Milk at daycare

[clseale]

Do you know if your current center allows BM in a sippy or beyond a year? I'd start there if you're not sure, because ours does not...well, not past her current room which she will likely transfer out of at 13 mo. She's only 10 mo, but both daycare and her doctor want her off of bottles and on to a sippy cup at the year mark.

[robyn]

I had a large frozen supply when DD turned one as well. We dropped one daytime bottle a week at daycare until she was completely weaned off of them. She continued to nurse at home and on weekends. I brought BM each day for her to have in her sippy cups because I had it to use up. Once it was gone she moved to whole cow's milk in the sippy.

[linz]

My twins were pretty much done with bottles at 1 year. I had a little freezer supply left so they got a bottle before bed for a few days past their bday, but they were pretty much over it at that point. Daycare provides milk and they didn't start daycare until 13 mos so they would get milk in a sippy or water with snack.

[icedcoffee]

Right before he turned one, I dropped one daytime bottle a week until we were down to just morning bottles. I am still offering 1 morning bottle a day at home upon wake up at 14 months. This will be over is 3 days when I use up the last of it (sniffle!). I only put BM in a bottle.

I replaced bottles as they were dropped with milk in a straw cup (straws are supposed to be better for oral development than sippy). He has never had milk out of anything but a straw cup. I send one full straw cup each day and an extra Nalgene water bottle full of milk. They refill his cup from the Nalgene as needed throughout the day.

Transitioning to milk is so great and easy!

[statgirl]

For my first, he was off bottles at 1 year. I sent BM in a sippy (a large amount) and a sippy of water each day until I ran out of BM. They knew it was BM but got confused why, so they wouldn't give him other milk at daycare until I realized what was going on--so I okayed other milk when he finished off his milk sippy each day. For my second, he stayed on bottles until 15 months, but I sent a sippy of BM and a sippy of water until I ran out of pumped milk (at 2 years). I also made sure they knew that he could have cow milk when needed too.

If your center won't do BM in a sippy, I would probably save some pumped milk for possibilities, but donate the rest through Eats on Feets or HMFHB or one of the crowd source donation chains. That is what I did with DS2--I didn't want the milk to go to waste, but he didn't really need BM at daycare anymore. I donated to three different babies over time. I still keep up with one of them.

My first center wanted kids off sippies at 2, so my oldest gave them up at 22 months for a regular cup (still using a sippy/straw cup in the car because I'm not crazy and we have a long commute). Our second center could care less so DS2 still isn't great with a regular cup at 2.5. I need to work with him.

[joy]

She took one bottle of formula at daycare until ~ 14 months then stopped. She got cow milk in a sippy cup after that.

That bottle was the easiest to drop!

[penguingrrl]

I’d send BM in a sippy. No reason to rush to cow’s milk, or even use it at all depending on how long you want to nurse/pump.

[isabel]

I can't comment on the BM thing, but our pedi was pretty adamant that we get DS1 off bottles ASAP once he hit a year. He has general concerns about teeth and the impact that bottles can have on shifting baby teeth. I'm not sure I entirely understand how a bottle is different from a sippie, but ::shrug::. We just did our best to transition him to sippies, including doing some formula and whole milk until he transitioned all the way to WCM.

[Deleted]

With my first (who was 50/50 BM and formula) I stopped bottles on her birthday and she just had sippies with cow milk at daycare.

With my second (fully BF and a bottle hater/reverse cycler) she actually refused to take bottles at all at 11 months so at that point she just had BM in sippies until she was 13 months and I used my freezer milk up. Then she had cow milk when I wasn’t around and nursed when I was around.

With my third (fully BF, but I was unemployed when he was a year so he only went to daycare one day a week). I just stopped sending bottles to daycare and he had sippies with cow milk when he turned 1. He mostly nursed since I was around so much, but if I wasn’t he had cow milk.

You can mostly do it however you want, although I’d recommend getting rid of bottles sooner rather than later. I think sippies with BM is fine until you run out.

[joy]

Is the concern with bottles tooth decay or tooth placement? Everything I read says bottles are a concern because people put their kids to bed with bottles (with milk or juice?) leading to long exposure to sugary drinks. But, if you don’t do that, is the sucking motion of a bottle once a day for five minutes really all that bad for teeth? And if that sucking motion is from a breast or a bottle, does it matter?

...asking for a friend. Lol.

[countthestars]

My pediatric dentist isn't super concerned that DS still gets a bottle at 2, as long as we brush so the milk doesn't sit on his teeth overnight.

[joy]

Jan 23, 2018 12:04:55 GMT -5 icedcoffee said:

Jan 23, 2018 11:58:28 GMT -5 joy said:

Is the concern with bottles tooth decay or tooth placement? Everything I read says bottles are a concern because people put their kids to bed with bottles (with milk or juice?) leading to long exposure to sugary drinks. But, if you don’t do that, is the sucking motion of a bottle once a day for five minutes really all that bad for teeth? And if that sucking motion is from a breast or a bottle, does it matter?

...asking for a friend. Lol.

