Breastfeeding, BLW and going back to work...

[Fourteeth]

Hello there,

Would really appreciate advice if any of you have any relevant experiences to share...?

My DD will start seeing a childminder 2 days a week from Feb 1 when he'll be 8 months old.

Until then he will have been exclusively breastfed and also BLW since 6 months.

I have never used a bottle with him but he can use a cup.

So, here is my question - how will we deal with the breastfeeding when he's with the CM - should I express so that she can feed him in a cup or could he be breastfed am and pm and rely on solids and water during the day? I have no problem expressing but we have so far not fed him expressed milk as a drink (only mixed with porridge!)

AND is a BLW fed child getting enough nutrition after doing it for over two months i.e. to survive for 7 hours without breastmilk?

Love any advice... thank you...

I would express osme milk for your dd to have in a cup. You'll only know what works for her once she has started with the cm.

I had a similar dilemma when I went back to work (full time) when dd was 7m ish.

She wasn't very interested in solids (BLW like you) and just would not drink enough from a cup to let me relax about how much she'd drink/eat during the day, so I took the decision to express and leave her with bottles of EBM, which in retrospect was right for her.

In your situation I would certainly express, if only to guard your supply, as two feeds a day is not much. And once it's expressed then the CM might as well offer it to ds - better for him than water or cows' milk.

Thanks - do you have any idea how often I will need to express during the day - I'm going back to quite a pressured job so just thinking about how to manage it all. And how easily did your dd adjust to the bottle?

She was good with a bottle but had been having one a week since 5m or so when I went back to choir so it wasn't a new thing for her to learn

I fiddled around pathetically expressing twice a day with a manual pump till after about 3wks I got my arse in gear and shelled out for a double electric one (Ameda Lactaline). Utterly worth it as it meant I could get 9oz in 20min while eating a sandwich and reading a novel.

oh, and I carried on doing that till she was 12m when she switched first to cows' milk in a bottle, then to a cup.

She's 16m now and has just started having cows' milk in a cup during the day at weekends, but still bf before bed and at least once at night.

Second the vote for the Ameda Lactaline - they are fab.

It might be a good idea to check with your childminder now what she is happy with (you've probably done this already, but just in case...) My DD's childminder was not particularly happy with using a cup, so I gave her a bottle (Tommee Tippee Closer to Nature was the one she settled for in the end).

DD started with CM at 8mths and I expressed initially 12oz a day but quickly found that too difficult to sustain and went down to 8oz and eventually 4oz. I did it in one stint in the middle of the day (I'm a teacher so time and privacy at work were an issue but I managed to get my timetable rearranged to make it easier on my busiest days). I've just phased it out completely; she's now 11mths and I feed her first thing in the morning, when we get home from the CM and before bed, and we're in the process of phasing out the getting home feed also.

All that said, when I first went back to work (before the school summer holiday) she was 6mths and DP took parental leave to look after her; she completely refused to accept any expressed milk from a bottle and wouldn't take more than 1/2oz at a time from a cup, and she was fine. I tried to get home and feed her at lunchtime but couldn't always manage it; if she'd gone all day without any milk she would cry a bit when she first saw me but it didn't seem to bother her when I wasn't there. And she did eventually take to EBM in a bottle, so even if your DD refuses initially it's worth persevering.

I went back to work when ds was 8.5 months old 3 days a week (11 hrs apart). We were doing BLW.

I expressed twice a day until 10 months and then once a day until 12 months. My job was quite pressurised too, and fitting in the expressing was hard. I also had to commute with the milk 1.5hrs on the train home. I used to express before bed every day as well to get an extra 3oz or so, as ds didn't feed in the evening at that stage, although 1-2 times overnight.

Ds used to take the 2-4oz expressed milk from a doidy cup at nursery, initially twice a day, but later once. He had 3 meals a day, including breakfast with 4oz EBM from the freezer (I built up a stash in advance). Sometimes he used to have a fruit smoothie made from ebm for pudding at his evening meal too.

He didn't have any problem taking food and water when hungry and thirsty at nursery. They were very good about following our BLW instructions. I used to send in his food and he used to eat things like mushroom risotto and casserole and mash with his hands off a high chair tray and then later out of a suction bowl .

It can be done, but be prepared for the possibility of reverse cycling.

Good luck!

I have a question on this subject too (sorry to hijack your post Fourteeth)

I was hoping to give BLW a go but had thought (hopefully wrongly) that it was important to be available to breastfeed the baby yourself because of the baby 'demanding' fore milk to quench their thirst?

I'm planning on going back to work 2-3 days a week and providing him with EBM, so will this be ok? Presumably my childcare provder could offer water at meal times and the EBM at others....

Any thoughts?