Having enough breastmilk without weaning

[mrstapir]

I am going back to work when my baby is 23 weeks old. She is currently 15 weeks and has already had one teaspoon of pureed sweet potato today. and some banana last week. Having read info on this site, I am now worrying that I have given her food too early as her gut isn't fully developed and that I should have waited until she is 26 weeks old. I am concerned that I won't be able to express enough milk when I return to work in order to give her enough food. As she has taken 'solid' food with incredible enthusiasism and no side effects, should I carry on with a teaspoon in between milk at lunchtimes or put it on hold until 26 weeks?

I wouldnt worry too much

10 years ago the guideline was 4 months, and there are loads of happy healthy 10 year olds who wernt affected by following the current guidelines of 4 months....

i wouldnt be giving protein or dairy though

just a little bit of fruit / veg puree and baby rice, and be careful to just introduce 1 food at a time

hang on

i read that your baby was 23 weeks, just re-read and she is only 15 weeks

personally i wouldnt give a 15 week old anything except baby milk, but by 5 months i might start to think about fruit / vef

Mrstapir - Sorry, that I don't know what the current guidelines are now as dd was 13 last autumn. When she was born in 1997 the guidelines for weaning were after 4 months. At that time she was waking at 5am for a feed due to hunger, so I was told by hv that it was definitely time to introduce solid food.

She started with a childminder 1 day a week, then 2 days, then 3 days for my last 3 months of maternity leave. During that time, she had 1 formula feed a day (at about 2pm), and her other feeds were from expressed breastmilk that I had frozen and taken to the childminder.

I went back to work when she was about 26 weeks old, and continued to give the childminder frozen breastmilk as often as I could.

By that time, she had started on various fruit and veg purées, but I continued to bf at 6am, 6-7pm and 10pm which I kept up until she was a year old, with a 1hr/40mile drive morning and evening. Gradually the 10pm feed dropped, then the 6am one, and finally the 6pm one, when she was 21 months old.

The last one only stopped when she changed nursery and got such a bad cold that she had difficulty swallowing. After she had recovered from the cold, she didn't seem to want to start again.

So, from my experience, it was possible to combine 3 feeds a day with working full-time and a longish commute.

I don't want to suggest that you go against current guidelineson weaning, just hope to reassure you that from my experience it's possible to combine a return to a full-time job with 3 feeds a day, and the rest could be made up of either formula or purees as appropriate.

I found my first morning really surreal, walking round the edge of an office builing in 'work clothes' thinking that just 2 hours before I'd been breast-feeding at home.

Good luck with your return to work.