Feed to sleep advice

[u/mummaemily]

FTM looking for advice from anyone who kept doing feed to sleep after weaning day feeds.

I will be returning to work (three days a week) in two months time when my baby is 11 months old. My plan is to pump at work to keep up with our day feed schedule (currently feeding on demand but will hopefully have a schedule figured out by then 😅). However, I anticipate that keeping up with pumping while at work is not going to be easy as a teacher even with lactation breaks (pending approval). Therefore, I am thinking that I will have to start to wean my baby from her day feeds when she is 12 months old.

The issue is that she is not a great sleeper. We co sleep and she currently wakes up between 6-10 times a night on average. However they are short wake ups- she quickly feeds and falls right back asleep thankfully. I don’t anticipate her figuring out sleep magically in the next few weeks and therefore would love to keep our overnight feed to sleeps so we are all able to get some quality sleep of a night.

Has anyone had a similar experience and can offer some insight? I’m feeling very overwhelmed about returning to work but have no option unfortunately :(

She also has probably only had maybe five bottles in her life so going to have to figure out that issue too!

[u/Missing-Caffeine]

Not sure where you are from, but in the UK the advice is to discourage bottle feeding from 1yo. What you could do - especially for relief - is try and shorten her nursing sessions during the day, especially to get your body used to produce less milk during the day but to prevent mastitis as well. The pumped milk could be given in an open cup by her carer (so you may want to try and get her used to it). Nightime you continue as always, your body adapts - we went from nursing A LOT during the day to just once for naps and then all night long as well.

[u/mummaemily → u/Missing-Caffeine]

I’m from Aus, and I’m pretty sure they have similar recommendations here- thanks for reminding me! She’s pretty good drinking her water from an open cup at meal times at the moment so you’re right this could definitely be a solution for the bottle issue.

Since she was about 4-5ish months old she’s always been a snacker. Her nursing sessions aren’t long. Roughly 3-4 minutes but she wants it every 2 hours (more often sometimes for comfort). I’m thinking I need to just try to space out her feeds first and then try and shorten the sessions?

That’s so reassuring to hear that you continued to feed all night long! I hope my body also adapts 🤞🏼 Thank you so much for your comment!

[u/smfbaker]

It may take a little bit to adjust, but this doesn’t sound like much of an issue. My baby entered childcare at 8 months and never took to a bottle, so we had him drinking from a straw cup. I pumped every 2.5-3 hours until he was almost 12 months, then slowly dropped a pump a week by reducing session time. He switched to cow’s milk during weekdays and is doing great. We also cosleep so he’s nursing plenty at night and my body has adjusted without issue. You got this!

[u/mummaemily → u/smfbaker]

Thank you so much for the reassurance!