Going back to work in 5 weeks - help needed to plan a routine

[JustPretending]

At the moment my 8mo's day looks like this:

7am BF
9:30am BF then nap till 11am
11:45am Brunch
12:30 or 1pm BF
Afternoon nap - timing & length varies
5pm BF
6:30pm Dinner
7:30pm BF then bed

I need to:

• introduce a 3rd meal
• phase out the day BF at 9am, 1pm, 5pm (replacing with formula?
• keep the morning & evening feeds
• figure out what our pattern should be at weekends???

Which feed should go first? Am scared of mastitis / painfully full breasts.

Sorry - not sure if this is the right board or if it

... Is better on the breastfeeding board (sorry! Post got cut short)

I have recently returned to work. DD is 6 months old and her rough routine is as follows:

7am - wake and BF
8am - breakfast
9am - nap
11am - bottle
12pm - lunch
1pm - nap
3pm - bottle
4pm - nap if needed
5pm - dinner
7pm - BF and bed
10/11pm - BF at my bedtime

I decided to replace the day breast feeds with formula, including on days when I'm not at work. I have a tendency towards over supply and feeding her at weekends would just leave me uncomfortable and leaky at work. I've been mixing formula with expressed milk to slowly change her over.

I replaced the 3pm feed first, the week before I started work. Once I was back at work I expressed once a day, at lunchtime. I am now cutting down the amount I express in the hope of stopping expressing completely. I had hoped to have stopped expressing by now but a blocked duct scared me into doing it very slowly!

I'm not sure if any of my rambling helps, but feel free to pm me with any questions. I was really concerned about the change to the routine and spent ages trying to figure out what to do. In the end I pretty much made it up as I went along!

My DS is 7.5 months and his routine is a little like this -

7.30am - 7oz bottle
9am - breakfast (usually baby porridge)
10am - nap 1-2 hours
12pm - lunch
2pm - 7oz bottle
2.30pm - 1-2 hr nap depending on the length of the morning nap
4.30/5pm - Dinner
7pm - 7oz bottle

I go back to work next week and hopefully this routine will stick for a bit, our only issue is he doesn't self settle to sleep.

I'd try and introduce solids for breakfast at around 8.30 ish. Then bring your afternoon breast feed forward to 3.30 ish, possibly switch to formula for this one? And bring dinner forward to more like 5. Then if your going to switch for formula long term they'll take a decent amount before bed.

Similar here, I stopped doing any afternoon bf a month before going back to work, then stopped mid morning feed a few days before work start.

So dd has
6ish bf
8ish breakfast
Nap
Lunch
Nap
Mid afternoon snack
Dinner
Bf on demand from when I get home.

I keep the same routine at the weekend (also oversupply issues). So if I was you I'd introduce breakfast, then you can drop the 9-30 bf. Then once you're both used to that drop the lunch time bf, bring dinner forward to 5 (you may find your nursery gives tea just before 5) and then bf once home as you like. Dd is a bottle refuser so we just offer milk with each meal and mid afternoon (she only takes one or two oz).

Very helpful thanks - I think I will introduce breakfast next week & see if that naturally eliminates the 9am feed. Then a week after, see if we can deal with the 5pm feed which, to be fair, has been fairly short.

I may be back for more advice as things take shape but right now, one thing worrying me is that the 9am feed gets DC off to sleep for a nap. Any hints on keeping the nap without feeding to sleep?