When it's time to prepare for daycare

[@llli*roeni]

I would appreciate some insight for what to do in preparation for daycare. After 12 weeks I will go back to work and will be switching baby to bottles while away from him. While we are together I still plan on nursing. Obviously the milk I will pump at work is for next day consumption, but how do I get enough bottles pumped for his first day if I'm still breastfeeding him the day before? Do I start pumping those a few days before, use my frozen stash? How many bottles will he need at that point? Right now he seems to consume about 3 oz in a feeding with a bottle. We don't give him bottles that often, usually one night a weekend he might have 2 or 3 and he does just fine with them except he gets super fussy afterwards because he prefers breast of course. I'd appreciate hearing how any other moms made this transition when returning to work.

[@llli*elliemommy]

I stopped freezing what I pumped about 3 days before day care started so I had enough for about 2 days. In the beginning I sent about 12 ounces. It took a few weeks to get the amount and timing right. I always ended the week with extra milk in the fridge. I left out enough for Monday in case I did not pump over the weekend and froze the rest (usually what I pumped on Friday). This kept up for a few months and then when my supply dipped a little I stopped having any to freeze and eventually I started my freezer stash to supplement what I was sending. (This was over the course 9 months). My DH had given Ellie many bottles at this point and she was good with taking them if I was not around so I did not worry about that too much. Just make sure you use what is in your freezer every so often and cycle in newer milk so it does not go bad.

[@llli*bfwmomof3]

What I did was to pump once a day, usually in the morning, to accumulate what I needed for the first day. I froze the milk I pumped except for the last few days before going back to work, same as elliemommy. The rule of thumb is that you need about 1 to 1.5 ounces per hour apart. So, for example, if on the first day you will be apart for 10 hours, you want to have about 15 oz saved up. The first day you can use the fresh milk from the few days before, plus the frozen milk from before that - it doesn't all have to be fresh (ie, you don't have to spend the last few days of maternity pumping like crazy just to have fresh milk - in fact I would recommend against excessively pumping at any point during this process because you can get into oversupply issues - which it sounds like may a bit of an issue in your case, based on your other thread).

3 oz is a perfect bottle size for a breastfed baby. At the breast baby will usually drink somewhere between 1 and 4 oz. So a lot of moms will provide a 2 or 3 oz bottle with 1 oz "toppers" as needed (these could be frozen). It's important to use paced feeding techniques. I'll put a bunch of useful links at the bottom and include one about that. Again, let's say you are separated from baby for 10 hours. You might be looking at 3 or 4, or at the most 5, 3 oz bottles. It's really important baby does not get too much milk at daycare. One, it's hard to keep up with. Two, it will decrease baby's motivation to nurse when you are together. Since baby nursing is usually more effective at maintaining supply than the pump, you want to maximize nursing. So when baby wakes up at night to nurse, think to yourself: "This is great for my supply!" (That's what I did, anyway!)

If you do have frozen milk, one way to keep it fresh is to freeze on Friday, and on Monday thaw the oldest milk for baby's consumption that day.

Here are some useful links:
http://www.llli.org/docs/00000000000...astfedbaby.pdf
http://kellymom.com/bf/pumpingmoms/f...ottle-feeding/
http://kellymom.com/bf/pumpingmoms/pumping/milkcalc/
http://kellymom.com/bf/pumpingmoms/e...reastfed-baby/