Breastfeeding Moms and Daycare

[nannyde]

Not to hijack.... just wondering:

Are there any providers who have done day care full time for ten or more years consequtively who currently have breast feeding moms come and feed their child during the day.... at drop off... pick up... or mid day?

If you don't have this currently... have you allowed it within the last year?

If you do allow it currently or within the last year... can you tell me what your average daily census is NOT including your own children or school aged kids.

IIRC Crystal has more than ten years and does allow it. Anyone else?

[Unregistered]

I would allow it IF it wasn't disrupting the other children. As soon as it's disrupting others then it has to stop. One child is no more or less important than any of the others here. In my mind it has nothing to do with breastfeeding/the relationship etc... it has to do with MY business, and how any of my clients are affected. If other people's kids' naps are being interrupted then my business is being affected.

[Michelle]

I have been licensed for 11 years and I have always been thrilled to support
my bfing moms! I have had 8-14 kids on average for the whole 11 years.
It doesn't affect the other kids or my parents at all!.
It shouldn't matter if they are sick or underweight.
If a mom wants to feed her baby, why not let her?
What an awesome example to our young children to do such a loving thing for their babies.
Some of the kids walk around and "nurse" their babies. (over their clothes) What can be cuter than that?

If they come at nap time, they just nurse put the baby to bed and leave.
It actually helps me.

The most recent bfing moms are very proper and well mannered.
If I had any issues with moms wanting to stay,play, eat, etc. I would just address it on a case by case basis.
I would never choose a daycare that would not allow me to feed my baby.
For all the posters that are against it, have you ever been engorged?
It's not pretty!!!
oh, Nan we have 6 non school age kids

[PeanutsGalore]

I have been licensed for 11 years and I have always been thrilled to support
my bfing moms! I have had 8-14 kids on average for the whole 11 years.
It doesn't affect the other kids or my parents at all!.
It shouldn't matter if they are sick or underweight.
If a mom wants to feed her baby, why not let her?
What an awesome example to our young children to do such a loving thing for their babies.
Some of the kids walk around and "nurse" their babies. (over their clothes) What can be cuter than that?

If they come at nap time, they just nurse put the baby to bed and leave.
It actually helps me.

The most recent bfing moms are very proper and well mannered.
If I had any issues with moms wanting to stay,play, eat, etc. I would just address it on a case by case basis.
I would never choose a daycare that would not allow me to feed my baby.
For all the posters that are against it, have you ever been engorged?
It's not pretty!!!
oh, Nan we have 6 non school age kids

Yes, I've been engorged when my son was spending time with family. I used a pump.

I'm curious what your setup is. Do you have a special area for nursing moms? Do they interact with the other kids in the daycare? Do they come at specific times and stay for a specific amount of time? Or do they just pop by whenever and leave at will? ETA: I ask because specific info on how you make it work will help me and others who would like to incorporate the service into their business. Right now, I don't see how it can be successful.

For the purposes of this conversation, it does matter if a child is sick or underweight. Breastmilk is the best nutrition for infants, and if a child is sick or underweight, they actually should be nursing--not taking a bottle--if at all possible. Your milk loses the least amount of nutrients when you feed the child directly from the breast. So if a kid is sick or underweight, then that turns the mom's request to come breastfeed into more of a need than a want, IMO.

[nannyde]

I would never choose a daycare that would not allow me to feed my baby.

That is a very loaded statement.

If I had a parent say that to me it would be the END of any potential consideration to take them as a client.

I don't do "my child".

Breast feeding before day care or after day care isn't any different than bottle feeding for a baby that's in my house. A formula fed mother could say the SAME thing.

My bf moms do this:
Feed the baby before leaving for day care.
Pump breast milk during the day.
Give me the pumped milk at pick up
Feed the baby after you leave my house.

My formula fed Moms do this:
Feed the baby before leaving for day care.
Buy formula and bring it to my house.
Feed the baby after you leave my house.

It's not that complicated and it leaves out the "my child" of whether or not the provider "allows you to feed YOUR baby" formula or breast fed.

I have a friend that owns two centers who has a large luxurious bf mom room with a TV and comfy chairs. It's the least used piece of real estate in the center.... by far. Some how when the feeding is taken AWAY from the other kids and adults... the moms seem to not use it day after day ... week after week.

When the feedings were in the room WITH the other kids and the staff it was necessary to do the feedings before, during, and after care. Once they had their own room it wasn't necessary any more... except for the bf'ing staff who got to feed on the clock. Once the "on the clock" went bye bye then even the staff stopped using the room.

The normal pattern is that new first time Moms use it when they first start. Within a few weeks they stop the before and after work feeding. Within a month or two they stop the mid day feedings. A few stick with it but it's a precious few.

