LO is 6.5 months old and in daycare from about 7:30-4. I started out sending 3 4oz bottles, and the teacher asked if I'd start sending another bottle, so I started sending 4 3.5oz bottles. Yesterday the teacher sent a note home asking me to send more, saying she's crying for more milk! According to the logs, she finishes her bottles by 2:30. Am I crazy to think there's no way she should be going through 14oz in that time? I feed her before we leave the house at 7, so she shouldn't need to eat again until at least 9, probably closer to 10. The teacher also asked about solid foods, but we're doing BLW, so I don't think it's going to be the solution she's hoping for. When I talked to her this morning and told her LO shouldn't be drinking that much, she looked at me like I'm crazy. Am I?
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My daycare has never requested more milk...I probably overpacked it!.
They don't allow table foods until later so we sent purées to daycare and did BLW at home.I would go with your gut.
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What does a typical day look like for her with naps and eating?
Are they confusing a tired cue with hunger and feeding her?
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@abbylyn: 4 3.5 oz bottles should be plenty...you are not crazy!!! Maybe they are used to feeding FF babies? The rule of thumb for EBF babies is 1-1.5oz for every hour they are away from you. Your LO is at daycare for 8.5 hours so 14oz should definitely be enough. Can you give them a feeding schedule? Like feed LO at 9:30, 11:30, 1:30, 3:30?
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Have you tried sending bigger bottles verses more? At 6.5 months, R was drinking 4-5 oz bottles. 4 bottles should be more then enough for that amount of time. I always send 4 but she only had the 4th if she didn't nursed right before we left. Say, if she woke up at 5 that morning.
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We went through this recently with our daycare. They asked for more milk because they said he's getting fussy before he is due for his next bottle. Currently he eats every 2.5 hours. I went from 4 ounce bottles to 5 ounce bottles and guess what happened... He stopped finishing his last bottle and that means a wasted 2 ounces of breastmilk each day!!! Not cool since I'm just scraping by pumping enough. This week I'm increasing his first three and decreasing his last so that he has the same total each day but maybe it will hold him over longer.
Honestly; I think he's fussy because he's tired not because he's hungry. He's not a good napper at home and even worse at daycare. Too distracted to sleep. His daycare is great and they really work hard to get him to nap but I know he's just against it!
Oh and he's 6 months old and at daycare from 730 til 515. -
We went through this. I would recommend trying 3 bigger bottles and telling them what time you want LO fed. I nursed right before drop off and right after pick up so I said 9:30, 12:30 and 3:30. No bottles after 3:30. Yes, she was hungry at pick up but I was ready to feed her.
We also did BLW at home and purees at daycare starting at 7 months.
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@abbylyn: I exclusively pump and at LO's high point, she was drinking 18 oz (3 six oz bottles of breast milk) at daycare from 8 am-4:30 pm. At that point, she was taking 6 bottles a day and going well over 30 oz a day.
But now that she's eating more solids (at almost 10 months) she is at 25 oz a day total and drinking only 10-15 oz at daycare (depending on if she drinks a morning bottle at home or if she drinks it there. But she drinks 5 oz per bottle).
All babies are different. Some have bigger appetites than others.
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This is such a common complaint on HB. Most daycare teachers are used to formula feeding and those babies generally eat a higher volume. Try suggesting some of these tips to your daycare provider http://kellymom.com/bf/pumpingmoms/feeding-tools/bottle-feeding/
This will take some back and forth conversation and you educating your daycare provider a little if they aren't used to a breastfed baby. I really had to stick to my guns with our daycare teacher because they didn't have hardly any experience with a baby over 4 months old that was still EBF.
You might find other helpful tips in some of these threads.
http://boards.hellobee.com/topic/bottles-at-daycare-3#post-1289902
http://boards.hellobee.com/topic/bottles-at-daycare-2#post-491424
http://boards.hellobee.com/topic/help-me-sort-out-daycare-feeding#post-985765
http://boards.hellobee.com/topic/daycare-wants-more-milk#post-918102 -
@abbylyn: I agree with @kiddosc: --I found that kellymom article to be very informative. My LO is the only BF baby in her class, so her second week there her teachers were already asking for more milk, and I basically just told them no! I told them I'd split the milk into more bottles with fewer ounces, but anything more would be overfeeding her (and I didn't want to stress about needing to pump more just to have her not finish the bottles). LO wasn't napping well at daycare so I knew she was fussy because she was tired, not hungry. They spread out her feedings a little and she started napping better and what do you know? No more fussiness!
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Ugh, this seems to be always an issue for people! I had the same problems with my daycare and I was sending 5 oz bottles!
