What does DS need to be able to do before starting nursery?

[ATruthUniversallyAcknowledged]

Don't worry, I don't mean like 'speak fluent Spanish' or 'play three instruments' [pfb emoticon] but I am panicking about when DS starts nursery.

He's seven months old and is starting nursery in three weeks in readiness for me going back to work in five weeks. He's EBF and won't take a bottle. He's starting to respond to weaning (will chew on some foods, but won't take anything off a spoon) but is nowhere near having 'meals'. He's not fed to sleep as such, but he does usually BF before naps (so nice and drowsy before being put down iyswim)

How the hell am I going to get him ready for going eight hours or more a day without BFing?

Will nursery be able to help at all? (I'm wondering if experienced hands will have more luck with a bottle than we do) Or do I need to get him fully weaned before he starts?

Thank you!

talk to the nursery. Getting weaning started will be helpful, but you will find they tend to take bottles from someone else a bit easier - as they are expecting BF from you so will probably not want a bottle from you. We have children in our nursery who are on the bottle at nursery and in part at home and still BF at home as well.

At my nursery we like to keep to the childrens routines as much as possible, so when starting nursery its not such a big change iyswim. So it would be best for him if you brought it expressed milk for the nursery to use, we can store it frozen in bulk, so some bring in lots. However if you want him to move to formula at nursery then it would be best if you introduced it now, so that he can become accustomed to the flavour.

The nursery will be use to babies who are unsure with bottles, and will know all the tricks!!

I would worry about getting him weaned, you don't want to rush him into something he isn't ready for.

And we work with parents, some of our children just eat finger food, others are mainly spoonfed, and most of them do a mixture of both.

HTH

Thank you

We're working on setting a routine so that I can ask nursery to follow the same one and it's going well. Weaning is also improving massively. Thank goodness! We're doing BLW so I guess I'd just take along loads of finger foods each day and nursery can let me know which ones tend to work for DS and which ones not to bother with. The milk thing is still worrying me though, so if I explain that I can't get him to take a bottle (although he will sometimes drink from a cup) but took along plenty of expressed milk, a bottle and a cup, you think nursery would be happy to keep trying it?

Any decent nursery will happily keep trying until they crack it. Make sure you inform the room leader and note it in his day book. Honestly it will be ok in the end. Slightly different but my ds1 refused to drink milk from a cup at all, i watched through the window one day as he downed a full beaker of the stuff! Have you some gradual settling in sessions planned, increasing the time your away.

Yes the nursery should have no issue trying repeatedly, repetition is the key we think any way :)

Thank you again. We have two 'settling in sessions' and then two weeks with two full days each week before I start back at work and he goes to nursery for four days per week. Argh. Am panicking again just thinking of it.

My elder two went into FT nursery when tthey wouldn't take bottles, and what they did was to reverse cycle for a few weeks (so cluster fed in the evenings/mornings and nursed more often overnight) and then gradually started to take bottles/cups. And they both napped beautifully at nursery even though I had trouble getting them down at home.

My #1 piece of advice is just to really enjoy and make the most of this last three weeks without stressing at all about how he will cope in nursery. I wasted far too much of my last month desperately trying to get DS to take a bottle and it did neither of us any good.

Know what you mean elephants, the same with me. My DS wouldn't entertain a bottle at all and after a few hungry nights he settled in ok. Still didnt have any milk at all at nursery til he was about 12 months. He was in 5 days Ft as well, poor blighter was probably starving. We did try a few cups and found one DS could use so he could at least have some water. The nursery should be happy with ebf. (I did get a few odd looks from a couple of the younger ones who clearly thought it was a bit icky, but they tried to get him to take it anyway)

Ds also wouldn't sleep in a cot unless I fed him so the nursery would put him in a buggy and push him up and down til a few months later when he would settle. (he wasnt crying in the buggy, just hated cots and didnt know how to get to sleep)

The nursery staff should be understanding, at ours the sleeping room is really chilled out and the staff are happy to cuddle the babies til asleep/drowsy if need be.

I had a chat with the nursery about a month before he started and tried to get him to fit their general eating times. He then slept whenever he was tired.

Dd is due to start soon and she's a bottle hater too, so we'll be trying a cup at 5 months before starting at 6months.

Good luck, I think it really is harder for us to leave them, give it a couple of months and hopefully your DS wil love it.

Thank you again. I spoke to the nursery manager today and she was lovely. I'm taking DS for his first settling in session on Monday and timing it just before his feed and nap will be due so that his key worker can try to get him to take a bottle and go to sleep. We're going to work out next steps after seeing what happens then. I can't believe I'm going be leaving my pfb next week. He still seems so reliant on me.