Changing from BF on demand to a good schedule to get ready for nursery- anyone done it? Any tips?

[GYo]

Hi

I have been exclusively BFing my 20wk DD. From October she will be going to nursery 1 day a week, then full time from December.

I was feeding on a nice 3hr schedule but her 17wk growth spurt threw that out of the window (either that or she is still spurting!)

In prep for october I want to get started on mixed feeding from mid september, which will probably coincide with starting weaning.

Im concerned that she is currently feeding from me about 7 or 8 times a day and its not on a pattern.

Does anyone have tips on how to get her back on to a schedule before I start on mixed feeding (though I might mix feed EBM and BF then ramp down in November before I go back to work). I guess we've got into a little and often pattern for eating which I know is great but wont help the changes coming up in the Autumn.

Thanks ladies.

I think that once you start mix feeding (is your dc used to a bottle/cup?) then it will fall into place as your dd wont want anything within a few hours of that.

Its only 2 ffs a day anyway isnt it - so it would be bf on waking then breakfast, then ff mid morning - or ebm, then lunch, another ff or ebm in the afternoon, tea around 5 and then bf to bed. And then a dreamfeed when you go to bed and bf in the night if you're still doing that.

It helps if you start the day at the same time - which presumably you'll have to when you go back to work anyway.

In October it wont matter so much though - my dd was quite happy to feed normally with me and then take a cup on a nursery day.

DS was fed on demand and had no schedule whatsoever when he went to nursery at 7mo, the irregular little get!

I sent him with more milk than I thought he needed at first because his appetite varied as much as his feeding times. He did settle into a pattern with them eventually but that mainly consisted of him refusing any milk from them! He made up for it once he got home though so it wasn't a problem in terms of overall intake.

So, I've been zero help with your original request for advice about getting on a schedule but that's because we never managed it! I just wanted to say that it would be fine even if she's not in a set pattern- she'll behave differently at nursery anyway.

You shouldn't have to get her into a schedule for nursery - they should feed her on demand, and if that is little and often, then that would be fine.

My DS never did get into a schedule with his EBM at nursery (and he had EBM 5 days a week for a year), and the nursery staff were quite happy with that

Thats interesting CMOT - how did they have enough to keep warming up and leaving etc? I remember that driving me mad on the occasions when I defrosted and warmed some ebm only to find that only half was drunk and the rest had to be chucked grr.

I wouldn't worry. Things will change so much over the next couple of months you won't believe. By the time she is in nursery full time she will have dropped almost all her daytime feeds.

To begin with, I left them 6 small (60ml) bottles, so that they could just warm what he wanted. We then worked out that mostly he would drink 125ml (or nearly) at a time, just at a time of his choosing - so they had 3 125ml bottles a day, with extra milk in the freezer. For a bit I also gave them an extra bottle on a Monday that they then rotated through so that they had one in hand everyday iyswim

I also told them that as long as the milk was fresh, I was happy for them to reheat it once as long as it wasn't left out but put back in the fridge as soon as they realised he didn't want it/didn't want much. I did base this on some evidence, but will have to find where

Hey Gyo - we seem to be talking about similar things on 2 threads!

All I wanted to say here, was that DD seemed to fit into your description exactly - she was roughly feeding every 3 hours or so until she was just about 4 months, and sleeping well too, and then it all went out the window and she started waking up every 2 hours and feeding what felt like all the time!

I was complaining about it to my friends at a dinner party, at the same time talking about going back to work, and they suggested I start dropping the 11am feed onto a bottle in prep for her going to nursery.

Anyway, I had no idea how this would work, as she seemed to feed at 7am, 9:30am, 10:30am, 1pm, 3pm etc etc... so it wasn't really a case of just dropping one feed at 11am.... except it was! I fed her at 7am and then offered the bottle at 11am and we've been doing that for 7 days now. She doesn't seem to be hungry, afterall, bewteen 7am and 11am, and after 6 days she has finally taken the bottle at 11am and then had a normal boob feed at 3pm.

