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@Adira: Like I said I know it is different and you know your child better than anyone else. Hopefully you'll figure it out sooner rather than later.

@Adira: I think he's looking for comfort and is not actually hungry. If it were me, I would ask daycare what they are doing to comfort him (pacifier, cuddles, etc). Decide if you've got any suggestions for them. I would also send more bottles, in smaller sizes, so he can eat more frequently. Keeping a stash of purées at daycare for "snacks" is a good idea, too. F was eating a small jar of purée at "lunch" every day at 6.5-7 months.

My LO is younger than yours and isn't in daycare so I don't know if it helps, but L likes to comfort nurse when he's over-stimulated. I don't know if there's anything you can do to help with over-stimulation but maybe it's worth finding out if his environment or toys are very different from home.

Honestly I would just send more milk. I don't see the point in withholding it. If he isn't hungry then he won't eat!

My LO is only on her fourth week away from me, but she takes four bottles/day on her three daycare days, and three bottles/day on the two days she is with her grandmas. Initially this meant more ounces on daycare days, but now I just parse her 11 ounces across either three or four bottles. I chalk the need for four up to the unfamiliar surroundings and caregivers, plus like PP said, it gives her something to do/comfort. Worth a shot IMO. I really feel your pain on keeping up with milk needs, it's so tough.

I get that he IS NOT hungry, but the bottom line is this:
You aren't there to soothe him and food does. So, send it to soothe him even if you're dead-set on the fact that he isn't hungry (& I agree with you on that based on your tellings).
Either some formula or some solids or a small bottle of BM (do you have any in your freezer?)

@Adira: hugs! I don't blame you for not wanting to supplement when you know he's getting enough breastmilk...try the smaller bottles more often and see if that helps!

@Adira: you are being stubborn, but that's totally ok You just need to figure out a solution that you feel ok with, and that sometimes takes time and creativity!! I do this all the time. Sometimes I end up backing down with my stubbornness (after trying EVERYTHING else!!), and sometimes I find a different solution that works. Nothing wrong with being stubborn

I'm so sorry, it's so rough having to be away from our babies and try to decide what's really best for them.

This is the same thing DH does. Whenever he watches DD while I'm working late or whatever, any time she fusses he just gives her a bottle. One night, in the span of 3 hours, he had fed her 24 oz?!?! Good grief... Granted, it's formula, so it's a much different scenario to you not being able to produce the extra breast milk to send every day.

The only advice I have would be to listen to your gut. YOU're his mom, so you know what's best!

Maybe you could double the purees you're sending, and have them feed him that when he gets fussy? I kind of think it's a little crazy they can't calm him. It would make me wonder if they're not really trying *that* hard - it's not that difficult to distract a baby!

@Adira: Yes, but it sounds like its more then him missing you, but needing a distraction. So for us, when she was getting 3 bottles a day PLUS 2 feedings a day, that was quite a bit of time she was with a daycare worker engaged in an activity (not just free play).

Besides just basic baby care, are there activities for the babies? Do they go on buggy rides? Do they get to go outside? Do they do sensory play?

@Adira: I think unfortunately with so many babies in a class, it's hard for them to hold all the LOs. Maybe you need to look for a daycare with a lower child to teacher ratio so your LO can get more individualized attention.

@Adira: Do they not give you a report as to what they did for the day? We have lesson plans every day, so it lists what song they sang, book they read, life skill they learned (held their own bottled), etc. So it gives a little more detail as to what they do all day.
It is hard to get information out of the teachers sometimes. I pick her up and they are like she had a great day. Then the next morning that teacher tells me she was fussy.
I would find if one teacher does more with him. I know the teacher in the morning, tends to spend more time with R, bottles, solids, naps, etc.
Maybe one teacher giving him more attention would help. If it between 2 or 3 all day, he might be getting confused, if he was used to the gone teacher being with him all day. Does that make sense?

