How do daycares handle breast milk?

Can breastfed babies go to nursery?

Breastfeeding baby policies are typically for formal childcare such as a daycare or nursery settings but are worth considering for childminders and even nannies.

They're more common in America, because maternity leave is normally shorter and breastfeeding rates are higher.

However, every childcare setting should have one!

Basically, these are questions to ask your nursery and consider and potentially have embedded in a formal contract with them around bringing a breastfed baby to nursery.

Some of them don’t have “right” or “wrong” answers so it’s a discussion really for your family & your childcare provider.

Beware: it's actually quite uncommon in the UK for babies beyond six months to be breastfeeding still. We have some of the lowest rates globally. So some childcare environments might not be familiar with the unique needs of breastfed babies.

It’s worth considering questions such as:

🍼 How are they going to store and label any pumped milk that you're bringing to the setting for your child? Will the nursery take supplies one day at a time or for several? If milk is not finished one day will they let you know? Will they keep leftover milk, dispose of it or give it back to you?

🍼Are the staff trained on the subject?

🍼What is the wrong milk procedure eg: if your baby is given formula or if your baby is given the pumped milk of another family or if another baby is given your pumped milk? What are the nursery going to do about it? They should have an actual procedure for these things. Human error is only natural, sometimes these things can happen.

🍼Would you like the nursery to offer feeds on cue not on schedule? This would be ideal.

🍼The staff might not be familiar with breastfed babies frequently having small portions unlike formula fed babies. For expressed milk the max recommended portion is 120ml but reading the formula packet might lead you to believe a portion of 240ml is suitable for a baby after 6 months old.

🍼I hope the staff would be trained in paced feeding method for all the babies, my favourite resource for sharing on this is from New North baby on YouTube, and it's called Intuitive bottle feeding. And it's a short seven minute film that explains how and why we should feed breastfed babies with a bottle very gently with a slow flow teat and take lots of breaks.

🍼It might also be valuable to discuss your own personal opinion on solids versus express breast milk - which would you rather than nursery prioritise? It maybe depend on what you're aiming for with your breastfeeding goals and how easily you are able to pump enough milk for your baby.

🍼Would you like your nursery just to give a very small portion of milk if you're due soon? So for instance, if it's getting to the end of the day and your baby is signalling that they'd like a feed but you will soon be together. You might feel that at that stage in the day your breasts are really heavy and uncomfortably full. Would you like to ask them to try and delay the feed by distracting the baby? Or to just give them a small feed? Or would you prefer that they carry on as usual and give the baby a full portion?

🍼What if the baby is hungry and you are late or cannot be reached if your supply of expressed breast milk is gone. What I f you have no express breast milk left because it's been lost or damaged? For instance if you get stuck on a broken down train and you're running super late. What would you do? Maybe you could leave one milk portion labelled in the freezer at nursery? Would you mind if they gave formula in this case?

Maybe you know how exactly the mucosal defence system works?

Basically if someone coughs or sneezes near you, or you pick up a pathogen in your respiratory system or in your gut, then within literally 20 minutes, your body is making protection against exactly that germ or pathogen.

And so there is evidence that it might be sensible to breastfeed in the nursery setting. If you go to collect your child, it's probably good for your breast health, and it will be a lovely way to connect after separation, if there is a space in the nursery where you can sit together in that environment and breastfeed. It’s desirable for the nursery to provide a comfortable chair in the room where your baby is generally cared for, in amongst that environment with exactly those germs and other children for you to breastfeed. It might not be practical, it might not be within their policy, but it's worth considering and it's something you might like to ask for.

You might be interested in my “Return to work” products:

I offer one to one consultations and a self-paced online course on the subject covering:

• Why breastfeed beyond 6m?

• Negotiating with your employer.

• Childcare choices.

• Expressing-How? What? When? Times? Volumes?

• How to avoid mastitis-.

• How do solids fit in?

• Other options.

• Breastfeeding cessation.

• Expect the unexpected.

More info/book a 1-1 on my website here:

Buy the course/more info on my website here

And this blog on how to get your breastfeeding baby to accept a bottle.

I’d love to hear what worked for your family.

If you have any questions regarding anything mentioned in this post, please feel free to get in touch.

Sally