12+ months = no more breastmilk

HisChamaoleGirl · June 2014

Today at a la leche league meeting one of the moms said her daycare doesn't allow breastmilk in the classroom for 12m and older. I know my daycare said they won't so bottles after 12m but I've never heard of daycare saying no to breastmilk. I'm going to ask ours come Monday morning but I was wondering if this is normal for any of the moms here? One mom cited the breastmilk and formula are the same as an argument in favor of the daycare's policy

jamieandwill · June 2014

That sounds quite rigid. I BF for about 15 months, but DS still took a bottle at daycare until at least 18 months. Regardless of what is in it (WCM, BM, Formula) they should be able to keep them straight.

We are at a montessori preschool and I noticed on the menu that some of the 2-3 year olds have milk brought in from home, so I assume that means breast milk or soy/coconut or something.

12 months is not a standard cut off for anything exempt some schools policy.

HisChamaoleGirl · June 2014

LO doesn't have a preference on the temperature of her breastmilk and will take it in wkther a bottle or sippy cup. We too have red labels for breastmilk so I'm hoping a mix up won't be an issue.

I'll ask what our specific daycare guidelines are.

mittensonkittens · June 2014

I don't think no BM is a standard rule. I would fight that rule if you had planned to keep sending BM. Your pedi would probably write a note if you ask. I've had 3 kids at the same daycare, and I've seen them bend the "rules" on enough occasions that I'm not worried about them anymore. It sounds like one of those things that is more of a preference than a requirement. They could hold your LO back in the baby class for a few weeks/months. They could store the bottles or warm them in another room. I think I was the only mom still sending BM at 12 months, so it might not be something that they are set up for because they haven't been asked. My first two kids essentially stopped drinking expressed BM when they were required to drink it out of a cup. With this LO, I plan to keep sending BM in bottles and taper down the amount between 12 and 15 months. I don't that is an unreasonable request, and I expect daycare to be able to accommodate it. If it's important to you, stick to your guns. Ask if the rules are state requirements, or their policy.

cecilyandgautam · June 2014

My guess is that, if pressed on the issue, the policy in practice is more of a "no more bottles" policy and they probably prefer all kids to be on the same milk but will let you bring your own if you push. It's just not practical otherwise. Not all kids can be on the same milk at 12 months, so there has to be some flexibility about what goes in the cups.

HisChamaoleGirl · June 2014

CK2MD said:

Our DC does not allow BM past 13 months. When LO turned 12 months, we were informed that we had the next month to transition her both off BM/formula and off bottles. (The DCP had already started putting some of her BM into sippy cups by that point, so the second was NBD.) I had planned to stop pumping at 12 months anyway, so we started weaning off BM and onto WCM at that point.

No reasons were given, and it would've been pointless to ask for them, as our DC is on a military base and supposedly follows nation-wide rules for all military child development centers. The local DCPs are clueless as to the reasons, if any, behind these regs.

Yes, this is how it is on military bases. Actually the mother I was talking about in my OP was speaking about on post care. It makes me glad we never got a space on post now.

HisChamaoleGirl · June 2014

theresat858 said:

I'm just impressed that anyone wants to keep pumping at work past 12 months!
I was so done by that point

I'm not sure if I will be pumping at work past 12 months, but I do know that I have a very large freezer stash and would be able to provide breastmilk for my daughter past 12m. I just have to find out if daycare will "let" me provide it or not.

I know what you mean about pumping though. For me the worst part is cleaning the damn parts after a 12 hour work day. ugh!

cecilyandgautam · June 2014

HisChamaoleGirl said:

theresat858 said:

I'm just impressed that anyone wants to keep pumping at work past 12 months!
I was so done by that point

I'm not sure if I will be pumping at work past 12 months, but I do know that I have a very large freezer stash and would be able to provide breastmilk for my daughter past 12m. I just have to find out if daycare will "let" me provide it or not.
I know what you mean about pumping though. For me the worst part is cleaning the damn parts after a 12 hour work day. ugh!

I wasn't sure exactly what my plan would be about pumping past a year, but when we introduced cow milk, my daughter's skin had this crazy horrible reaction, so I kept pumping probably longer than I would have if milk had worked out well from the beginning. We had better luck with goat milk, but it just seemed to me like she wasn't ready to take in large quantities of another milk just yet and I didn't want to spend several weeks experimenting with all the different milk options when the one experiment we had just tried caused her so much pain. So, I ended up being one of those moms with a toddler, still in the lactation room twice a day - didn't really expect that to be me one day. Anyway, I guess that's why it's hard for me to imagine how a center would really enforce the "no breastmilk after 12 months" rule - my kid was screaming in pain after we tried WCM and it took 2 weeks for her skin to heal back up. Pretty sure the DCPs would find that more problematic than having to pour a different milk into DD's sippy cups.

jennyelf · June 2014

CK2MD said:

Our DC does not allow BM past 13 months. When LO turned 12 months, we were informed that we had the next month to transition her both off BM/formula and off bottles. (The DCP had already started putting some of her BM into sippy cups by that point, so the second was NBD.) I had planned to stop pumping at 12 months anyway, so we started weaning off BM and onto WCM at that point.

No reasons were given, and it would've been pointless to ask for them, as our DC is on a military base and supposedly follows nation-wide rules for all military child development centers. The local DCPs are clueless as to the reasons, if any, behind these regs.

I'm also at a CDC, but they don't have that rule here. BM is allowed, but not in bottles, you just have to prep the sippy cup instead. One child I know was on BM until 18 months due to a dairy allergy and it wasn't a problem.

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