How to handle leaving baby

[Ambn1]

My DD is 8 months old and is currently exclusively breastfed. She has solids 3 times a day, but still breastfeeds regularly especially at night. We have tried so hard to get her to accept a bottle, but she refuses it.

I’m getting to the point where I will be returning to work when she is 12 months, but have keeping in touch days I need to attend before that. And have also been invited to a wedding in a month where I would need to stay overnight if I went.

I’m so anxious about the idea of leaving her when she won’t accept milk other than when breastfed. I know that they say from 12 months they can have cows milk. But what if she won’t take it? Is it okay for her not to have any milk when she is 12 months and at the childminders all day?

I feel like she eats enough solids, that surely it is enough to sustain her, but she still seems to want milk as well. I don’t know if she is feeding regularly as more of a comfort thing rather than hunger but would hate to think of her being hungry if she doesn’t have milk. As an example of the solids she eats, this is what she ate yesterday:

Breakfast: a weetabix with whole milk, half a banana

Lunch: 3 spinach and banana muffins (each one is about the size of a fairy cake), a pot of fruit and yogurt and some of those baby organic crisp things

Dinner: a slice of toast with butter to dip in half a chicken curry pouch (the whole pouch was on offer but she had, had enough)

Is there any way I would be able to leave her to go to the wedding next month or for keeping in touch days at work? I also have massive anxiety about the thought of leaving her emotionally, but the feeding thing is a massive concern too.

Has anyone got any advice or experience of similar?

From 12 months they don’t need milk during the day as they can have snacks and water instead. She will probably keep having milk morning and night for sometime (although it doesn’t have to be breast milk of course). Leaving her overnight might be trickier if it’s part of her bedtime routine. You could keep trying with bottles or various types of cup and do a test run of whoever would be looking after her (her Dad or Grandparents?) doing bedtime and all night wakeups.

I was also worried about leaving my EBF son, so I started to prepare for this well in advance. I'm going to start by saying that, even as an older baby, BF sessions for us were an good hour long at a minimum

He used BFing as a crutch to fall asleep. I trained him to self-soothe starting at 6 months. He was waking every hour unable to link his sleep cycles; this was necessary.

He fed pretty much all day, every day as an infant. I introduced a routine at 6 months loosely; by around 7 months we were properly on a BFing schedule. It was still fairly frequent, which at 7 months was fine. What was important was he had his set daytime feeds (no routine for nights - just as needed), and ate his solids. Fortunately he got on very well with food. I started him early on an open cup with water. It was messy at first, but he caught on really quickly how to drink from it so he could hydrate throughout the day.

Once the routine was properly established and sleeping issues sorted (being honest, this was around 9 months), I started planning to drop feeds. I always intended to stop feeding on his birthday, so by 11 months my goal was to be on 1 feed a day for that final month. By 10 months, it was 2 feeds. 9 months was down to 3 feeds. Your child's milk needs may look very different to this, but this feeding schedule worked for us.

On his birthday, instead of a feed, I gave him a bottle of milk which he happily drank and then went to bed. I too had worried about how he would react, it it turned out it was all for nothing. Thus concluded our breastfeeding journey.

In regards to your overnight stay at the wedding, honestly I'm afraid it doesn't sound very realistic. It's definitely possible, but I know my son wouldn't have gone for it. It would have left him and my husband for a very distressing time. Sorry that's not the answer you were hoping for.

In terms of no milk at the childminders all day, it depends on your child's needs but at 12 months this would definitely have been achieveable for us. She can have cow's milk in things like porridge during the day, and if she's eating well then I really wouldn't worry about this.

As for KIT days, I did a few of these as well. I think the first one ended up being the day we dropped his lunchtime milk feed, so that solved that problem. Sorry I can't offer anything else.

I hope our experience gives you some ideas about how you can handle your transition.

My daughter was only EBF direct, didn't take a bottle. When I went back to work at 12 months she just fed in the morning and evening and was fine with food and drink during the day, no milk.

I went back part time at nine months when I was still feeding in the day. I found that he just ate more food on my work days although he did have some formula (hated pumping!). Would your LO take a cup instead of a bottle of formula or would you be able to pump? By 12 months she can have cows milk (I'd actually give this a tad earlier) or just have solids.

Overnight for a wedding is a bit harder. Could whoever is looking after her come up with you and stay in the hotel? Then you can pop back and feed. I fed to sleep until 14 months so had to do stuff like this!

KIT days and subsequent work will be fine. He’ll likely just want to feed more in the morning/evening/overnight/your off days while you and he adjusts. DS1’s solid intake increased exponentially at nursery, I suspect partly due to reduced breastmilk intake and partly as that’s what all the other children were doing.

I would however be concerned about leaving a 9 month old baby who isn’t fully established on solids and is used to feeding a lot overnight. I’m guessing it’ll be 24 hours apart? You would need to hand express as a minimum to avoid engorgement. No chance baby can come and stay close by?

Thank you so much everyone for sharing your experiences. That has made me feel a lot better about when I go back to work.

I agree that the wedding seems very unrealistic, and if I’m honest I’m not even fussed about going as would rather just be with her, but feel like I should go. If she is going to be unhappy I just will be so stressed. If the wedding was in a hotel, my husband has said he would stay in the room with her and I could just go up to feed her as and when, but it isn’t in a hotel, it’s in the middle of nowhere and our hotel is a good distance away so it wouldn’t work practically.

Can I ask when your babies stopped needing to feed at night time? How do you differentiate between when they are feeding because they are hungry and when it is a comfort thing?