Dd starting nursery at 8/9 months old and doesn't take a bottle

[coochicoo]

Do you think she'll be ok by this age to go without a feed through the day if I feed her as soon as I pick her up and through the night if necessary? I can try to introduce a cup before then, maybe she'll take expressed milk from that, but if not will she be ok without? I don't really want to start introducing formula...and she probably wouldn't take it anyway.

She's only just 6 months at the moment so I've just started weaning her; I'm hoping that she'll be eating a half decent amount by then (although I can say that nothing's gone it yet. Why eat food when playing with it is so much fun?!)

Sorry, dd is bf. Probably obvious but I didn't explicitly say that.

try some different cups - maybe even an open one - she migth surprise you

DD was a bottle-avoider, but I wasn't comforatble leaving her with no milk so persisted with a bottle (well, DH did, she'd never take one from me) and she was fine once at nursery and saw all the other babies swigging theirs.

Or she might just start reverse cycling (ie feeding all night to make up for it) [bleary]

When dd went we gave her formula from a tippee cup, she had about 3 sips all day, but I felt better that I had given her it. I fed when she got home and she was fine without the milk in the day. tbh if I was doing it again I don't know if I'd bother. I couldn't express.

Thanks. I'll keep trying with cups. We've got a doidy which my ds never got on with so I've assumed that dd won't either but of course they're two different people!

If she is drinkng water from a sippy cup and some solids then she should be fine. ow far away from her nursery/childminder will you be when you are at work? You are entitled to take either expressing or nursing breaks during the working day, so you could have an extended lunch break to you could feed her in the middle of the day if you wanted to.

I went back to work when mine were 6 months old and expressed morning and afternoon and went accross to the (onsite) nursery and fed them at lunchtime too.

Try not to worry about it too much, and press for your rights if you need to take breaks to feed your baby.

Unfortunately I'm not close enough to the nursery to do that, although I will need to take expressing breaks otherwise I'll pop!

I've actually got until she's 11 months on leave...just that the last three months aren't paid so we may struggle, but I could always delay going back if I don't think it'll work.

Thanks

Here's some useful links;

www.breastfeedingmums.com/The-Law-Working-and-Breastfeeding.htm

www.nctpregnancyandbabycare.com/info-centre/articles/view/67

www.breastfeeding.nhs.uk/en/materialforclients/downloads/leaflet_4.pdf

www.infantfeeding.info/Working.htm

Thanks for those links. Very interesting.

my ds was exactly the same but the nursery were brilliant and after a little while without he got into the swing of it - think he was too hungry not to -
one thing I would say was that i wasn't strict enough on my days off and ended up bf all the time so when i was at work my boobs were all over the shop - not sure this helped him or me get used to the bottle too much - i think this time round i'm really going to push myself to wean to a bottle Before going back to work - or at least day time ones ... problem is it's so easy just to wop your boob out and solve the crying than organise a bottle - you do have to be very firm in the face of tears don't you..

My dd2 has just started nursery at 9 months, also breastfed and a bottle refuser. The first few days she wouldn't drink anything but slowly she's starting to take a couple of ounces a few times a day. She is reverse cycling to make up for it which is nearly killing me but I figure over time she'll up her daytime milk to a point where I can cut back on the nighttime feeds.