How with work?

[janeylacey]

Totally buy in to baby led weaning: good before 1 is just for fun and all that stuff.

But, how am I going to do this when I'm going back to work when DS is 9 months old?

He's only three months now but won't take a bottle or a dummy or anything that's now breast.

I've seen it said many times that baby doesn't need any nutrients from food until after a year old so it doesn't matter if they're not eating well, as long as they're still feeding.

Help!

My LG started nursery at 9 months and e did BLW. She was FF so had bottles still but we told nursery and they offered finger foods at meal times then bottles in between and we did the same at home.

You can start soon gradually introducing a cup with expressed milk in. Try a few different types, the miracle unspillable type of cup is good.

He's ebf so won't be offering formula.

A cup sounds good but how much would I need to express for each day though?

I'm a teacher so I'm not convinced I'd be able to pump during the day without difficulty! I sometimes don't even have time for a wee!

Check your maternity policy, mine said 1 hr extra breaks a day and a private room with access to a fridge must be made available if pumping. I believe this is a UK employment law requirement as the company I work for don't tend to offer nice extras, just the basics they have to offer.

I think the 'food is fun before one' claim has been largely discredited now? All our local health visitors and drs have told us nutrients from food are important from six months.

Expressing at work can be tough - both logistically and in terms of keeping your supply up. We moved to mix feeding when I went back to work. I was obsessive about her having exclusively bm when she was tiny but it seemed less important once she was getting a variety of foods via weaning (and kicking the floor inbetween).

9 months is a long way off for you. You might feel different about ebf by then. Your baby might take a bottle. Just play it by ear.

It’s true that your baby will he the majority of their nutrients from milk still, but that will start to be replaced by food over the time you start weaning. Babies take to food at different rates - some refuse spoons, some seem to prefer a mixture of being spoon-fed and finger feeding. By the time you get the nine months, you should have a reasonable idea about what your child likes.

Who will be looking after your baby when you are back at work?

Expressing at work will probably be quite important for you at 9months, just so you’re not in actual pain. I went to a work meeting at 9m, and even though I expressed while I was there, I was desperate to feed when I got home. That got easier after 12m, when I did stop expressing - but 9m was still incomfortable.

I'm a teacher and here's no way I'd have time to pump. I went for a KIT day at about 8 months and had to pump sat in the disabled loo as there was nowhere else! I went back to work at 9.5 months and dd had formula at nursery, breast at home. A lot of my friends managed to Day milk wean before their dc went to nursery - don't know how! Also, some babies hate blw and others love it and refuse a spoon. I didn't mention anything to nursery about how she liked to eat, by that age they eat how they want to which for my dd is to throw it all on the floor.

It depends on how weaning goes and how your baby feeds. By 9 months my dd was phasing out bf during the day as she really took to food. Obviously my supply just adjusted. Ds was much more dependent on milk at that age and would have struggled to go all day. I would try and introduce a cup or bottle tbh, and perhaps keep an open mind about srict BLW. How long will you be apart?

If baby takes to weaning well they'll be fine to eat at nursery and milk at home.

I'm you 6 months on. I spent quite a lot of time stressing about how EBF DD would cope when I went back to work. I've never been very successful with expressing much and while she would take an expressed bottle from DH she would drink minimal amounts.

I've been back to work a few weeks now and honestly it's been so easy. She took to BLW really well, loves her food and is on 3 meals a day. She is at nursery 2 long days per week and with DM 2 days. The 3 days she spends with me she feeds as normal (although has naturally reduced her feeds the last 6 weeks or so as she's eating more). I've had no supply issues and I've found I don't actually need to express for comfort while at work - we did a few practice half days at nursery and with DM so not sure if that helped.

When at nursery or with DM I had planned to provide expressed milk for her but it didn't work out. She is offered formula which hasn't affected her in any way, it isn't poison so don't stress about having to use it if that's how it ends up. I understand feeling resistant to it but while breast milk has known benefits I can't see any reason to actually avoid formula if it can help. Most days she refuses any at all anyway, occasionally she'll accept some. She loves water from her sippy cup so no worries about dehydration, and I'm not stressing about her not taking formula. I feel that if she needs it, she'll take it. She then has a good feed from me when I get home and a few through the night. She's continued to track the same centile weightwise. I give her a multivitamin which is recommended from 6 months anyway.

I wish I'd spent less time worrying about how it was all going to work. In 6 months you will have a completely different baby and there's no point trying to plan too strictly as your baby might have other ideas. It's all fallen into place for us and I'm sure it will for you too.

You cannot predict how your baby will react to dummy/ cup/ bottle/ food in 6 months based on what he's doing now

Mine started with bottles of EBM happily, went through a phase of refusing and now happily takes them again. And occasionally formula. Then decided to refuse some of my frozen stash throwing a spanner in the works. He's happy with anything now and at 7.5 months, doing pretty much BLW (he likes me holding the spoon with his favourite yoghurt so he can ACTUALLY EAT IT!) he's definitely starting to actually eat.

And he's feeding a lot less in the day. He's too busy rolling off to try and get at things or watch the dogs.

They do need some nutrients from food, as a previous poster mentioned. With bf babies (at this stage) there's a danger of iron deficiency if they're not getting iron from other sources.

Is he really not eating anything? They all develop at different paces of course but as you need to go back to work you should maybe consider cutting back on milk feeds to encourage him to eat more.

You've got lots of time to get him used to a bottle.

Some little ones are better eaters than others, 9 months is a good age as there hand eye coordination is getting good so they can feed more succesfully. You can always use pureed if your worries he wo t take milk. Nurseries are pretty good he may take a bottle or cup from then.. they'll syringe it on if they have to.

I’d call one of the Bfing Helplines as a BFC can help you to come up with a back to work plan so that you don’t have to stop Bfing if you don’t want to.

As for BLW it’s fine with childcare, just make sure your childcare provider is happy with it.

Is he really not eating anything? They all develop at different paces of course but as you need to go back to work you should maybe consider cutting back on milk feeds to encourage him to eat more.

He's only three months now