Help, i need some reassurance: 6.5mo son is going to daycare soon.

[Alisse]

I'm going back to work and my son is only 6.5 months old. I was supposed to go back months ago but couldn't because my son refused to drink breastmilk or formula, (he'd only take BM directly from the boob). We've been trying to get him to drink formula for over 2 months now -- we've tried every kind and have found that similac makes him gag the least. He's drank a bit here and there, usually only up to an ounce in a day via a cup, which is obviously not enough. But now i really have to go back to work at the end of the month and so will have him in daycare full time starting on the 21st. For a week prior to that i'll be going in with him for a few hours everyday to help with the transition -- to help him get familiar with all the new faces and surroundings before having him go in full time without me.

I AM SICK WITH WORRY because i imagine him starving. For the last 2 months he's been babysat by grandma for 5 hours a day. During that time he ate some purees and tiny sips of formula. But for the last few weeks he barely eats with grandma and has been making a daily routine out of crying hysterically, and when i pick him up he cries with his arms stretched out as soon as he sees me.

Has anyone had a similar experience? He'll adjust and grow to love daycare right? And he'll eat well too?

[~Charlie's~Angel~]

Yup. i HAD to go back to work when both my kids were only a couple months old, or we would have to give up everything. My second would NOT TAKE A BOTTLE for like 2 months. We tried everything. Ever bottle you could think of, using medicine syringes, sending a night shirt to school with him that I had worn the night before. I did nothing but worrya nd stress all day every day. If you havent already, I would search around the breastfeeding forum. Those ladies saved my life! I learned to store his milk in glass bottles after I pumped (Aparently breast milk stored in plastic might take on a funny taste) and was reasurred that he will NOT STARVE. We would have nursing marathons from the minute we got home till the wee hours of the morning. I was exhausted, but he did not starve. And he did not spend the entire day crying either.

[StephandOwen]

I work in a daycare and you would be surprised at how many parents come in and say "s/he won't eat out of a bottle... I don't know what to do!". Probably half the time a parent tells me this, I never even have a problem with the child. The child just adjusts to me feeding him/her with a bottle and that's the end of the story. The other half of the time we need to work on it for a little bit but almost all of those learn soon that it's just the way we do it. In 2 1/2 years I've only had one baby come through the daycare that really had a hard time with the bottle. She drank a sip here and a sip there and that was it (nursed like crazy at home, according to her mom). She survived, and just recently turned 3 and is a very happy, well adjusted child

Just relax and see what happens. A baby/child can sense stress in mama though so you've got to really be okay with this!

May I also suggest that you do NOT feed the baby at the daycare when you are visiting for that week? That might potentially backfire for you because then he will have the expectation that when he is hungry, you will come to feed him there. Either bring him during a time where you know he won't be getting hungry or have a bottle with you that one of the workers can feed to him. He needs to learn from the very beginning that the workers feed him while at daycare.

Good luck mama!

[Alisse]

We won't be able to do BM at all because i absolutely will not be able to pump at work.

Stephandowen: He'll drink water or juice from a bottle without any problems. He just won't take formula or BM. It must be the taste? I dunno. But you've made a great suggestion with regards to me not feeding him when he's at daycare. I absolutely will not and will make sure to bring a bottle with me.

[justKate]

Alisse, I PROMISE he will not starve. I think you'll find your DCP will be more successful with him--he's just not expecting bottles and formula from you--and you can't blame him, you know?

May I also suggest that you do NOT feed the baby at the daycare when you are visiting for that week? That might potentially backfire for you because then he will have the expectation that when he is hungry, you will come to feed him there. Either bring him during a time where you know he won't be getting hungry or have a bottle with you that one of the workers can feed to him. He needs to learn from the very beginning that the workers feed him while at daycare.

I agree. DD learned around that age that bottles are for daycare and daddy, boobies are for all other times. He'll figure it out, and you'll be surprised at how many oz he's taking after a couple of weeks. And no matter what, he will make up his calories when he's with you so he'll be just fine. Although it might not be your ideal situation as far as care and BFing goes, he's very lucky to have a mama who care so much about him.

[StephandOwen]

Originally Posted by Alisse

Stephandowen: He'll drink water or juice from a bottle without any problems. He just won't take formula or BM. It must be the taste? I dunno. But you've made a great suggestion with regards to me not feeding him when he's at daycare. I absolutely will not and will make sure to bring a bottle with me.

That's great! And, honestly, knowing this I wouldn't worry about him at all While it would be ideal to get him drinking formula from the bottle at least once during the daycare day, he'll survive without it. Is he eating baby food? Once he starts with this he'll probably be just fine on baby food and water/juice to keep him hydrated. Of course, he may also decide he wants the formula!

My co-worker and I were just talking about this general topic on Monday. Right now we have 9 "babies" in our room (though 3 of them are actually 1 year and are just waiting to move to the 1 year old room). So out of the other 6 babies only 3 of them drink bottles regularly (every 3 hours plus 2 of those eat baby food too). 2 of the others drink *maybe* one bottle a day (right before naptime) and the last drinks 1-2 bottles per daycare day (his daycare day is about 7:15am to 5 or 6 pm). It seems we go in spurts. Sometimes we have lots of babies who love their bottles, other times they don't seem too keen on them.

One other thing- between 6-8 months (depending on the child) we start introducing sippy cups at daycare. Maybe ask your daycare teachers if they will work with him with a sippy?

BTW- my son never took a bottle either. He came to work with me so was never in daycare but started visitation with his bio-dad at about 8ish months. He just went with a sippy

[Alisse]

I will definitely bring a bunch of sippy cups. We've of course tried them without much success but i'm really hoping that things can be so different with the daycare staff as compared to what we've been trying/doing. My husband and i have also decided that we're going to be doing more solids to get him into the habit of having them. So far we've implemented a lunch and dinner solid and our DS seems to be pretty enthusiastic about eating.

Sigh. I'll be praying.

[kerc]

My dd2 refused to drink from a bottle for my husband. Refused. I pumped lots and lots of milk for her and she just would.not.take.it. After a month of it (~5 months old), I figured she would never do it again and I figured I'd have to come home at lunch.

I donated 120 ounces of breastmilk to a friend. Literally when I got back to my office I had a voicemail waiting: uh, Leah just drank from a bottle.

We were ok in terms of feeding her and my point in telling this story is to relay that sometimes it does work out. And I think the previous posters are right in that sometimes they just hold out for the tap. You should be close to when he might start to be able to put things in his mouth (food-wise that is). Both of my children did eat a lot of finger food for my husband and their daycare provider.

[Alisse]

He is eating baby food, thankfully. OMG if he wasn't i think i'd be really going mental right now.

Since wednesday i've been taking him in for a full morning and will continue doing this until tuesday, with me around, just so that he can get use to his new surroundings without too much stress. I've been talking with the daycare providers about his lack of formula drinking so they're fully aware of the situation. The person who will be specifically looking after him, Jane, fed him some cereal today and he seemed quite voracious. This weekend we're going to test out some chunkier consistency foods to see if we can up the variety that he eats because he's been doing so well with purees (and is getting his 3rd tooth).