I don't understand how your LO is finishing all FOUR bottles by 2:30. How often are they feeding her? I suspect your daycare teachers are misinterpreting some of your daughter's cues as hunger cues when they are really not. Yes, a bottle might seem to satisfy her, but it may not necessarily be what she wanted.
Have you looked into doing a weighted feed with an LC? When my daycare (and husband and parents and in-laws) were pressuring me that I really needed to be providing more than 5oz bottles every 3 hours, I ended up going to an LC to do a weighted feed to get a sense of how much my LO really WAS drinking. He ended up drinking less than 4 oz during our session and then went FOUR hours before he was hungry again! It gave me the confidence I needed to really be able to stand-up to everyone, daycare included, and say "5 oz bottles is PLENTY and he doesn't need it more than every 2.5 to 3 hours. Find other ways to satisfy him in the mean time!"
Good luck to you!
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J is a month older and takes three 5 oz bottles. I had the same issue daycare said he was crying for them. We also do purees at daycare and blw at home. There's another bf baby that takes 9 oz bottles in my daycare which seems insane but all babies are different.
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I think you did the right thing by breaking the same amount of ounces into a fourth bottle but they need to work on pacing her out at daycare.
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Thanks all. I agree that they are likely misinterpreting tired cues as hungry cues. I'm not the one who picks her up, and I forget to ask about naps when I drop her off in the morning. She's a mediocre napper at home at best, so I bet she's not fantastic there. There's a few other bf babies, so I have to wonder if those parents are just complying with the teacher's requests and not questioning it which is why I got the side eye. Overall, we really like the daycare so far - this is only her second week, so we're still settling in to a groove. I think I'll tell them not to feed her unless it's been at least two hours since her last bottle.
And I only pump about 12oz during the day, so I've had to add a pumping session at night and dig into my freezer stash, which I'm not thrilled about.
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@abbylyn: Good luck, girl! I fought with my daycare ALL THE TIME about the milk issue until Xander finally started eating solids there at 8 months!!
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@abbylyn: If your baby is gaining weight appropriately, she is probably fine. However, I have to add that both of my DS have taken 10-15 oz servings of milk at each feeding, 3-4x a day, and stayed low on their growth curves. So you never know.
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@shellio: Wow, really?? 10-15oz milk each serving??? That boggles my mind! Xander never had more than 7oz at a serving and that was when he was down to 4 bottles a day + one nursing session.
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@Adira: I know. It is DH feeding them and he knows how much I struggle with supply (and wants to avoid formula as much as I do) so I don't think he's overfeeding. I often wonder if there is something wrong with my milk.
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@shellio: Have you ever checked it out after it's been sitting in a bottle for a while? Does it seem like there's a decent level of fat? All babies are different, so I guess yours just eats more than others!!
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@shellio: That is A LOT! Often times babies will keep drinking the milk because of their sucking reflex even if they're not hungry. If you stop before 10-15oz does your LO cry because he's still hungry? My LO is at daycare from 9:30-4:30 and takes 10oz total!
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@Adira: I do see a big layer of fat in it but don't know how much to look for?
@lawbee11: I know - but both my kids went from 95+ %ile at birth to less than 50th - DS1 was around 40th by 6 mos, 15th by 12 mos, and DS2 is currently around 5th at 5 mos. I feel like if DH were overfeeding them we would see significant weight gain or excessive poopy diapers. In that case I would definitely be on him about trying to limit feeds.
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@shellio: I think about an 1/8th is fairly normal? There was another post a while ago about how much fat people's milk had and that seemed to be the average. It sounds like there's probably nothing wrong with your milk.
And dropping percentiles is totally normal! Xander dropped for the first 6 months too and then he normalized out. Do you exclusively pump or do you nurse on the weekends? If you nurse, have you tried doing a weighted feed at all to see how much milk he gets from you sometimes? I just can't imagine he's ever actually drinking 10-15 oz from you during a session.
How often is he getting bottles? 4 feeds a day doesn't seem like enough and maybe that's why he's over-indulging. I think Xander was eating 6-7 times at that age. Have you tried spreading the feedings out and giving him less at each feed and seeing how satisfied he seems?
@abbylyn: Sorry to threadjack!!
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My daycare was the same way. All ff babies (who got huge bottles like 8-10oz) and they constantly said LO needed more. I sent more and it went down the drain. Until 9 months, LO ate 3 bottles with 4oz.
LO just needed attention/snuggles.
Trust your gut. And, if LO wasn't getting enough during the day, he'd be up all night trying to make up the difference!
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I talked to her teacher this morning and the solids at daycare helped yesterday. I'll send a little more next week, when I'll have time to prep stuff over the weekend. Thanks for the advice all
They don't allow table foods until later so we sent purées to daycare and did BLW at home.
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