EBM Refusal

Hi,
Mr Bean is 10 months old. I've returned to work this week, and he seems happy at home with his Dad. Except that he won't drink much EBM (like maybe 100ml in a day if we are really lucky). It's not bottle refusal - he'll happily have water from a bottle or a cup. And he's eating well. He has a BF in the morning and 2 or 3 in the evening (but up until this week was having 7 a day).

I have better things to do with my breaks at work than express milk that won't be drunk, so I am thinking of slowly stopping expressing during the day. But I am wondering whether that will make weekends (when I assume he will want lots of feeds again) difficult. Any suggestions would be very welcome
thanks
Kate

Kate, firstly, at 10 months, his need for bm is reducing, so what he is drinking is fine. If you decide to stop expressing at work, you should be fine to bf on weekends. I found that my body adjusted well to bfing during the day some days and not others. Also, there is no need to worry about formula at this stage so that makes things easier for you.

If you do want to keep trying with the EBM, maybe you can experiment with temperature. My first DS didn't like EBM warmed (other than just the chill taken off it if it was frozen). Both boys would drink it straight from the fridge. So maybe try warmer or cooler and see how that goes. GL.

My DS hated ebm that had been frozen, and would only drink it fresh. I wasted many bottles figuring that one out. Hope you manage to sort it out, and are able to keep up your feeding.

At the moment (funnily enough) we are not having to use frozen supplies, and we've tried warm and fridge and room temp and he doesn't seem to have a preference.
It appears that he likes boobs and only tolerates boob juice to get at them!

At this stage I'll keep expressing during the day this week and see what he's like on the weekend and then work out what the next step is
thanks for your help
Kate

Hi Kate
My DS was exactly the same, only wanted bm from the boobies and no other way!
I returned to work when he was 6 months old and we got around it by giving him 2 feeds of a morning, and 3 in the evenings and lots of water and custards during the day when I wasn't there.
The days I didn't work we continued as normal bf'ing all throughout the day and my supply was fine.
I used to get quite full by the end of the day at work but my supply seemed to even out after a while too.
Hope this helps!

It sounds like he is having enough feeds anyway (even if it's less than you are used to). If he is happy to have water, I would just focus on DH giving him plenty of water during the day (especially while the weather is hot) & you can just feed him before/after work - sooo much easier than expressing too :)

If you remember, I had dropped DS to 2 feeds a day by 11 months & he's been just fine. He drinks lots of water (two big bottles a day) - plus a small amount of cow's milk (50-100ml?), some yoghurt & cheese.

Thanks for the reassurance!

He's getting a bit better with the EBM, so it looks like if I express at lunch he will drink most of that the next day. SO overall he's probably ditched 2 or 3 feeds - I guess that's growing up!