It's a big draw for selling the center. That's the only way it pays for itself. It's not paid for by actual usage. If they switched it back to in the room feedings, onsite feeding would skyrocket. That's for sure.

[nannyde]

Yes, I've been engorged when my son was spending time with family. I used a pump.

I'm curious what your setup is. Do you have a special area for nursing moms? Do they interact with the other kids in the daycare? Do they come at specific times and stay for a specific amount of time? Or do they just pop by whenever and leave at will? ETA: I ask because specific info on how you make it work will help me and others who would like to incorporate the service into their business. Right now, I don't see how it can be successful.

For the purposes of this conversation, it does matter if a child is sick or underweight. Breastmilk is the best nutrition for infants, and if a child is sick or underweight, they actually should be nursing--not taking a bottle--if at all possible. Your milk loses the least amount of nutrients when you feed the child directly from the breast. So if a kid is sick or underweight, then that turns the mom's request to come breastfeed into more of a need than a want, IMO.

Yes pump. That's a stellar idea.

I don't care for medically fragile infants so all my convo's on this are ONLY for healthy babies.

[Michelle]

Yes, I've been engorged when my son was spending time with family. I used a pump.

I'm curious what your setup is. Do you have a special area for nursing moms? Do they interact with the other kids in the daycare? Do they come at specific times and stay for a specific amount of time? Or do they just pop by whenever and leave at will? ETA: I ask because specific info on how you make it work will help me and others who would like to incorporate the service into their business. Right now, I don't see how it can be successful.

For the purposes of this conversation, it does matter if a child is sick or underweight. Breastmilk is the best nutrition for infants, and if a child is sick or underweight, they actually should be nursing--not taking a bottle--if at all possible. Your milk loses the least amount of nutrients when you feed the child directly from the breast. So if a kid is sick or underweight, then that turns the mom's request to come breastfeed into more of a need than a want, IMO.

I don't have a den, I wish I did. The moms will come in and nurse if they want to, usually in the living room. We have a very large playroom and outside space. The kids are usually very involved in their activities.
My parents aren't these strange scary people that should be kept out of my house. I have had all their kids since they were born and we are like a family. These moms teach them to call me Auntie, or Auntie Michelle.
I love it !!! We love our kids and parents but I don't allow the parents to touch or play with the other kids.
Most of the parents pick up and drop off at the door but I can't and won't forbid them from coming in to get their kids.
Licensing laws say they can come at any time to see their child.
Only the nursing moms stay or sit on the couch, and not every time or every day, they usually just leave me their frozen milk and I feed the baby.

But I would never tell a mom, " no, leave and go feed your baby somewhere else" that just has an icky kinda feeling for me. come on, seriously.
What if they have a long drive? should they feed the baby in their car?
maybe just let the baby scream all the way home til they throw up?
We all take very good care of our babies, this is a no brainer!
(I'm talking about the people who won't allow the moms in at all..the wait on the step providers) The middle of the day bfing moms... well this is my choice and my personal decision. They love me and I am always getting kids from word of mouth through them... and always good families!!

[Cat Herder]

I don't care for medically fragile infants so all my convo's on this are ONLY for healthy babies.

OT, but relevant.

If I had my RN, like you, I could not do it either.

It is ironic. :confused: I would not be covered under the good Samaritan act in case of emergency with that.

If I finish training and clinicals....I can't do my current job. :: I could not afford the cost of a medical director and insurance.

I have to wait until I am done with daycare.

Our system is ridiculous....

[afmama]

I'm fairly new to these boards, but it seems like I always see post after post after post of providers complaining about parents who don't care.

This mom cares and wants to feed her kid! Let her! If she's disruptive (which I don't see how nursing can even be) then put your foot down to that!

[PeanutsGalore]

I don't have a den, I wish I did. The moms will come in and nurse if they want to, usually in the living room. We have a very large playroom and outside space. The kids are usually very involved in their activities.
My parents aren't these strange scary people that should be kept out of my house. I have had all their kids since they were born and we are like a family. These moms teach them to call me Auntie, or Auntie Michelle.
I love it !!! We love our kids and parents but I don't allow the parents to touch or play with the other kids.
Most of the parents pick up and drop off at the door but I can't and won't forbid them from coming in to get their kids.
Licensing laws say they can come at any time to see their child.
Only the nursing moms stay or sit on the couch, and not every time or every day, they usually just leave me their frozen milk and I feed the baby.

But I would never tell a mom, " no, leave and go feed your baby somewhere else" that just has an icky kinda feeling for me. come on, seriously.
What if they have a long drive? should they feed the baby in their car?
maybe just let the baby scream all the way home til they throw up?
We all take very good care of our babies, this is a no brainer!
(I'm talking about the people who won't allow the moms in at all..the wait on the step providers) The middle of the day bfing moms... well this is my choice and my personal decision. They love me and I am always getting kids from word of mouth through them... and always good families!!

