Working and Pumping - WWYD?

[Owen'nZoe]

I have an exclusively breastfed 5 1/2 month old. I work out of the home 3 days a week, and he drinks EBM while at daycare. He LOVES the bottle, and I do mean loves it. He nurses usually 3 times, sometimes 4, when he is home with me during the day, but during the same time when he is at daycare, he is apparently constanly giving hunger signals, and can easily go through 20 ounces of EBM if I send that much. I have been pumping 15 ounces most days; 18 on a good day.

I have been taking fenugreek to increase my supply, eating oatmeal, etc. - basically trying to cover all of my bases. I've been pumping at home on the weekends and in the evening to try to keep up. My freezer stash is down to 10 ounces, because I've had to supplement a bit (I know this isn't the *right* way to do it, but I adore my daycare provider, and don't want to put her in a bad situation, where she is having to distract a hungry baby for half the day).

So, I am thinking that in the next couple weeks, I will no longer have any freezer stash to fall back on at all, and I am going to need to do something to supplement my EBM. I am trying to decide whether to go with a little formula, or to introduce solids a little earlier than I had planned. DS is not sitting up on his own yet, is not using a pincer grasp, is not reaching for food on my plate at all. He has only just started watching the food move between our plates and mouths in the past few weeks. So basically, he is not showing any signs that he is ready for solids. All the same, I feel a bit more comfortable introducing solids than formula. I've never used formula before, so maybe it is just the big unknown, but it seems so processed, so I tend to think that since most of DS's diet is still BM, and this will be just to hold him off an extra hour or so a few days a week, a little avacado might be better...

What do you think? What would you do?

[pumpkinhead]

That sounds like a lot of milk for an almost 6 month old. What sized bottles is he drinking? Could he be teething and bottle nursing for comfort? Have you tried splitting up his bottles into smaller amounts and asking your DCP to give them more frequently? If that doesn't work, you could try asking them to give more per bottle and space them out a little more.

Personally, I would also be more comfortable starting some solids rather than using formula. THings like applesauce and sweetpotatoes are not very allergenic and are a good place to start. Jack Newman says that using goats milk as an occasional supplement for a baby who is mostly breastfed is just fine as well.

I personally would exhaust both of those avenues before trying formula.

[turtlewomyn]

I don't remember DD ever drinking more than 16 oz in a day (4 four oz bottles) while I was at work. We introduced solids at six months (after getting the appropriate signs). I do remember one of the daycare workers saying she was hungry, but I also caught that worker rattling the bottle around in a breastfed babies mouth (a technique to get them to drink more). I did leave little bottles of good start as an emergency backup but they never used them.
Good luck, I remember how stressful pumping can be.

[Owen'nZoe]

Thanks for the posts, ladies. Pumpkinhead, to answer your questions, he is using a Playtex nurser with the newborn nipple size, so I don't think the bottle is too fast for him. And he has been drinking this much for the past 3 months (the entire time I've been back to work), so I don't think it is tied to teething or a growth spurt. He does sleep through the night, so he is getting most of his nutrition during the day. Also, on daycare days, he nurses a bit less in the evening.

I send the milk in a glass mason jar, and our sitter makes up the bottles as needed. She said she usually makes about a three ounce bottle, and then refills the bottle with a few more ounces if he is still acting hungry. She cared for my first son when he was an infant, and he'd only take 9-10 ounces from her a day (he hated the bottle), so I really don't think she is pushing him to overeat. She has commented that she has never had a baby eat so much, and that she tries to hold him off a bit just to make sure he is really hungry, but he fusses until he gets the bottle. Maybe I could ask her to try different bottle sizes, but it does seem to me like she is feeding on demand.

Thanks for the goat milk idea. Maybe that'll be our next step... we should only need to give a few ounces a few times a week, so that might work.

[mama24-7]

Wow, you're working hard to have enough milk! Have you thought of trying to nurse him in the night to try to get more in him then? When a baby sleeps through the night, he has to get it all in during the day and since drinking from a bottle is easy, even w/ an infant nipple, it sounds like he's taking the opportunity!

Sus

[shoes]

When I worked and EBF my dd, she would always eat a ton while I was away too (I guess it's a comfort thing when they miss mama). Like your situation, I just barely wouldn't make enough pumping than she would eat. We started adding just a touch of water to each of her bottles to make the milk stretch. I think if your son really needs that extra milk, streching with water would probably make him nurse more in the evenings and then in turn increase your milk supply.
If you don't want to do that, I personally would go for the solid foods rather than formula.

[Kwgrlup]

I worked full-time with my first for a year. Hubby watching him, and he would go through so much EBM. He would just feed him, becasue, well he was dad...lol. Maybe your daycare provider needs to try to entertain him, play with him, peek-a-boo etc, before feeding him if it has not been that long since his last bottle.. I found once Bry tried somthing other than feeding Korbyn, his daily intake went back down to normal.

[GatorNNP]

I agree with above posts, wanted to add, perhaps he is using the bottle time for some interaction too. My son could eat tons of milk while I was away, I think my poor little boobs could only supply so much at a time, but even as a little kid he prefers eating large meals to grazing all day, my daughter is the opposite. The other thing is to pump some on your days off to help build up a stash, and each day pump 1-2 ounces before letting him go to breast first thing in the am and that he can build up the supply by nursing longer.

You can try the solids but generally at this age they are supplementary, not replacement nutrition, so they should not replace a volume of milk. The idea of stomach stretch helps make you feel full to, is the newborn nipple too slow? You could try giving 4 ounces on a fast flow nipple to see if he feels more full at one time. Just a thought. My babies liked the fast flow nipples the best.

[Owen'nZoe]

Thanks, again for all of the ideas. Hmmm, I hadn't thought of trying a faster nipple. I had just been assuming it was too fast and too easy and that is why he seemed to prefer it, but what you wrote totally makes sense. It is definitely worth a shot!

As for the interaction ideas, it could be, but in this case I seriously doubt it. DS is the only baby in daycare, and there are just a couple other toddlers in addition to him. He gets held and played with all the time by the sitter and her two teenage kids (once they get home from school).

I should have mentioned that I am pumping once in the morning on my off days about 50% of the time (the other half I get too busy and forget ), and I am tandem nursing, and my 3 year old is really nursing (like completely draining one side, not just taking a taste and running to play) at least twice a day. Thanks to his dad, he now calls me "Bessie." But I would think that my toddler would be performing the same role as pumping extra on days off, right?

[nikihodges]

Originally Posted by Kwgrlup

I worked full-time with my first for a year. Hubby watching him, and he would go through so much EBM. He would just feed him, becasue, well he was dad...lol. Maybe your daycare provider needs to try to entertain him, play with him, peek-a-boo etc, before feeding him if it has not been that long since his last bottle.. I found once Bry tried somthing other than feeding Korbyn, his daily intake went back down to normal.

: my baby was doing the same thing not to long ago...hubby offered a paci instead of a bottle and that helped

[kltroy]

you know, I would really just pump like heck, and use some formula to top it off. The goat's milk is a lovely idea, but I think sometimes we get too carried away about "formula is evil" to the point where we make unwise choices. Don't forget that formula, as much as we don't like it, is as similar to human breast milk as we know how to get.

If your baby's not ready for solids I wouldn't push it, but you could always try giving him a bite of something good (not rice cereal - yuck!) and see whether he enjoys it. When my son was that age I used to put different pieces of fruit into his mouth so that he could taste them... he LOVED this, and was very excited about mashed banana when we started him on solids ~ 6 months.