Weddingbee boards

I've been pretty lucky to balance working from home part-time and caring for my little renny roo over the past 3 months - he ususally only gets bottles at night if I'm out. But that's all going to change in a month - I'm making a big career move and will be working full time at an office starting March 14th. Which means full time day care :(

As I wrap my mind around all the changes that will be happening I'm trying to figure out how much milk I'll need to provide daily. Warren will be 7 months when he starts and is eating solids - which will help. With nursing it's hard to know exactly how much he eats at each sitting. Which is why I'm curious about what others do. How much does your little one drink at daycare?

I'm assuming he'll have two meals during the day that are a combo of milk/food when he gets up from his naps. I guess I'll start with 2 8oz bottles and see how that goes. Luckily my office will be right across the street so I might even be able to nurse him once during the day - and I'll definitely be close if there's an issue.

Also - Are you able to sustain this amount by pumping daily - or do you have to work to over produce and stock up on the weekends?

Thanks!!

Feel free to share any other tips about transitioning to daycare and things I might not be thinking about :)

I have nothing to add but will be in the same situation in 2 months when the baby is sadly only 12 weeks old.  Looking forward to hearing what other moms have to say!

I'm not a mom yet, but when I was visiting day care centers and asking about breastfeeding, many suggested using 4 oz rather than 8 oz bottles, simply because there are regulations about how long a bottle can be left out- for example, if you send Warren with an 8 oz bottle and he takes 4 oz, but doesn't want the other 4 within the next hour or so, they are legally required to throw away that milk- they can't put it back in the fridge and give it to him later. Whereas if you send in smaller bottles, there's less of a potential for waste. I'd suggest checking with your daycare provider on exactly how the regulations work and how to best set him up so there's as little chance as possible that they'd have to throw away any of your hard earned breastmilk!

(Disclaimer that I have no idea how much a 7 month old eats and if they'd totally be likely to eat 8 oz at once. Also, I'm not sure how specific these regulations are to my state, but I think it's still a good idea to check with the day care).

It definitely does depend on the child. My son eats every 3-4 hours and eats 5 oz at each feeding. I always pump the most earliest in the day but then it decreases as the day goes on. At the end of each work day I am usually a little short but I do make that up on the weekends just by pumping once or twice a day. 

I will say that we just recently started supplementing with formula, just doing half and half when I'm working. It really takes the pressure off and makes the whole situation easier to deal with. Don't get stressed about it. If you do you will pump less. Do what you can and if you have to add a little formula here and there it isn't the end of the world, they will still get all the benefits of your antibodies.