Going away in 5wks, what am I going to do??

[Cclarke1979]

Hi
I'm due to go away for 3 days in 5 weeks time and I am absolutely dreading it as my 6 nearly 7 month old son is exclusively breastfed. He never took to a bottle (of EBM) and so we've been trying and trying to get him used to drinking from a sippy cup. He's dairy intolerant and so a couple of weeks ago he was prescribed a special formula and although he has occasionally taken 1 or 2oz from a spoon from my MIL and mum he will not drink a substantial amount. I started weaning him about 3 weeks ago but as yet does not have enough solids to cut out a BF.
What on earth shall I do?? I can't honestly believe that in 5 weeks he will suddenly start taking the formula enough for me to gradually stop breastfeeding which is what the original plan was. I'm running out of time and I'm stressed so much that I simply cannot go away.
Any advice? Please help!!

Do you need to go? Any way your mum or mil can come with you with your DS and they can look after him whilst you're doing what you're doing and you can feed him?

You'd be surprised how quickly they take to weaning.
My lo is 7.5 months and we are doing blw.
2 weeks ago she was still bf like a newborn. Then all of a sudden it clicked- and she has cut down to about 4/5 feeds a day

Forgot to say- I've aways found mam bottled are best tolerated.
Good luck

Taking one or two ounces at a time is perfectly normal as BF babies only take rounghly a floz an hour. Could you try calling one of the Bfing Helplines to see if they can help you to come up with a plan?

Who’s going to be having him overnight? Have they had a practise run yet?

Thank you all for taking the time to reply.
My husband will have him (and our 4 year old) for the three days and no he hasn't done a practice run yet. ..to be honest I don't have much faith in him managing to look after him, perhaps that's part of the problem
I've never once left my son with anyone else for any length of time simply because of the feeding issue and I've quite a few evenings planned nearer Christmas which I'm also dreading. I just feel like cancelling everything and staying at home I'm so worried. ..

Unless you really want to cancel everything, i would have a few evenings where yiu go out at bedtime and let DH bath him, give him a bottle or a cup and put him to bed. We cut out the bedtime feed by doing this. DH can’t just hand him over if you aren’t there.

Get DH to read 12 alternatives for the all night nurser and get him to do at least one of the night wakings from now on.

If he’s got a day off, I would take myself off out for at least 3 hours to see how they get on. They might both surprise you.

My son had cows milk intolerance and had prescription formula. We had to mix it into his usual milk, a tiny bit at first and then slowly increasing the ratio. The formula he had was quite a strong flavour, but he soon got used to it

3 days is a long time to go away with no build up, for both you and your baby. I'm all for doing things like that if it works, but in this situation is be tempted to reconsider if at all possible. If you formula fed and had been away from baby in shorter bursts to build up that would be very different to a breastfed baby suddenly being separated from its mum for such a long time. I'm not trying to make you feel bad, just wondering if you really have to do this. Sounds like it won't be much fun for either of you!

Have you decided what you are going to do OP?