. I suppose I could leave a carton of formula but was hoping to stick to breast alone for the first year.

Good to hear it's all do-able, anyway. Feel better about it now.

6-8 oz sounds fine, but bear in mind there could be wastage as your ds might not take all in one go. It is better to be flexible about formula topups during the day, at least until your ds is more established on solids.

It will work, hth.

I just noticed you said ds is only going one day a week - Friday. Don't be too disheartened if ds takes longer to get used to the routine at nursery. Sometimes it is more difficult for a baby to adjust if he attends less regularly - he gets the 'Monday morning' feeling everytime he is there. But our los are very resilient

Theres a calculator on Kellymom that lets you work out how much expressed milk you need per feed as a guesstimate.
At that age, DS still had three EBM feeds per day, each of 4oz. If you split the milk into several small bottles to begin with they can be more flexible
I told them they could reheat a bottle once if he didn't finish it which saved a lot of wastage.

Liath,

I second the advice about leaving several 4oz bottles and reheating etc. Bear in mind that at 6.5 months your baby will actually be fine to go all day with no milk if needs be - as long as he is having some fluids he'll be fine. I wouldn't go down the formula route as there is really no need - sounds like you are very good at expressing BTW.

If you pick him up yourself then sit and bfeed him at nursery and make sure he has time for a good feed on Friday mornings before he goes off to nursery.

I bet he'll trough loads of food too at nursery, mine have always eaten more there than at home.

He'll be fine!

Thanks so much everyone !