A friend who is a speech language pathologist recommended straw cups or open cups at 1 year.  Apparently sippy cups and bottles are not great for the development of oral muscles which can impact language.  Sippy and bottles also push the liquid against the teeth where straw and open push it back into the mouth.  

I don't know.  I'm just doing what she told me to do.  LOL.

ETA:  Also--something about how they learn to swallow, but again I don't have a degree in this.  haha

Lol. Well - my 16 month old drinks everything from a sippy except one bottle of milk at bedtime. Straw cups baffle her and open cups leave us all covered in milk/water. I plan to wean her from the bottle at 18 months. Ish. Sleep is kinda crucial to me, you see.

I can’t do everything perfectly, kid! Haha.

[icedcoffee]

Jan 23, 2018 12:22:52 GMT -5 joy said:

Jan 23, 2018 12:04:55 GMT -5 icedcoffee said:

A friend who is a speech language pathologist recommended straw cups or open cups at 1 year.  Apparently sippy cups and bottles are not great for the development of oral muscles which can impact language.  Sippy and bottles also push the liquid against the teeth where straw and open push it back into the mouth.  

I don't know.  I'm just doing what she told me to do.  LOL.

ETA:  Also--something about how they learn to swallow, but again I don't have a degree in this.  haha

Lol. Well - my 16 month old drinks everything from a sippy except one bottle of milk at bedtime. Straw cups baffle her and open cups leave us all covered in milk/water. I plan to wean her from the bottle at 18 months. Ish. Sleep is kinda crucial to me, you see.

I can’t do everything perfectly, kid! Haha.

I wouldn't worry about it too much.  You're doing great!

[sillygoosegirl]

We did breastmilk in a sippy cup starting at 10 months because we couldn't get LO to take a bottle anymore.

[Susie]

We sent bottles of BM past 1, until sometime before she changed classrooms at 18m. No more bottles at daycare after 18m. Those bottles were snacks, essentially. She liked them, I had extra frozen BM, she was underweight, so she got them. She was drinking WCM from sippies at meals at daycare and home starting sometime shortly after 1.  We never gave BM in a sippy.

By 18m, she was down to 2 bottles/day (wakeup and bedtime) and she dropped those last two sometime between 18m and 2y.  I didn't rush it too much.  

[Mrs.flang]

DD tended to not finish what's in her sippy, but would always finish a bottle, so I sent the rest of my freezer stash in a bottle (so my hard work wasn't wasted!) and sent milk in sippies. I started with 2 bottles to one sippy, then 1-2 and then all sippies once I ran out of BM. She was probably around 13 months when I ran out completely and had no issues at all going to milk, although we still nurse 1-2x a day.

[clseale]

Does the sippy cups versus straw cup thing apply to even the 360 cups? Those are what dd is using whenever she uses cups. (Usually just a few sips of water with meals.)

[starryfish]

Jan 23, 2018 11:24:56 GMT -5 @juno said:

Jan 23, 2018 11:11:06 GMT -5 icedcoffee said:

Transitioning to milk is so great and easy!

Ha, well, i'd prefer she finish off all the free stuff in my freezer that i spent hours pumping before she moves on to my expensive bought milk. My supply is still fine, so i won't be doing frozen milk at home. I suppose i could donate the rest, but since i have a choice between human milk and cow's milk, i'd prefer she have the human stuff.

I had a large supply left as well. We switched to sippies around 11m here and there and switched 100% at 13m (only reason I waited was bc she was sick with RSV and then the flu at 12m). I put the BM in the sippies and than we are now on cow milk since we ran out of frozen BM. 

[icedcoffee]

Jan 23, 2018 13:22:35 GMT -5 clseale said:

Does the sippy cups versus straw cup thing apply to even the 360 cups? Those are what dd is using whenever she uses cups. (Usually just a few sips of water with meals.)

Those are considered open cups and are just as good as straw cups, I think.  I believe they are dentist recommended!

[pooh8402]

For us, we ran out of BM literally the last day in his infant class, before he was to transfer to the toddler class. I stressed about it though, because the toddler class didn't have a fridge to keep the BM cold. They didn't do bottles, only sippies/straw cups. I didn't care about the bottle/cup transition though. He'd been drinking water out of cups for months by then. So we switched to 100% cups at the same time. E didn't care either.

If you're not sure of your daycare's process, why don't you just ask? Set a meeting with the teacher or director, or at least call/email.

[y4m]

My daycare worked with her on a sippy cup from like 10 months to a year. Now we just send a single carton of milk and a sippy cup on Monday. So much easier than measuring, labeling, and transporting everything!!

[hocus2]

I see two issues -- bottle/cup and BM/cow milk. I'd switch to a cup or sippy if that is their preference. I allowed my child to have a bottle longer especially the last one before bed which was a great comfort to her. If your daycare has a cup rule the switch will probably be easier because everyone will use a cup. My younger child never had a bottle obsession and he was drinking formula from a sippy cup fairly early.

In terms of BM -- if you're still breastfeeding and happy about it then I'd send it in. If you get push back I'd inquire about why. It seems odd to limit it under 2 which is the WHO's recommendation I think.