to feel sad that friend is happy to be separated from her newborn for first 3 nights

[Whoneedssleepanyway]

My friend is due to have DC2 in a few weeks and after a very bad labour resulting in some problems for her DS, she has booked into a private hospital for an elective CS.

I w her the other day and she said the hospital insist she stays in 3 nights and it is brilliant as they will take the baby to the nursery all night for her so she can sleep and will feed the baby for her as she doesn't intend to BF.

I didn't pass comment as this is up to her but I can't help feeling a bit sad that her baby won't be with its mum for the first 3 nights of its life but will be with some stranger, both my DDs slept with me (on my chest) for first 3 nights.

AIBU?

On that note, AIBU to find him just a little bit appealing? (Aside from the whole feeding thing) Methinks the answer is probably yes but I bet I'm not alone

I believe I read a story with a similar plot that featured Boris Yeltsin as the hero of the hour...

Byeck - there has to be something appealing about a man who could make childbirth a little less stressful by taking care of the child for the first three days without issue

I'd have loved it if i'd had some more help at night during the first few days. DD was born at 5pm...first night ok...then second night bossy witch mw strode up the way saying "only use your buzzer if it's an EMERGENCY" in a scary, glary way.

Sooooo....being a naive first time mum i thought 'well...baby needing changing/feeding etc isn't an emergency' so i didn't press the buzzer. Got no sleep and spent all night hauling myself in and out of bed and around the ward to sort her out. Stumbling around carrying my bag of wee. After an EMCS.

I would've enjoyed her early days much more if i'd had help (and yes next time i'll make damn sure i get it).

there has to be something appealing about a man who could make childbirth a little less stressful by taking care of the child for the first three days without issue

My husband did this - stayed awake for the first three nights at home so that I could sleep without worrying about sleeping through baby crying or falling asleep whilst feeding her. (Women have offered me money for him!)

I don't think many posters have talked about the support the father can offer during those early days. Such a shame that men are expected to be there for the birth but then forgotten about for those early days when their support can be so crucial.

World, my DH will be doing all the night feeds, did with the other two aswel,

My meds knock me out through the night... shame that

DH does the nightfeed too (DS is 6 months). He also puts him to bed every night, then comes down and washes up after dinner etc. I am very spoiled.

Haven't got much to add to what everyone else has said but just wanted to reply to shag's point about humans being the only mammals who separate themselves from their babies after birth - most mammals are not in labour for 24+ hours, nor do they have C sections or end up with 3rd degree tears. Birth is harder for humans because we have proportionately larger heads and smaller pelvises. Giving birth for a cat or a dog or a pig just doesn't compare yo the experience that women have. I ended up being admitted to a Mother and Baby unit with psychotic depression after I had Ds2 and I don't think sleep deprivation was the only factor but it didn't help. The first week that I was in the MBU, I was told that i had to leave the baby with the ward staff overnight as I needed sleep to recover.

Indeed they do.

Other mammals are also not under pressure to write thank-you cards, e-mail photos around the world, get the washing done or remember when the bloody HV is supposed to be coming round.

yes they do lequeenn animals who lives in herds packs etc look after their young even small mammals like meercats do it so they have more support than humans when you think about it

It's not just the difficulty of labour, the third degree tears, the EMCS's that is all compounded by the medical establishment's complete failure to provide adequate staff to allow optimal care for mothers and babies even in the most straightforward deliveries. That is what makes recovery with your baby close by nigh on impossible. If there was enough money and generally when something is a priority the money can be found -- it could be done.

Yes I am sure I have read article that there is such thing as a maternal instinct that grandmothers get, they are biologically tuned to help out mother as birth is so difficult and it is so hard to look after newborn as it is so vulnerable. Babies really don't know the difference between their own mother and another woman surely, as long as they are getting lots of cuddles and their needs met? It is only later that happens.

I think most of us can agree that instinctively the moment our babies are born we have an instinct to protect them, but that this can be pushed to it's absolute limit with the physical and emotional demands of the newborn phase, especially when the "love" hasn't kicked in yet. I'm sorry but I think even the most selfless of cave women may have ended up dumping their baby outside someone else's cave if another woman in the tribe hadn't offered them a break now and then (and let's face it those cave men were useless!)

You see it now coming through, even childless women go gooey when they see a newborn and want to have a cuddle, if the mother sneaks off and sleeps while they do this is this unnatural? And why do childless women (and men too, but mainly women) choose to become midwives, nursery nurses and nannies? To say we are only designed to look after our OWN babies alone at all times must be rubbish surely?

I know the old "establishing feeding" line will be trotted out, but some people struggle regardless, I personally had over supply so a couple of hours away would have made no difference, I think breastfeeding will happen or it won't, and exhaustion or neglecting your own needs won't help, and of course in a tribal setting you would probably have other lactating mums that could step in if necessary.

this article basically says that the human race would not have survived if mothers had not had outside help from other younger women and grandmothers.

The last paragraph is particularly interesting if you can't be bothered to read it all.

They know their own mother from day one. They know her voice before birth and can pick out her face from the first two days.

Breastfeeding needs to be done frequently and regularly in order to establish supply -- it is not a question of it will happen or it won't.

And the point of all that village raising a baby stuff is not that it is fine to whip a baby away from a mother for long stretches. It is that the women get together to make it possible for the mother to spend the necessary time, unencumbered by other responsibilities, with the baby, because society has up to relatively recently recognised that the mother is the only one who can be the mother in the way the baby needs the mother to be the mother, i.e. available to meet the baby's needs 24/7. Most traditional churches allowed a period of 40 days outside the normal community and the responsibilities of a woman after birth and many societies still hold sacred a similar period to allow recuperation and the development of breastfeeding while other women take care of the new mother's normal work. I don't think we have advanced in this world of ours, where women are expected to bounce right back and pick up where they left off a few days after delivery, often on their own and unsupported.

Yes, there have been circumstances where babies couldn't be fed by a mother and a wet nurse stepped in, or where a mother needed a break or medical treatment in order to physically recover before being able to take care of the baby, but those circumstances would have been exceptional.

That article is a load of codswallop and most unscientific.