Working all week, BF 9mo morning and night at weekends only - is it possible or will my supply just dry up?

[euromum]

Hi,

I have a (lovely!) 9mo dd who was ebf until 6 months. For the last 2 months she has been at creche all day Mon-Fri while I work full time. While there she happily eats food/formula if needed. We follow the same routine at weekends & I have continued to bf morning and evening.

Unfortunately, we moved house 3 weeks ago and the commute is longer so it's now basically impossible to bf in mornings and get to work on time. If I give her a bottle instead, will it still be possible to bf her in the mornings at weekends? Won't my milk just dry up in the meantime, or should the supply be well established enough to handle it? More flexibility at work is not really an option (my lovely bosses have already bent over backwards to help but they don't have much more room for manoeuvre either), and although we are both happy with work/creche so far, she really loves her morning feed so I would love to keep it going even for 2 days a week. We will keep on in the evenings every day in any case.

Also, I would love to give her the bottle myself so we at least get a nice long cuddle in the morning, but think I might have to hand over to dh because she gets very distressed being near the boobs without bf (we tried the bottle already on Fri and this morning). Any hints on how to help make the transition, as it must be so difficult for her?

Sorry for the long post. Will be VERY grateful for any help!

Your supply is well established at this age, so you should have no problems, I used to do 2 feeds a day in the week and go back to demand feeding at the weekends and had no difficulty.

Just a though - can you not maybe get up a bit earlier and put your DD in your bed then got back to sleep for another half hour before you have to get up? I used to do this with mine at that age, she'd just latch on while I drowsed off. It's handy for getting a bit of a lie in at weekends too.

Hi It is perfectly possible to feed your LO even just at night and weekends for as long as you both wish. I am about to have number 6 and have done the going back to work thing in the past and have sometimes not been able to feed at all for days on end but it has always worked out. Remember you can always express a bit during the day just to stimulate supply. My little boy now 2.5 years was bf only till 5 months and then morning and night and more at weekends then only morning and night then only night - all the way to 22 months

Good luck xxx

If you keep on feeding in the evenings I expect it will be OK. If you were only feeding her at all at weekends then it would be more of an issue, but with one feed a day your supply should keep ticking over.

I don't quite understand why you would have time for a bottle and a nice long cuddle in the morning but not time to breastfeed, though?

I went back to work when dd was 6 months old, for a time I bf'd her morning and evening but like yourself I found the mornings too rushed so cut down to evenings only with mornings at weekends. It was fine, my supply adjusted accordingly athough I did sometiemes find that Monday mornings were a little uncomfortable as my breasts were a little full but it wasn't unbearable. Sadly in our case dd quickly lost interest in breastfeeding and self weaned at around 7 months . This isn't the case for all babies though.

You're doing the right thing in getting your dh to do the morning bottles. It is sad when you are no longer solely responsible for feeding your baby but in our case dh loved being part of it so it was good that he could take his turn as it were.

Just a thought, how easy do you find expressing? Would it be possible for you to express every morning for the next morning's feed? It may well help keep your supply up and reduce any discomfort.

You have done amazingly well so far, be proud of what you have acheived, and good luck in keeping going

you can try it but there's no guarantee your supply will remain with only one feed a day

Call me silly but if you have time to cuddle her and give her a bottle in the mornings, is there not time to bf?
Could you [shudder] wake up earlier and bring her into bed with you for the morning feed?

I know none of this is helping with the 'transition'ing but I really feel for you - I am in a similar situation and would hate to have to give up bf because of logistical constraints rather than because dd or I actually wanted to.
DD is 9m, was ebf till 6m, and, like you, I've been back at work full time with dd in nursery for 2m.
I am far too lazy to use formula if I don't have too so I bf morning and night, plus all day at weekends and express twice a day at work (20min a time while I have a coffee break).

The mornings are hellish though so I do sympathise - I end up never giving dd breakfast (to be fair she never seems to want it), but what works for us is a 6am feed with us both in bed. She goes back to sleep for 20min while I shower and dress, then I dress her, grab the previously-packed bags and a piece of toast and leg it out of the door by 7.30.

Hope you find something that works for you...

"Call me silly but if you have time to cuddle her and give her a bottle in the mornings, is there not time to bf?"
Ditto, It doesn't matter if the feed has to be shorter due to getting out of the house time, she'll catch up with milk/food at nursery.

After all breastfeeding is a lot about mothering at the breast, the holding, eye contact, bonding. Whilst this can also be done by responsively bottle feeding, why bottle feed if you (the mother) are doing the feeding and you normally breastfed, just seems a way to create more work in the morning for yourself.

I agree with MrsBadger, wake up 15mins early, get DD in bed with you & have a BF.

My daughter is 22 mths & this is what I do with her & also what I did with DD1, until she was 2.

HTH

Thanks so much for such quick replies!

I've mainly been thinking the bottle might be easier mainly because the reason she likes her morning feed so much is that she tends to take about 45 mins snacking at it. Shortening it means she gets very very upset so I kind of ruled this out. The bottle takes her 5-10 mins, which is the length of the cuddle we'd get (an awful lot better than nothing but not long enough for either of us, really). Your comments are definitely making me think it might be worth getting her in bed with us early on at about 6 or so - I've avoided it so far as by herself she will just sleep till 7, but she would probably appreciate the fed more than the extra sleep! Do those who do this find that with good naps, their babies also stay awake long enough in the evening? We get home at about 6.30pm so if she goes to bed straight away we don't see her at all - even staying up until 7.30 gives us a lovely time to play.

Oh dear, I do love my job and the new house, but am agonising a bit over this! And stupidly I didn't see it coming at all.

My experience was very similar to euromums in that dd would take forever over a bf (fine in the evenings and at weekends) but would wolf a bottle down in no time at all. She would go barmy if I tried to shorten a feed and could take anything from half an hour to an hour which was time that I just didn't have as I had to leave the house at 7.45 and I struggled with working full time, bfing in the evenings until 10pm some nights and any night feeds, and then getting up at 6am to make sure we had time for the morning feed. I do feel sad that we had to drop that feed as I feel that it was a major factor in bfing not lasting any longer than it did but unfortunately dd was not my only priority

DH really enjoyed the time he spent feeding dd too so it wasn't all bad

Sorry to hear about bf not lasting as long as you'd liked TigerFeet - that is also exactly what I'm worried about! It just seems like the wrong reason to cut down feeds, as apart from the time issue we're both really enjoying it still. Glad to know we're not the only ones struggling to fit everything into the day! And thanks as well for the encouragement from those who have managed it, it really does help to know I'm not the only working mum who breastfeeds. I work in an area where everyone deals with health policies and knows all about the WHO 6 months guideline - and then express shock that dd might still be bf at 9 months!

euromum, you might find that if you wake her early in the morning, she'll have a longer lunchtime sleep, so you can keep her up a bit later.

Also, take advantage of the weekends, by letting her sleep in.

FWIW, my DD's took/take about 15mins to feed, that was both sides. This was from 7/8 mths.

Good luck