Weaning baby of daytime breastmilk & starting Nursery

[TeeVee]

Hi there – wondering if anyone can offer their advice (warning long post coming)!

My DD has just turned 11 months and is due to start Nursery in two weeks’ time. She will be at Nursery 3 times per week, and I will be returning to work also. She is a breastfed baby and is eating 3 meals a day (which is often and hit miss due to her teething). During the daytime she will breastfeed three times (before going down for her first nap, before her second nap and the finally before bedtime) and then at night-time she is usually up every two hours for feeds.

I want to continue breastfeeding my daughter, however ideally, I would like to eliminate the daytime feeds. Given she is going into Nursery and isn’t yet 1 years old, I wasn’t sure if I should provide the Nursery with my pumped milk (given a baby’s main source of nutrition is breastmilk/formula before the age of 1) , or if I should start to transition her to cows milk for her day time feeds and then she can start having this when at Nursery (assuming that giving her this a few weeks before she turns 1 years old won’t do her any harm, especially if she still is getting breastmilk from me in the morning/throughout the night)?!

I don’t want my DD to go hungry at nursery or feel alien to cow’s milk, so I think it makes sense to transition her afternoon feeds with this, so she gets familiar to drinking it from a Sippy cup/beaker?? I’m hoping this will cut down her daytime feeds over the weekends/when we are together also. I know this will mean she will probably make up for lost feeds at night-time but given that she already does this I’m thinking it can’t get any worse – she usually is up every 2-3 hours for a feed!

Thank you to anyone who managed to read this post all the way through. If you can advise how best to make the transition to cow’s milk and offer any advice how to wean my baby of breastmilk for daytime feeds (or how to set healthy boundaries) that would be very helpful.

I used to bf first thing, at pickup/ dinner time then bed. Dropped the dinner one at about 1.6
Nursery have expressed milk twice in day and their eating of solids increased too

Don’t stress at all, dd was exactly the same. I sent in a small amount of breast milk in a sippy cup (had never expressed before). Dd turned her nose up at it. I sent extra natural yoghurt which she had and enjoyed (I think it mainly just helped me feel she wouldn’t starve), and then made up for the feeds after nursery (and all night…). Eventually moved onto cows milk but very gradually.

With DD in a similar situation, a couple of weeks before nursery I stopped the first nap feed and replaced it with a substantial snack (banana, yogurt). That went ok. The second nap feed was more of a struggle to drop so what I ended up doing was just…sending her to nursery and never doing that feed again. Without me there she was fine, and started eating more food. She drinks cows milk at nursery, but not for me at home. If you’re feeding first thing and at bed time don’t fret if she won’t drink other milk. she’ll be fine with water and cheese, yogurt etc. throughout the day - she won’t need milk constantly. I used to worry about that loads, it felt like such a transition from when they’re tiny and feed all the time. Good luck!

I went back at 10 and 9 months. Both were BF before, after and before bed. They wouldn't touch ebm or formula so it was cow's milk if I wasn't there, which is fine as long as it's not their main drink.

Once she's 12 months you can think about night weaning maybe? I'd be tempted to do that and keep a couple of daytime feeds of you want to continue BFing, it would be easier on you as you'd get more sleep