How do you go back to work when your bf baby won't take any milk from anything but you?

[DitaVonCheese]

Please be gentle, I am being PFBish

DD is a smidge under 8 mos. Been BLW since six months, she has two or three meals a day but doesn't eat huge amounts and still has plenty of milk feeds. She has never taken a bottle, getting there slowly with a sippy cup but she doesn't take very much (water) from it at the moment. I hate expressing and am rubbish at it.

Financially it would help us enormously for me to go back to work and my employer is extremely flexible. Would she just do without milk feeds if I wasn't there? It would only be 2-3 days a week.

I know I'm being pathetic and plenty of people have to go back to work before this, but I'm having trouble getting my head around it at the moment

She'll drink if she's thirsty. We got DS1 onto bottles a couple of weeks before I went to work by the simple method of me not being around to bf him - he took the third bottle of EBM offered to him (didnt press it) and then was fine with either. Friends who have gone back to work have found their babies either feed during the day from bottle or cup or they will wait and have mammoth feeds in the evening and in the night when they get back from work. Either way, she'll be fine - as will you.

I went back at 8 months and my youngest was till bf. I expressed milk to give to my childminder who tried to feed her via spoon, cup etc. None really successful. She'd mix it with her food as well. But, it was all ok, she'd just feed when I got home (before I had time to get my coat off, usually). It was all fine, honestly. It is doable.

Thank you. At the moment, the thought of leaving her all day just makes me want to curl into a ball and cry, so I'm just trying to work on things one at a time. She's going through a clingy phase at the moment and often won't settle even for DH, so I'm worried about her crying all day at a childminder's and thinking I've abandoned her

Stupid thing is that I am also quite resentful of the fact that I can't seem to leave her at all (not even to go to the loo atm!) and the fact that my last attempt at a night out without her involved her crying for 40 min and then her mum bringing her over so that I had a girly night of champagne, pro pedicures and breastfeeding. Also I am reading childminder's websites and thinking that they're going to do a much better job than me, since they seem to do loads of fun stuff instead of trying to do MNing housework etc.

Someone slap me please

You are not being at ALL PFB-ish!

It is doable though. I had to go back to full time work when DS was barely six months old. He would never take a bottle and I was worried he would dehydrate or something. I was also rubbish at expressing. It would take me more than 40 mins to produce a few ounces.

In the end he went straight onto a sippy cup, which he was happy to take from nursery staff as long as I was no where around.

He had a mammoth breastfeed morning, straight after work and last thing at night.

DD wouldn't take a bottle either at first, but found Avent ones ok eventually. I think they were more breast shaped - more what she was used to latching onto.

DD is 7 mo old and will not take a bottle. Will take a sip of water from a cup, but that's it.

I am back at work 4 days a week, but short days - 6hrs or so + 1/2 hr travel.

SHe is BLW but doesn't eat a lot.

So, how do we cope -

1. Sips of water from cup so she is not uncomfortable;

2.Co-sleeping and try to encourage reverse cycling - see KellyMom - basically feeds lots in night so can go without in the day

1. I express a bit at work if uncomfortable - donating to milk bank as cannot get it into dd.

1. feed as soon as I get in - woe betide me if I need the loo first!!

hth

Thank you for your (kind) replies We are co-sleeping too so feeding all night isn't necessarily a problem ...

So the answer seems to be: do it and it'll be okay.

I had exactly the same problem with DD when I went back to work when she wasn 9 months old.

Have you tried a doidy cup? DD would sip from an open cup or spoon when she wouldn't take a bottle or beaker.

To be honest, she did just learn to drink fluids from a beaker during the day. I think it was easier for her to learn that when I wasn't actually there and she couldn't just insist on having "boobie". And I fed her first thing in the morning and again as soon as I got in from work.

(She's still absolutely desperate for a breastfeed as soon as we get in from work - but I think that's now as much about emotional comfort and security as it is about the fluids.)