You obviously have a very specific type of relationship with your clients, and that's great. Not everyone has that luxury. Out of all the people I've worked with and met since I started this, I would only want to cultivate that type of relationship with my current client, who is made of awesome. I wish you would send your excess clients my way!

Not all babies cry until they throw up. And I really don't think anyone is advocating letting a baby leave the daycare setting in a state of starvation......we're just discussion why we will or will not allow breastfeeding moms to feed babies in daycare.

[nannyde]

OT, but relevant.

If I had my RN, like you, I could not do it either.

It is ironic. :confused: I would not be covered under the good Samaritan act in case of emergency with that.

If I finish training and clinicals....I can't do my current job. :: I could not afford the cost of a medical director and insurance.

I have to wait until I am done with daycare.

Our system is ridiculous....

Yup

That's exactly right.

I used to nanny for a family that owned an amusement park. They purposely didn't have any first responders onsite. Their liability for managing any medical emergencies skyrocketed if they had a medical professional onsite.

It wasn't so much dealing with park related accidents as it was just general life stuff. People getting sick while in the park with their high blood pressure, diabetes, heart problems etc. Having someone onsite that is supposed to be able to manage it is way riskier than just doing what every other business does: call 911 and have no liability.

It's pretty much the same with being a nurse doing child care. I could be chalked full of special needs kids if I would do the special needs stuff for free. I would have the liability but not be able to charge for it. It's best to just keep a house full of healthy normal kids.

It's one of the reasons I have never considered owning a center. It would turn into a medical facility really quickly. I can be very selective about taking on special needs care in a small setting because I don't have the population to be able to spread the costs of the special needs care. If I had a center I wouldn't be able to make the decisions to offer services based on what I really felt comfortable doing.

I consult for two centers but I'm never onsite when there are kids in the building. Too risky for ME. The center here that does specialize in special needs kids has a staff of nurses and the insurance to cover them. (very expensive). They have grant funding and can bill for medical procedures. That's the only way it could really work without putting your career and license at risk.

I'm only interested in healthy kid care. The only special needs care I really dig is feeding issues. I'm good at that and feel comfortable with it. Behavior issues and day to day medical care is something that I'm not passionate about. I have so much admiration for someone like you who can and does. I really do.

[Cat Herder]

I'm fairly new to these boards, but it seems like I always see post after post after post of providers complaining about parents who don't care.

This mom cares and wants to feed her kid! Let her! If she's disruptive (which I don't see how nursing can even be) then put your foot down to that!

What Mom? This is a provider posing a hypothetical. :confused:

Many of us do let them....just at their own home if it is not medically necessary for them to do it during daycare hours or if we have a place for them to do it without disrupting other kids.

Many providers do childcare out of their living rooms and do not have the luxury of offering up that extra space..

Parents can pick their child up anytime they want, or pump, they chose daycare for their child. Not us.

I don't get why this is suddenly a childcare provider responsibility...:confused: It never was in past generations.

Why should their life choices become my responsibility? I, myself, have never gotten anyone pregnant to my knowledge...

[Michelle]

You obviously have a very specific type of relationship with your clients, and that's great. Not everyone has that luxury. Out of all the people I've worked with and met since I started this, I would only want to cultivate that type of relationship with my current client, who is made of awesome. I wish you would send your excess clients my way!

Not all babies cry until they throw up. And I really don't think anyone is advocating letting a baby leave the daycare setting in a state of starvation......we're just discussion why we will or will not allow breastfeeding moms to feed babies in daycare.

for those us us who have breastfed, once baby sees mommy, there will be no bottle feeding,
If I had to go somewhere and leave my baby with dh, it would go o.k. with the expressed milk but the moment I walked in the door, she cried and wanted to nurse.
I love these families! They go far and above for me because I go far and above for them. I am really good at picking families now, it's like I have a "user" radar or something now, I haven't always had it!!! believe me

[PeanutsGalore]

I'm fairly new to these boards, but it seems like I always see post after post after post of providers complaining about parents who don't care.

This mom cares and wants to feed her kid! Let her! If she's disruptive (which I don't see how nursing can even be) then put your foot down to that!

The first words in my post were..."I let my first client do this...". She did come by to nurse her kid. And what happened while she was here is the reason why I wouldn't let anyone else do it--not unless I drastically changed my setup to seclude them, which I can't do right now.

First, the mom was a low milk producer, so I had to entertain them while she was here and then feed her kid a bottle after every breastfeeding session anyway.

