How do I get DD childminder fit in 2 months?

[bunnybunyip]

DD will be 12 months old when she starts to go to the childminder in 2 months time. At the moment the only way to her down for a nap is to feed her or push her in the buggy. She will only bf and I can't get her to take a bottle or cup (she never has). She eats fairly well but still has several bf during the day. She has never been away from me for more than 4 hours and regularly screams for ges when left with her dad.
What am I going to do, help!

ages

Well, firstly I would try not to worry. Every childminder surely expects that a baby will have routines with her mother and that new ones will have to be learned. And secondly I would maybe try and get the BFs during the day down to maybe just before naps. You can offer BM in a sippy cup or water if she's thirsty in between. She won't understand at first, but persevere. All babies need to learn to drink from a cup, whether they go to a CM or not. Will you be providing expressed BM for daytime feeds or do you plan to wean? Either way, she'll need to learn to get her drinks from somewhere other than you and you've got two months to gently introduce that idea.

Thanks Juneau. I hate expressing so will probably try and wean in the day and just feed first thing in the morning and before bed. I will try and express to help her get used to the cup (oh, the wastage though!)

My DS went to cm at 12 months and would only nap in buggy/after bf. After discussing with cm we agreed that he would nap in the buggy, but amazingly after a month or so, once he'd settled in she was able to put him down awake in a cot upstairs and he would sleep. I was jealous!

He didn't have milk during the day on the days that I worked and seemed to cope fine - he was happy to drink water from a beaker but didn't seem fussed about cows milk.

Good luck, 2 months is quite a long time in a baby's development so your DD may have changed a fair bit :)

Yes don't bother about getting her to drink BM from a cup. Water yes, but don't waste the effort as it'll make you more stressed.

Can she have dairy? If so, when she's with the CM she can have yogurts, warm milk, cheese etc for calcium.

When I went back to work, DS fed more on my days off and just had a morning and bedtime feed when I was at home.

There are still two months to go and you'll probably find that you're easily down to BFs just morning and evening (or even weaned altogether) by then. Don't worry about the CM and napping - she'll have dealt with babies before and will know what to do.

My dd is 7 months and im going back to work in 6 weeks. I've just dropped mid morning and then lunchtime BF. I substituted the mid morning BF with a yoghurt and just offer lunch with water. She was fine tbh and didn't seem to notice. Next to go is mid afternoon BF so I'll end up with morning and night feed.
I can't really advise re the sleep thing as mine sleeps in her cot but all my friends tell me that their dc's just slept straight in the for when they went into nursey/cm. Funny how they just do it for anyone else but Mum!!!

I think at nursery they let them keep going until they fall asleep where they stand, pretty much - I know that DD never slept for more than 40 minutes at nursery which was one reason I hated sending her. Now I'm a CM my mindee sleeps for two hours or so every lunchtime and it's never been a problem.

Speak to the childminder & see if you can organise a lot of settling in visits (some will charge for this, some won't & some will charge for some of them)

Start now, this week with a half hour here and there building up slowly aiming towards increasing time with the childminder.

At the same time carry on leaving her with her dad, every time you leave the room say 'Back soon' perhaps with an explanation of where you are going but 'back soon' works well