Family Forum / Pregnancy / Breastfeeding / March 2005

Nancyg  writes:

I'm guessing he's in daycare? I just want to suggest an option 3. in case
you haven't considered it: send him with whatever you can pump, and let
them give him water and solids the rest of the time. There's no law that
says babies have to have lots of milk during the day: you'd probably just
find that he'd breastfeed more at home. If nothing else, using your freezer
stash more slowly might let you get through to 12 months i.e. to the
minimum recommended age for cow's milk, and thus avoid formula, if that
makes you feel better.

I had a similar problem: always terrible at pumping, so much so that I
didn't have a freezer stash to speak of. When my son started nursery at
10.5 months I was sending two bottles of up to 4oz each with him, but that
was more than I could pump at work. I forget when exactly, but at the
suggestion of the nursery staff (who said he didn't particularly seem to
care about the morning bottle, and that he did drink water fine) I dropped
the first bottle and they gave him water instead. He was fine. (I should
perhaps say that he was waking and feeding at night anyway, so it didn't
bother me if he wanted more milk at night, though I didn't notice a change
in fact: he's just always nursed a lot and not been that keen on bottles.)

Might be worth talking to your childcare provider about plans? If he
doesn't eat solids at all, of course, that's another matter, and maybe if
he's really really keen on the breastmilk at daycare that might be an issue
too; but he might well be just fine with less milk than you think.

Sidheag
DS Colin Oct 27 2003

Don't know if this helps, but when my daughter was 9 months old or so we
started giving her about 4-12 oz of formula a day and then switched to cow's
milk at just under a year.  This was partly to make sure she had good
nutrition with my diminished supply in pregnancy and partly so Daddy could
take over nighttime and get her to sleep with a bottle.  She was also
nursing and eating.  No ill effects noticed.  Now that Poppin Fresh is here,
we don't give her any "planned" cow's milk since my milk is plentiful and
she sleeps well without me or the cow.

-- Dagny
Mom to Meg, 10/03
R.D. Poppin Fresh, 1/05

This is what I did.
I sent YoungBloke to nursery with a 200ml (around 8oz) bottle of EBM
every day from 10 months to 11 months and a week. Nursery used some of
that milk to make his breakfast porridge and gave him the rest to
drink, in a sippy cup, at breakfast. The rest of the day he had water.
At home he BF whenever he wanted.

At 11months and a week I diluted the milk so he went with 150mls of
EBM mixed with 50mls cow's milk. Did that for a week and guaged
reactions, of which there were none.

The next week his milk was half and half EBM and cow. Again, no
problems.

The third week it was 50mls EBM and 150mls cow's milk. Still no
problems.

From a year I didn't send any milk because he was okay with cow's milk
and they supply that at nursery anyway.

So I mixed EBM with cow's from 11 months.

At 17 months YoungBloke still nurses and is definitely getting plenty
of milk although I can't pump at all now (I was in hospital recently
and managed to pump'n'dump 2oz over four hours...). I know he's
getting plenty because he had a stomach bug on Tuesday and would only
nurse for 24 hours and his poo's gone back to breast-fed baby poo!
Bright yellow and everything!