Breastfeeding and return to work.. sigh..

[Catheroooo]

Hi. FTM to a 7 month girl here. She's EBF. Our journey so far has been up and down... we sleep trained as she was waking hourly and would only sleep in our bed. She now sleeps in her own cot. However there is no routine... I had been desperate to let her find her own one but with returning to work in 2 months I'm aware this may need to change. I feed on demand and because she's quite small (nothing medically wrong touch wood), I've tried to feed her at every opportunity. That combined with how she perhaps just likes to feed and that she has always been easily distracted off the boob means she's very snacky baby, a few minutes here and there anything from every 30 mins to 3 hours. Overnight she goes to sleep around 7, waking twice. Sometimes the first wake up is 9pm, sometimes 1am. But she can do 4 hour sometimes hour stretches. But again this can be anywhere in the night. So the night before last she woke at 1am, 3.30am then 7. Last night was 9.30pm, then 1.30am then again at 6am. She then slept til 8.

Mostly she wakes between 7-7.30am but today it was 8. I really want to feed her before I go to work in the morning but I will be leaving at 6.20 am. Would you wake her?
My other worry is that for the first four weeks daddy will be with her full time (I will be home on two days of the week(. Then she goes to nursery for the three days. I triedseveralexoressinh machines but I can't get anything out, so I guess she will need formula. However we tried a bottle and she refused. We are using a 360 cup of water with weaning which she is getting the hang if but a lot of dribbling!

I want to feed her as long as I can. So Part of me doesn't want to feed her for.ula before I have to, but also I'm worried if we leave it till my first day back at work what if she won't take it? She'll be starving!?

Advice please on her routine or rather lack of... is it normal? And also what to do about feeding... Thank you.

Have you tried the premade bottles of formula (warmed slightly)? Mine wouldn't go straight to the powdered milk but would have ready made, eventually we mixed until she got used to powdered. I used to feed morning and evening then formula during the day. You need to start dictating routine a little more, stretch out the night feeds if you can, by giving very short feeds at night they can become less dependant at night and should drink more in the day.

Thank you. Yep we tried the premise stuff... but it was a while ago now...

I'm actually not too bothered about the night feeding... maybe that is the answer? To let her reverse cycle. I just don't want to go back to hourly feeds. Every 3-4 hours I can cope with and hopefully once fully weaned we can drop the night feeds then....? But even so she still does breastfeed during the day and without me I worry how she'll cope if she won't take a bottle / doesn't drink much from a cup...

*premade not premise

At 9 months you might find she's OK without milk in the day even if she normally has it, and she'll just feed more at the evenings - and yes nights - to make up for it.

You can also make sure she gets dairy during the day in the form of cheese, yoghurt, etc. And if your husband can make up food (like porridge, cheese sauces or anything pureed) with some breastmilk or formula that would also help get the milk into her.

If you want to express at this point you might have to try for a few days. Start with hand expression and don't worry if you only get a few ml out. Once you're confident with the hand expression, try a pump and do it at the same time every day for a few days until you can get something out. You probably won't produce very much - about 30ml per pumping session is usual - but it could help if you're interested.

Two months is quite a long time for a 7 month old baby - you might be surprised by how much changes :)

My two youngest were 9 months when I returned to work. I fed them in the morning at 6ish then when I got home and in the night. While I was away they had pumped milk for a week or so but they weren’t interested after that and just had a lot of dairy foods. You shouldn’t have to worry about messing around with bottles tbh.