How many bottles?

mrsbtobe20122 · July 2014

Just wondering how many bottles I should have for when I go back to work and LO goes to day care. Right now he's taking between 4-5 oz of pumped milk at bedtime no problem. He usually goes about 3 hours between feeds during the day. I've got about 6 5 oz bottles and 2 9 oz bottles. Should I invest in some more larger volume bottles? Get more of the 5 oz bottles?

ETA: He will be there about 12 hours. I know, it sucks.

sws684 · July 2014

Following. I sent 4 bottles with about 2/3 of what she takes (to help prevent waste). Then also sent a full bottle of pumped milk just in case something crazy happens & she eats more than anticipated. But I'm curious if that was what was best....

mrsbtobe20122 · July 2014

Right, it's so hard. I'm going to do a practice run of just bottles all day before sending him--it stinks they can't just warm the thawed milk from the bags for what he actually needs. Let me know how your LO does with that plan.

sws684 · July 2014

Will do! Ill get feedback this afternoon when I pick her up.. I worried about room for a bunch of bottles too. Ill keep ya posted!

SecondTimeinMSU · July 2014

I think you are good for right now. Obviously it depends upon your workday but I work 8 hrs plus a half hour lunch and I sent four 3.5 oz bottles. I figured I'll soon need to do four 4 oz ones but I didn't want a ton of waste on my first day. If you are going to invest in bottles I'd get larger ones since you can always put less in them. I know they say your volumes stay the same if you are breastfeeding but I definitely needed to send more milk as my older son got older. Some people may say they overfeed at daycare but DS #1 was always in the 10% percentile for weight at that age so I felt like he needed those extra ozs. Usually I would get the sense he was eating sooner and up the volume or the teacher would mention to me if he still was seeming hungry after the bottle.

SecondTimeinMSU · July 2014

I wanted to add will your daycare allow you to leave a freezer bag for emergencies? They don't want to defrost on a regular basis but mine allows me to toss in a bag just so I feel like they could always open it up if need be. The teachers in the baby room are really experienced so they are much better at getting them to finish a bottle so usually waste wasn't too big of an issue unless DS was having an off day. When there was waste I tried to focus it on it as helping to maintain my supply rather than thinking of it as loss.

gutsysneakers · July 2014

SecondTimeinMSU said:
I wanted to add will your daycare allow you to leave a freezer bag for emergencies? They don't want to defrost on a regular basis but mine allows me to toss in a bag just so I feel like they could always open it up if need be. The teachers in the baby room are really experienced so they are much better at getting them to finish a bottle so usually waste wasn't too big of an issue unless DS was having an off day. When there was waste I tried to focus it on it as helping to maintain my supply rather than thinking of it as loss.

Same here. Dd goes to daycare in 6 weeks but I know I can leave a bag or two of frozen milk jic.

chknma · July 2014

I've been sending 4 bottles,3 oz each. She usually takes 3 of them over about 9 hours. Then I mark the extra one for the next day so they give that one first.

I wash bottles along with pump parts And refil/pack everything in the morning.

Meg&Austin · July 2014

First day of daycare here! Sent four 3.5 bottles and one incase they need to add any extra to.the others. Shes always back and forth how much milk she eats from bottles. Can you send any frozen bags for back up?

mrsbtobe20122 · July 2014

Meg&Austin said:

First day of daycare here! Sent four 3.5 bottles and one incase they need to add any extra to.the others. Shes always back and forth how much milk she eats from bottles. Can you send any frozen bags for back up?

No I guess it's state law they aren't to prep bottles, only warm what is provided...which totally stinks. I'm going to over pack the first few days. Luckily it's only 2 days/week -- so if it is wasted, it still won't be that much.

Also @secondtimeinMSu that's a great way to think of it.

Meg&Austin · July 2014

O thats a bummer. Good luck mama!

ns1 · July 2014

No experience with DS yet, but DD took 3 oz. at first and moved up to 4 oz. She never took more than 4 oz. at a time and took pumped milk at daycare until 1 year old. I brought 4 bottles, and she took 3. One was an "emergency" bottle.

sws684 · July 2014

Worked beautifully! Bottle leftover & they said is was perfectly sufficient and appropriate.

spinsoffresonance · July 2014

When DD1 was in daycare I had 5 bottles total. I would send 3 a day to daycare. She was there 9 hours. I also kept a bag of frozen milk in the freezer for emergencies. I think having 6 bottles would have been nicer so I wasn't required to wash bottles before preparing the ones for the next day. So if you're sending 4 bottles/day you'll be fine with the 6 you have but havin 8 will make your life a little easier. I wouldn't invest in any larger bottles for now, my DD never took more than 4oz of BM, BF babies tend to drink smaller quantities than FF babies so you might never use the large bottles.

springbeduk2 · July 2014

Also following. Thanks for the info!

Marcella05 · July 2014

My first week back to work is only 2 days long and the daycare is around the corner. Plan to use my breaks to go nurse DS for those 2 days. That way he has a little bit of comfort during the transition and I can check things out. Will switch to bottles the following week, but may still visit him on lunch breaks for the first few weeks.

sparklingdiamond · July 2014

My DS has been at DC since the beginning of last week and is there from 8-5:30. At first I sent three bottles that each had 3.5 oz. He consistently drank all of those, so they asked me to pack a fourth one just in case. Most days he just drinks three of them, but some days he will drink the fourth one.

SecondTimeinMSU · July 2014

3.5 oz worked well for the first day. He ate 3 bottles so I just re-labeled the forth one for today. They said he ate down to an oz, burped then finished it off which was perfect. So he ate 10.5 oz for roughly a 9 hour period. I pumped 14 oz so it was a good day. Hopefully I can keep it up since I know at some point DS#1 outpaced me so the more I can freeze now the better.

nordeast · July 2014

mrsbtobe20122 said:

Meg&Austin said:

First day of daycare here! Sent four 3.5 bottles and one incase they need to add any extra to.the others. Shes always back and forth how much milk she eats from bottles. Can you send any frozen bags for back up?

No I guess it's state law they aren't to prep bottles, only warm what is provided...which totally stinks. I'm going to over pack the first few days. Luckily it's only 2 days/week -- so if it is wasted, it still won't be that much.

Also @secondtimeinMSu that's a great way to think of it.

With my first I used the playtex drop ins and made up a bottle (with nipple and cap too) and froze it for an extra back up for my provider to keep in the freezer. I also wrote the date on the bottom so that we would remember to use it before it was in there too long. Would they be able to warm that up (instead of a frozen bag of milk)?

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