Do I just skip the bottles?!

[JustBreastfeedingBecky]

Advice please!
I’m planning on returning to work when my son turns one. He’s 7mo, exclusively breastfed and refuses a bottle.
Is it realistic to think he’ll survive without me with fluid (water/milk/ expressed breast milk) from a sippy cup at nursery tues-Fri 07:00-19:00? Or do I need to be pushing bottles harder?

How old were your babies when they could confidently use a cup to be left without the breast?

Dd went directly to sippy cups with no problem, i didn’t try her with a bottle. I went back to work at 9 months. Dd had been having some water at mealtimes in a sippy cup from around 6 months. No dehydration problems at nursery/ with DH whilst I was working.

5mo DS2 went ten hours without feeding when I did a KITday and completely refused to take a bottle from his DGP. When I got back he fed and was perfectly content and fine. Had I actually gone back FT then, I'm confident that he would have either accepted the bottle after a bit or just fed when I was around.

And yes, you can just forget a bottle now and try cups - sippy, soft spout, Doidy, whatever works, and give milk or water. Baby will be fine.

DD never had bottles.

I introduced cups at weaning for water and she only had milk from the breast. Cows milk from 1 in a cup. She started nursery 4 long days from 13 months and they gave her water and cows milk in a cup absolutely no issues.

We continued to BF to 26 months, she just fed from me before and after nursery. Just be aware that we did have a spell of increased night feeds for the first few months of nursery. It settled but not unusual for them to reverse cycle!

Despite EBF, I couldn’t express 1 single drop and never leaked. Only DD could get the milk out 🙈

DS1 at 11 months ish did take a bottle, but not at nursery. He had a tiny bit a couple of times, and then we stopped bothering sending it in as he wasn't drinking it. He just dropped the daytime feeds and had milk in the morning and at bedtime instead.

But... DS2 is 10 months and starting nursery part time soon. He only took a bottle for a few weeks at around 4 months, then refused. He's been having expressed milk from an open cup (held to his lips, not held by him!) or a sippy cup (but he's not that good at using it independently yet) on days when his other mum is not there to breastfeed him. As he still feeds a lot more than his brother did, we thought we'd have another go with bottles as it would be easier for nursery staff, and it turns out he loves them now. Several months off seems to have done the trick and he's forgotten he didn't use to like them. I think he quite enjoys how he can sit on the floor and play with toys while indicating that his handmaiden should hold the bottle to his mouth. Anyway, all of which is to say that you can probably just wait and see how much he's feeding by then, and have another go with a bottle nearer the time if you think it's worth it.

Both mine refused bottles, even once I was back at work FT. They had sippy cups from 9 months quite happily (although at 8 months DS2 wasn’t eating any solids at all and we began to panic…luckily he changed his mind less than a week before he started at the childminder).