In support of what everyone else has said, seems like one of the staff forgot your kid had the breast milk requirement, took the easy route with their shift by feeding them from the batch of formula, and their management had to cover for them by shifting blame to you. Way easier to tell a new mom she’s parenting incorrectly than to admit your staff messed up and potentially lose a client.
There’s nothing wrong with your breast milk.
I have a 4mo, right now she rather have the bottle than breast feed & I think it’s because it comes out faster. She really loves formula too BUT also she loves breast milk, I can tell because we tried a different formula and she didn’t want to take it so we switched back to the original one (it’s sweeter, I tried it lol).
What I do is i pump as much as I can (not much but it’s decent work) and I mix the two together because formula is expensive lol.
Breast milk is tailored to your baby’s needs so don’t worry about that , he’s still drinking it so keep feeding / pumping.
@Wei
The thing is that at daycare he drinks the breastmilk also from a bottle. Same bottle that they used to give the formula. So flow is the same. I’m starting to think maybe there was something wrong with that particular batch of milk…
@Zeke
I see! Breast milk tends to be sweet so babies usually prefer it. I would suggest to stick to your usual routine & let time guide you. If baby still prefers formula after 2-3 weeks, then you can explore combination feeding.
If there was something wrong with that batch, maybe it had to do with something you ate (?) maybe something spicy or something baby doesn’t like. Or maybe it went bad (I doubt but it’s not impossible).
Edited to finish my thought - I prematurely sent it.
@Wei
Also, I do you warm your bottles & they didn’t do it for your breast milk or maybe they didn’t warm it up to the preferred temperature. So many things could go wrong - please don’t think it’s your breast milk.
@Zeke
I didn’t get a chance to read all of the comments but I will mention high lipase milk. My daughter would occasionally flat out reject my breastmilk. Usually when it was thawed from frozen, occasionally when it wasn’t less than 24 hours old. I realized that somethings that I ate, or drank, would make my milk higher lipase and more soapy/floral smelling sometimes as quickly as 8-12 hours after pumping.
@Taylor
I usually breastfeed at home directly from the boob so I wouldn’t actually know he is rejecting frozen/refrigerated milk. Something to look into for me, thanks!
@Wei
Hell yeah fellow milk/formula mixer! I honestly just felt that having a little formula in her milk bottles made her poops more consistent and less frequent so we do every bottle as a split. We do 1/4 formula, 3/4 milk usually.
Maybe your baby did have a good nap after the formula, that has absolutely no bearing on your breast milk and it’s nutritional value. They made you doubt yourself for their own convenience and I’m livid on your behalf.
I would be furious if my daycare did this. There is nothing wrong with your milk. In my experience daycare workers don’t often have a good understanding of breastfeeding. They are usually more used to and therefore more comfortable with feeding babies formula. My daycare was asking me for massive amounts of breast milk saying she wanted more, but it came down to how they were holding the bottle to feed her. You need to have a conversation with both the people in the classroom feeding your baby and the director. It’s your choice how you feed your baby. If you find your baby sleeps better with formula and you want to switch…that’s valid. But if you want to keep breastfeeding there are lots of benefits to that too and your daycare doesn’t get to decide that for you. I found the first couple times I fed my baby formula they slept well, but it was very short lived. They were back to their usual antics after a couple days.
edit: I suppose it’s possible your milk has high lipase. Does it smell/taste soapy? That could be why your baby was allegedly excited about the formula. I kind of doubt it, but it’s possible. And it’s still your choice. If your baby was drinking it just fine it’s not up to them to give formula just because.
@Chen
I’ll taste the milk! Thanks for the tip!
I would be going to the daycare manager.
you provide enough breastmilk for them to use. There was no shortage so the instruction is clear: use BM first then formula. The daycare workers did not follow the (may I add, extremely simple) instruction.
What could have happened afterwards is that they fed your BM when baby was simply NOT HUNGRY?? then yeah of course there is rejection… I would call out their nonsense.
For me that would be strike 1, and I would research and register to be on a waiting list for other daycares. Strike 2 and I’m taking my child out.
The absolute hell I would raise. Omg.
I am a home daycare provider. I cannot imagine EVER making this decision for a parent. This is horrifying. They’re lucky the baby slept. The baby could have had a horrible stomach ache from just be switched over to formula out of nowhere. I would pull your child and consult a lawyer.
Get a new daycare. That is one of the most inappropriate things I have read. How dare they give your baby formula without your consent? And all that stuff they said about him sleeping better, like wtf? What if the baby was allergic? The feeding of your baby is completely up to you. If they can’t respect that then they don’t get your business.
@Hartley
Hi, I edited the post to provide more detail: We discussed previously with the daycare that they would feed him formula only and only if they run out of my breastmilk for the day (I bring it every day after pumping). What they did was start off the day with it instead.
@Zeke
Still not appropriate. Their comments especially were inappropriate. Very disrespectful imo.
Hartley said:
@Zeke
Still not appropriate. Their comments especially were inappropriate. Very disrespectful imo.
I’ll have a talk with them again tomorrow when we go again
@Zeke
Don’t make excuses for them. This is unacceptable and could absolutely be a reason to switch daycares. They chose to feed him formula because they thought it would be easier for them (longer nap), not because they thought it would be beneficial for your son. What other decisions are they making without your knowledge to make things easier on themselves?
Very wrong that they did this, however, I’ve noticed that until we added a bit of formula (now we do about 60% BM and 30% formula) my baby really wasn’t satisfied with.
He’d sleep irregularly and really wasn’t satisfied often as it seemed like his system was burning through the BM. Just an observation.
I would go nuclear, pull my child out of care, and report them.