[Lala78]

Hello! I haven't been here much, but will start lurking more now that I am working on stocking up BM for when my DD has to start daycare in about a month.

I already posted this in the BF'ing forum as well, but you ladies are sure to have some words of wisdom... I've been pumping about 3 oz a day to freeze and plan to pump more and more to stock up. Then I will be pumping at work.

I'm starting back to work part time in May and June, then full time in July. I used to go to bed around 9 or 9:30 and get up at 4:15. I'm going to have to go to bed by 8 at least, then get up earlier so I can feed and change her before I leave. DH will take over from there and take her to daycare. I'm wondering how much milk you send to daycare. Do you send frozen bags or do you prep bottles and sens a bunch/a few bottles? I think I have the cloth diapering system all ready for daycare, but don't know what to do about feeding. She will be 6 months when she starts PT daycare and 8 months when she starts FT, so I will also be sending baby food I'll be making for her.

I just don't know where to start.

[-erin-]

kellymom.com :: How much expressed milk will my baby need?

That's a good link to check out about how much milk a baby needs. The average amount of breastmilk a baby takes in over 24 hours is about 25oz, so a general place to start from is about 1oz per hour you'll be away from your baby.

My daughter likes to eat frequently so I sent 4 bottles with 3oz each (I was away from her 11 hours, 7am-6pm). Sometimes my MIL would even divide them smaller so she could have them more frequently. Every baby is different though. Now that she is older, recently I cut back her milk from 12oz to 9-11oz over 3 bottles instead of 4.

I send her milk in the bottles, usually fresh milk I pumped at work the day before. Every once in a while I add some frozen milk in there and freeze some of the fresh to rotate my freezer stash. It saves on bags that way and I figure fresher milk is better since it is made for her specific needs at the moment and hasn't (possibly) lost any good properties with the freezing and thawing process.

The way I do my mornings is I leave her sleeping (as long as she is still asleep) til just before we leave. The last thing I do is wake her, change/dress her, and nurse her. Then I don't have to entertain her while trying to get myself together for the day.

[shortlette]

Hi and thanks for stopping in. I look forward to getting to know you.

Starting daycare/ returning to work is really hard but it's all about getting into a rhythm and routine. You just have to be prepared to give it a go and if it doesn't work, change it. I can't imagine getting up as early as you will have to ..... I hope that means you get ome early too!!

I would say as a rule of thumb allow 1oz that you're apart from your LO. Have you given any bottles yet? You might want to start introducing them to ensure that it's not a case of going cold turkey when she starts daycare. We were pretty lax with my 1st and when he started daycare at 5.5months he would barely take any milk. Luckily he soon figured out that he wouldn't get milk any other way and got used to the bottle but my 2nd one only ever took the minimum and would then eat all night to make up for it. Thank goodness for co-sleeping.

I worked Mon to Fri so would send frozen milk on a Mon and then what I pumped each day went the next .... whatever I pumped on Fri I froze and then used the oldest out of the freezer to keep rotating it. You might want to start with smaller amounts so save on wastage in the early days.

I hope that helps and good luck.