"I find it hard to believe he's ONLY hungry in the company of other people and suddenly loses his appetite when I'm around. RIGHT? "

I don't have much experience with breastmilk since mine gets thawed bottles on weekends, but I will say that this statement is VERY true for us. I find that E often doesn't eat as well for me on the weekends as she does for our daycare lady during the day. She gets too excited and wants to play with me and sometimes just will not finish eating unless I hand her to Dh and walk away. And sometimes he has this issue, too! But then she gets hungry earlier b/c she didn't finish her bottle. Like it just took the edge off

@Adira: Thats another good question. Are you using the slowest flow (newborn) nipples on the bottles?

i second the suggestions about trying something comforting, like a pacifier or lovey or whatever else he might like to snuggle with.

that being said, we went through something similar (although not the same) and i did change his bottle schedule and amounts. around 4 months, they wanted to switch to a 3-hour schedule from his 4-hour schedule. i knew he could go 4 hours, but because he was not getting good naps at daycare, i think the longer time and burning more calories meant that he needed to be fed more often. my initial reflex was to resist, but i quickly realized that *i* was holding onto the 4-hour eating schedule, and the reality was that LO needed something different.

then a couple of months later, they asked me to increase his bottle amount. again, i was hesitant because i was already dipping into my freezer stash to cover what he ate during the day. but i do think that him being up for longer and becoming more mobile at 5 to 6 months of age increased his appetite, so i added an ounce to each bottle.

then they asked me to increase it again. i was like gah if you worked on putting him down for naps, he wouldn't be moving around every second of the day and wouldn't need all this milk! but i realized i was again, being more focused on what i wanted rather than accepting that the reality that LO was, for better or worse, not napping and needed more milk to sustain. so i increased his bottle amounts again--i usually do 6 oz of breastmilk with 1 oz of formula. no pressure to pump more, and i still feel like he's getting mostly breastmilk.

sorry for the novel just wanted to share what happened with us.

@Adira: Have you thought about meeting with the director? It doesn't sound like you are very happy with these new teachers. I really don't like her attitude about BF. Whether that is her option or not, she shouldn't be sharing it.

No major advice that others haven't already given, but just wanted to say that I totally empathize. My daycare also didn't understand that an EBF baby is different that FF. They even asked me "when are you going to switch to formula." My answer: never. I think they were really surprised and that it is apparently way outside of normal to have an EBF baby at daycare. They also kept giving him way more per bottle than my husband would if he were caring for LO all day instead. (Which he has to do every 3rd weekend b/c of my job.)

I happened to arrive to pick him up once and he was on a Boppy on the floor and was holding his own bottle, and when I asked them about it, they said that someone usually holds him and paces his feeding. I reiterated how important that was to me so he doesn't gulp the whole bottle in 5 min. Luckily they listened.

For what it's worth, my LO was eating 3 6-oz bottles per day from about 4 months - 6 or 7 months. He finally started enjoying solids around 7-8 months and then started dropping down to more like 5 oz x 3 then 4 oz x 3. My daycare people also suggested that we add rice cereal to his bottle at 4 months! WHAT?? I refused based on all the reasons you've already said. I could barely keep up with his needs and ended up adding a 4th pump session before I went to bed every night just so I'd have enough for the following day -- living bottle to bottle. It all worked out in the end. He has never had a drop of formula and is almost 15 months old.

I def. agree with talking to the director and trying everything suggested above. Know that you're not alone and that I've (and clearly others have) been there too.

Good luck and please let us know what happens.

@Adira: Of course. Just stay strong. Try switching things up a little. Proceed with solids at the pace YOU and Xander feel comfortable with, and remember that they don't really need to have anything except BM before 1. We introduced solids really slowly here, and he pretty much eats anything now. I had wanted to do BLW then realized that it doesn't work well with a daycare baby. I was scared for daycare to do this with him, so I ended up doing the more traditional oatmeal/purée route. A little BLW on weekends. It all worked out ok.