You should be livid with his mother. Daycare offered formula, he refused. What more could they have done? She needs, obviously, to send more milk.

I totally empathize with you, OP. Hugs.
That family is lucky to have you.

Anonymous wrote:Mom should have sent more milk. They did the best they could. Mom is at fault.

They did NOT do the best they could. I agree that Mom should have sent more milk but that doesn't absolve the daycare of any fault. People can miscalculate, the baby may have been going through a growth spurt and the mom didn't realize there wouldn't be enough etc. There are any number of reasons why there may not have been enough milk. That doesn't make it ok to let a baby cry for hours in hunger without bothering to contact anyone on the emergency list. It doesn't matter that the baby will be fine and obviously won't remember this incident. It doesn't make it ok.

Mom should have sent more milk. They did the best they could. Mom is at fault.

Anonymous wrote:mom needs to have a better back up plan in place because at some point she's not going to be able to produce enough milk. That's on her that the baby went hungry. You send more than you think you'll need and if your boobs can produce enough then you have another plan to make sure your kid doesn't go hungry. Also, he's more than three months, like PP said, it wasn't an exorbitant amount of time. I know it's hard to see a baby you love "suffer" in any way, but this isn't the worst thing that could have happened and he'll live to tell about it.

Huh? Why? Plenty of people pump more than enough for babies at daycare for a year or more. And, if there was more BM at home, clearly there was some to spare. Maybe he hit a growth spurt and suddenly needed more -- it doesn't sound like he's been going hungry on a regular basis.

I EBF and here are my thoughts:
1) Daycare should have a policy about this (what they do if they run out of milk in the middle of the day), and should have told mom when she signed up. If there was no policy, that's a crappy daycare. If they didn't follow the policy, then that's a crappy daycare. If mom didn't communicate the policy to the nanny, but the daycare followed it, that's on mom.
2) It sucks to see an unhappy baby, but he will not be scarred for life. If he was really crying from the time of the last feeding, something else was going on, b/c he shouldn't have been hungry right away.

mom needs to have a better back up plan in place because at some point she's not going to be able to produce enough milk. That's on her that the baby went hungry. You send more than you think you'll need and if your boobs can produce enough then you have another plan to make sure your kid doesn't go hungry. Also, he's more than three months, like PP said, it wasn't an exorbitant amount of time. I know it's hard to see a baby you love "suffer" in any way, but this isn't the worst thing that could have happened and he'll live to tell about it.

If my daycare let my 13 week old scream for hours because he was hungry and tried to give him formula without my consent, I would be furious and would quit the daycare.

Well maybe I'm too close to the situation then because he eats every 3hours and this was close to 4 by the time we got home and I got him another bottle of bm prepared.
Mom was furious about the formula.

Also, they should not be giving formula without prior consent.

3 and 1/2 hours isn't exactly a negligent amount of time for a 3 month old to go between feedings...

I work PT caring for a 13 week old after his daycare closes as his mom doesn't get off work til much later. Anyway, baby was hungrier than usual today and ran out of breast milk/bottles at 225 (which this was already a short bottle) this afternoon. (I pick him up at 6). The daycare offered him formula at 4 but he refused it (exclusive bm baby). So this daycare let this baby go hungry all afternoon. He didn't take a nap from 225 on the rest of the day and was hysterical when I walked thru the doors. I didn't get past the front desk and I could tell something was wrong, he was that distraught. So I brought him home and fed him of course and he's zonked out asleep. I'm listed as this baby's first emergency contact and I work (as a nanny), 15 min away. I could have easily swung by his house and gotten more milk. His mom works 90min away which is why I'm listed first. Anyway, I am so mad I'm shaking and I just had to vent this before his mom gets home so I'm some semblance of calm when I tell her. Because even though I'm not mom, and just his nanny, I want to punch his teacher in the face for letting a 13week old go hungry.