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Home › Articles › Issues for Mom › Surviving Date Night

Surviving Date Night

Help for Your Breastfed Baby and the Babysitter

By Shel Franco

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Some babysitters cook dinner, throw in a load of laundry, pick up the house and unload the dishes. Others play a mean game of peek-a-boo, sing joyful songs and leave your child begging for more. But no matter how much your sitter is loved and adored, chances are there's one important thing she can't do for your baby: breastfeed.

"Breastfeeding is about more than what my child is eating," says Jennifer Ward of Ashtabula, Ohio. "It's the way I mother."

That's exactly why leaving your breastfed baby with a sitter can be so hard.

When Ward's daughter was 6 months old, a wedding invitation came in the mail. "It was for a close friend," says the 31-year-old mother of two. "I couldn't say no, but I kept looking at Ashley, wondering how I could say yes. I kept willing the 'Adults Only Reception' phrase to disappear from the invitation."

With the phrase firmly planted on the glossy paper and the RSVP date closing in, Ward reluctantly sent in her positive reply and started looking for a babysitter.

"I nurse when she's hungry. I nurse when she's sad. I nurse when she's tired, bored, happy," Ward says. "My first instinct is to nurse. I knew she would be a wreck without it."

Still, Ward was able to find a sitter and set out to prepare Ashley and her caregiver for the big night.

Dinnertime
A sitter, serving formula to her young charge, can simply look on the can for mixing and quantity requirements. When your sitter opens your fridge and freezer only to be met with plastic bottles or baggies filled with expressed breastmilk, you can imagine the confusion that ensues.

International Board Certified Lactation Consultant Ann Calandro from the Piedmont Medical Center in Rock Hill, S.C. offers the following advice:

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