Mom also came by at unpredictable times. She would tell me what time she was planning on coming over and then be late by 30-45 minutes, while her very cranky, screaming daughter waited for lunch. I don't blame her kid for being cranky--I'd be cranky if my lunch were late too, but the screaming was not only irritating to me (she was a screaming rage baby), but disruptive to my son. The only reason I didn't go ahead and feed her was because I didn't want to interfere with the nursing relationship, and I honestly think I was more concerned about that than the mother was.

The unpredictable visits interrupted my son's naptime because he was too distracted to nurse down to sleep himself while we had visitors. It even interrupted her own daughter's naptime on more than one occasion.

I frequently told her that I had to keep her daughter and my son separate, or be on the floor with them to closely supervise during free play, because they didn't get along well and ended up fighting. She would always, ALWAYS put her daughter on the floor right next to my son to play...her daughter would steal a toy...a fight ensued. And she would stand there and watch and then I would have to drop what I was doing to go and make sure nobody's eyes got gouged out.

The straw that broke the camel's back for me was that once I got another client, she popped by during his naptimes frequently. At this point, she wasn't even nursing anymore, just stopping by to play with her daughter, and while she encouraged her daughter to engage in loud play--including the screaming that her daughter had a problem with anyway--she woke the baby up. And then had the nerve to say.."Oh look, I woke up ***!" Then she laughed.

She was the type of client who did what she wanted when she wanted. She didn't put her daughter or anyone else first, she put herself first. And this was really the problem...but no longer mine, because I terminated the contract. A lot of the issues were due to my mismanagement of the whole relationship as well, but I really didn't know any better. And for me to address the disruption issue in this case, I would have had to tell her to go and feed her daughter elsewhere, which I wasn't prepared to do because that rubs me the wrong way as well.

You said you didn't see how nursing could be disruptive, and the act of nursing ISN'T disruptive. It's what can potentially happen as a result. I think it can only work when you have clients who respect not only you, but the other children in the household.

[nannyde]

I don't have a den, I wish I did. The moms will come in and nurse if they want to, usually in the living room. We have a very large playroom and outside space. The kids are usually very involved in their activities.
My parents aren't these strange scary people that should be kept out of my house. I have had all their kids since they were born and we are like a family. These moms teach them to call me Auntie, or Auntie Michelle.
I love it !!! We love our kids and parents but I don't allow the parents to touch or play with the other kids.
Most of the parents pick up and drop off at the door but I can't and won't forbid them from coming in to get their kids.
Licensing laws say they can come at any time to see their child.
Only the nursing moms stay or sit on the couch, and not every time or every day, they usually just leave me their frozen milk and I feed the baby.

But I would never tell a mom, " no, leave and go feed your baby somewhere else" that just has an icky kinda feeling for me. come on, seriously.
What if they have a long drive? should they feed the baby in their car?
maybe just let the baby scream all the way home til they throw up?
We all take very good care of our babies, this is a no brainer!
(I'm talking about the people who won't allow the moms in at all..the wait on the step providers) The middle of the day bfing moms... well this is my choice and my personal decision. They love me and I am always getting kids from word of mouth through them... and always good families!!

Well I think your idea of how it works is very different from reality. The breast feeding onsite convo happens once and it lasts about fifteen seconds.

Would I be able to feed the baby at your house on my lunch break?

Answer: No, I don't offer that service. I do all the feedings while the kids are in my house. That is with formula fed infants and breast feeding infants.

End of discussion. If it doesn't work for them then they just boogie on down the road. I've never had anyone ask me to have them feed when they pick up. Since we feed the babies right after nap the baby wouldn't even eat at that time. The pick up time is really close to the last feeding time.

I require ALL infants to be fed BEFORE they come to day care in the mornings. I have the same convo with bf baby mama's that I do formula feeding babies. They must feed their baby before day care. I don't do first morning feedings. So feeding them at drop off would be too close in time too.

I'm curious about your licensing laws. Do they say that parent must have ACCESS to the child at all times or does it say that they must be allowed to stay on site whenever they choose for as long as they choose?

I can't imagine they require you to allow parents to stay onsite if they choose. That would be SO dangerous. I can't imagine the State not understanding that just because someone can have sex, conceive a child, and either access funding or privately pay for child care that they are inately safe around other peoples kids with a provider who is alone at a house.

Our prisons are chalked full of parents. The sex offender registry is chalked full of parents. Our psyche wards are chalked full of parents. Being a parent doesn't in any way shape or form indicate ANY level of safety. It's not an indicator or marker in ANY way that the person is safe. It just indicates the person can adopt a child or have sex, conceive a child, carry a child, give birth to a child, and have some way of paying for child care. Nothing more.... nothing less.

If they have that reg it needs to be fought and changed. It's REALLY dangerous not only for the kids but the providers kids and the provider.