To be annoyed DH just said 'you need to give him a bottle'?

[Ams25]

my DS2 is EB, and at the moment is waking every couple of hours for a feed. I think this is manageable, since we co-sleep and I am still managing to get a reasonable amount of sleep (usually!) so I can get up with DS1 at 6 am. This morning my DH said dismissively 'you just need to start giving him a bottle'. This has annoyed me on so many levels I hardly know where to start. Both my children have been EB, I have always been the one to get up with them, my DH goes to the spare room if the baby disturbs him, he knows I don't want to formula feed (or need to come to that!) and this just makes me feel like he doesn't listen to me or understand anything about me as a mother!

4 months is a grim stage - DS was up for a feed every two hours at that stage. It was worse than when he was a newborn. It sounds as though you're doing brilliantly, and if you want to breastfeed and your DH isn't willing to get up at night and do formula feeds, it's totally your choice. (Incidentally, you may not have a choice by this stage: DS would never take a bottle in spite of our best efforts.)

If DH had said something like that to me, I'd have lamped him.

Oh and DS started sleeping through at 8 weeks, despite being EB.

If he was being supportive he'd have said something like maybe we could look at formula, this was dismissive and placing all the emphasis on the op.

YANBU.

My DH would happily do night feeds if I expressed, but all it means is less sleep for us all, as DD doesn't go back to sleep as easily if she's had a bottle, DH insists on changing her nappy after her feed and all in all it means he is awake for 90 mins he doesn't have to be, I am also awake for that 90 mins as I DH and DD keep me awake and I then need to BF DD to sleep anyway.

It's much easier for me (and DH) to just co-sleep and BF DD. It doesn't matter how many times she wakes up. I've given up clock watching and sometimes I don't even know. Yes, OK, sometimes I get tired, but usually I am fine. Yet people can never understand that I don't mind feeding my baby at night.

Luckily for me, DH does understand and he too wants what we feel is best for our DD. He also knows my stance on formula companies and that I do not wish to give them a penny of my money unless I absolutely have to and there's no way he's suggest it to me. Plus, his brother and SIL FF and their baby is still waking at least once a night at 15 months anyway.

Feast reading your husbands 'helpful' comment just made me bark with laughter! Shame HE couldn't breastfeed, bet he thinks he'd have done it better than you!

Fellationelson (great name btw) I don't really want him to say anything except wow what a great job you're doing for our baby,thank you! I want moaning to him this morning, just saying in a matter of fact way that baby woke quite often but I got back to sleep quickly and it was going to be a while before he slept through. I know this is normal and okay. His mum FF and left her babies to CIO when they were newborn so I suppose he may have been listening to her...

"His whole family think I'm making life harder for myself and ds for very little benefit"

Comments like this make me think that it's a bloody good thing with have strong breastfeeding advocacy in the UK. Because what there's still huge cultural resistance to the idea that breastfeeding is just as reliable and in fact the safest way to feed most babies.

But please Peterskullswitch, can you think again about using terms like 'Brestapo' to describe breastfeeding advocates? It polarises feelings in a way which is incredibly unhelpful and damaging to mothers. Even the most vociferous supporters of breastfeeding feel strongly that the fundamental position from which we all start is a basic belief that mothers have a right to choose what they do with their own bodies, and should be supported in their choices. 'Brestapo' and b/f nazi' suggest this is not the case.

Ahhh, that was bloody incoherent.

Maybe he was just trying to help

so, why do you get the casting vote over your child's needs? Why dont the father's requests get priority?

Sorry didn't mean to cause offence or be glib! I tend to use the term quite jokingly as I go to a LLL group and at first was quite surprised at how scary enthusiastic a few of the leaders are!

Now I've got to know them and they are all lovely and obviously I more than appreciate the work they do. I guess I'm trying to explain that breastfeeding for me is just the way I feed my baby, I'm not making a statement or a lifestyle choice and if I couldn't do it anymore it wouldn't be the end of the world for me, personally because my views on the subject aren't as strong as some people's. I do see what you're saying though!

4 months, aha. thats when it really kicks in

But dont lampoon husband, he just cares! and there is a school of thought that says a FF at bedtme makes them go for a few extra hours

never worked for me, but he wll say what he has heard thats all

Ams - 4 months is exactly the time that babies have a regression. Download the chart on this page and read the information on the whole site to understand your baby's very normal behaviour.

No idea how to explain to your husband, though, but sounds like there are communication issues above and beyond the breastfeeding issue

YANBU. My DH was well warned in advance that I was going to breastfeed and that I needed him to support me, and thankfully he has. If he had said that to me at any stage he would have gotten a serious bollocking . Tell him that when he grows a pair of lactating diddies he can have an opinion on choosing how to feed

Maybe the world has improved in twenty-plus years shagmundfreud but my DW was bullied and there is no other word for it when she said she did not want to bf. The bully asked me to go and DW immediately said "He stays; it's his baby too".

Doubtless breast is best but a happy ff-couple has advantages for the child over an unhappy bf-mother.

And one of DS's school friends was brought up by a widowed father - mother died of complications of childbirth and it still happens - and very successfully too.

Been thinking on this Ams and wondered if anyone has be saying to your dp about the cosleeping and bfing, perhaps making him doubt it. Reason I say this is because my well meaning mum simply didn't get bfing or cosleeping. I had to be very strong minded and dh is a very stubborn man which helped he be more sure of support iykwim. X

scarevola Mon 17-Oct-11 06:59:26
Maybe what you are interpreting as "dismissively" is actually the voice of concern.
We do not see things clearly or objectively when we are long-term sleep deprived.

This was certainly true in my case. OP maybe your DH was trying to help just putting it a bit kak handedly? Mine is always saying things badly but with the best of intentions.

And for those saying that dads have no input into feeding choices because they don't have breasts?

Do they also have no input into birth choices because they don't have wombs?

There was me thinking parenting (as a couple) was something based on joint decisions.

It's not "no input", but it's not "the final say", in either feeding choices or birth choices because, um, it's not their body. Seems fairly straightforward to me. DH was entitled to express his views about how DS was fed, and what went into the birth plan (and he did have views on both) but the final decision on both was mine, and he would never have suggested otherwise.

Which is exactly how it should be tadlow. But there is a post about 6/7 above where it states that a father should have no 'opinion'. Which I find totally wrong.

Exactly Tadlow. My earlier post was clearly tongue in cheek, however it is my opinion that birthing and feeding choices are ultimately the woman's decision, and that any decent partner would be supportive. Ordering Telling a breastfeeding mother that they need to give a bottle is downright offensive imo, not to mention a load of old bollocks.