What I'm trying to say, is I think she may have not been all that hungry at those times I kept bf-ing her - and that I was simply feeding her out of habit and the first sign of her sucking her fist. As it turns out, she is more than capable of going from 7am to 11am for a feed, and then waiting again till 3pm. I do feed her at both 5pm and 7pm from the boob as I like to try and fill her up before bedtime! but I imagine I will soon drop that 5pm "snack" as she'll be on solids soon and I'm hoping she won't need it.

So anyway, a long way of saying that it was no problem at all getting her on a schedule and actually she didn't need all those little feeds I was giving her - I was totally gobsmacked - I was convinced it was all going to be a disaster! Your DD may be completely different and genuinely need feeding all those extra times during the day, but you might be surprised and she might get back into the "old" routine really quickly...

Good luck! xxx

Hi Boobz!
Thanks for your message. Funnily enough its the other thread that got me thinking about this topic. I had read into your OP that your DD was on a 7, 11, 3. 7pm feeding schedule (like most other peoples babies I know ) so I thought in order to try supplementing feeds with bottles we'd need a better schedule!

Its great to hear of your success with the bottle and getting onto the schedule with your DD. Oddly enough your feeding times of 7, 9.30, 10.30, 1pm, 3pm etc are exactly what we seem to do at the moment!

Are you putting your DD in nursery full time?
I am and struggling to come to terms with it but I hope it will be ok.

When are you starting weaning?

She's only on 7, 11, 3 (5) and 7 because of this bottle battle - before that she was all over the place! Putting her on just one bottle feed a day has slotted everything into place, bizarrely, as I am trying to sort my milk supply out, so it's important I don't feed after 7 and before 3, so every other time she has looked hungry she has had the bottle. Because she doens't like it, she has sort of gone without, which has cut down all the mini feeds and slotted us into the "normal" schedule we're now on. Make sense?

She will be going 3 days a week so still home with me 4 days a week which is good. I am still burying my head in the sand a little bit about it all, but my DH and I are pretty confident we're going away with his job (posted abroad) from July next year, so it's only a few months I miss out on and then we can start thinking about No.2 and I can be a stay at home mum (DH earns more for foreign postings so I don't have to work).

Weaning from the week after next I think - she will be over 5 months then, and I'm going to start slowly - just some bits of baby rice. I'll start the proper stuff the week before 6 months so she's got an idea of what's going on before she starts childminders from mid Sept.

Oh it's all going so fast! How many days are you going back to work?

x

Thanks for your post Boobz. Sorry for the delay. I am burying my head a bit about the going back to work thing so was quietly avoiding this discussion-

How is your DD going with her bottles, are you starting to give another one this week?

Am going back full time as of mid december. DD will go to nursery 1 day a week from mid october to get us both used it.

I have a very demanding job so am rather worried about how I am going to manage it as well as mising DD like crazy! Im hoping DH will get a better job so I can go 4days but as Im the main breadwinner it wont be easy.

-Sorry, just had to get that off my chest.

Good luck with the weaning. I am thinking of starting with Baby Led Weaning in September but will see closer to the time.

Think you might be right about her not needing all the food Im giving. She certainly doesnt take loads at each feed AFAIK anyway.

But the good news for this week is that she seems to have dropped the 3am feed so we are now doing a 6pm, 11pm dreamfeed and then nothing til 7am - its been 4 days now and I feel sooooooooooo much better already.

Wow - am so jealous of your night time feeding schedule. Penelope has never had a dream feed, and we are on one night time feed at 3am (so 7pm, 3am and then up for the day at 7am). I know I could probably get her to sleep from 11pm till 7am if I gave her a dream feed, but as I am so close to weaning her, I'm hoping that solids will help her sleep through, and I don't want to introduce a dream feed which she will then get dependent on, IYSWIM.

We've cracked the bottle! She now happily glugs 7oz at her 11am feed, no probs. It took 6 days in the end, but we got there. Am going to drop the 3pm feed week after next I think.

I am the main breadwinner too, a the moment, so I can't cut down what I do either. Still, we're looking forward to going abroad next year.

Right, time for her 5pm snack!