Refusing milk during the day

[bluebell568]

Hi, my dd is 9 months old and I have just gone back to work full time while she stays at home with dh. She was introduced to a bottle when she was a week old and we have used it occasionally to give her expressed milk when I've been out. We haven't had any problems at all, she has always swapped from bottle to breast easily so we didn't invisage there being any problems when I returned to work. But she is refusing to have any milk at all when I'm out. We've tried using a couple of different sippy cups and she will have one or two sips but not a lot. She has water in a sippy cup with her meals and enjoys sipping the water but doesn't drink a huge amount. So I am a bit worried that she will get dehydrated in this hot weather if she doesn't drink anything.

Her Easy was

7am  Breastfeed
8.30 Breakfast  (we've been giving her porridge or cereal made with expressed milk so she gets 2 or 3 oz of milk here)
10am Nap
11/11.30  Milk (refusing)
12pm Lunch
2pm  Nap
3/3.30 Milk (refusing)
4.30/5 Tea
6.15 Bath, breastfeed
7pm asleep

What has been happening is that if I can get home from work by 4 or 4.30 I am giving her a breastfeed then but she has such a long feed that it is then really hard to have time for dinner so bedtime is getting later and she is having milk, dinner, milk in a very short time.

I am a teacher so will be working next week and then have a week off for half term and then 6 weeks of work before the 6 week summer holiday. I was intending to keep our 4 breastfeeds a day until August when she is 1. I am at home with her all weekend.

Should we keep going as we are, offering her some milk mid-morning and mid-afternoon and breastfeeding her on the days I am at home? The health visitor says that we can replace the milk feeds with a snack but I really think she should be having milk as her main source of nutrition until she is a year old.

SHould I change her afternoon routine so she has a much earlier dinner, so it would become

12pm lunch
2pm nap
3/3.30  dinner
4.30/5  breastfeed when I get home
6.15 bath and breastfeed
7.00 bed

She wakes at least once in the night for a feed usually sometime between 2 and 4 although sometimes she wakes two or three times.


How much water do you think she should be drinking in the day?

Sorry this is such a long post. Thanks in advance for any suggestions you have.

[Fiver]

I'd probably carry on offering for a while and see if she gets the hang of it.  If you've only just gone back to work, she's probably still adjusting to the milk coming to her in a slightly different form and you not being around.  Personally I'd try to go with smaller quantities of EBM to avoid lots of wastage (although any that isn't consumed at one sitting can be refrigerated and used again for the next one, unlike with formula).  If she's still not up for it in a few weeks, you could try offering a snack/water instead.

As for how much liquid she should be drinking, how many wet nappies you get are going to be your guide.  If she seems to not be taking in much fluids (water or breastmilk) you could always offer foods with higher liquid contents (cucumber, watermelon, etc...)

[Erin M]

I went back to work when my dd2 was 9 months old and she never took a milk feed while at daycare (just flatly refused).  She had water from a cup and solids and we fed much on the same schedule as you did (I'm a teacher too).  At 10.5 months we started offering cow's milk instead of breast milk (on the advice of my ped, I had no more pumped milk to give her and it was pointless to buy formula for her when she wasn't taking it at all).  Around a year she started drinking the cow's milk so she did eventually get there...more or less!  Anyway, like Amanda said as long as her diapers are ok, I'd try not to fret about her skipping that feed (easier said than done)!