AIBU to think I will be able to leave a 2 month old breast fed --hopefully-- baby at home with dad (and expressed milk) for 1 day a week.

[honeytea]

I'd love some advice about my parental leave plan, I'm not sure if I am being really unrealistic.

It's a little long winded I apologise!

We live in Sweden so we are very lucky to get 18 months of paid parental leave to share between me and DP, the rules are that we both have to take at least 60 days and DP gets 2 free weeks directly after the birth. To make things more confusing if we split the leave 50/50 we get a bonus of around 1500 pounds (so it would be usefull to split it 50/50.)

PFB is due in December so our plan is for DP to take his 2 weeks leave, then holiday for 2 weeks (over christmas so it will add up to around 5 weeks all in all.) When the baby is 8 weeks we were thinking of DP working 4 days a week and me working 1 day, I am intending to breast feed, I know it might not work out for me and the baby but I hope it goes well, if I do BF DP (hopefully) give the baby expressed breast milk whilst I am at work. Has anyone any advice about this? could breast milk but from a bottle negatively eggect BF?

Also am I crazy to consider leaving my 8 week old baby for an entire day when I do have the option of staying at home, will I be a weeping wreck on the train to work in the morning?

To get the bonus we would have to change over when the baby is around 9 months so I would work 4 days and DP 1 day. DP has never changed a nappy and despite being very excited about the idea of being a dad doesn't really have much interest in children in general, should I maybe push for me to take all the leave myself.

I have no idea what it's like to have a baby of my own, I am making all these plans based on logistics not emotions I would love some advice regarding how it feels to have a baby.

:)

Sounds like a great idea! (I am jealous!)

I would imagine that by 8 weeks a bottle wouldn't negatively affect BFing, but do be prepared for the baby to not be great with the bottle. Your dh may have to spoon milk in for the first few times.

Our situation was also governed by necessity & logistics. I went back full time when ds was 5mo, but as DH worked weekends, he looked after DS for his 2 days off in the week.

It's been great. We have an incredibly equal parenting dynamic.

8 weeks might be early for some, but I would have gladly done 1 day at that stage (I hit a wall at 12 weeks, I'm not good at being at home with a baby and my own thoughts)

It sounds like a good plan to start with, presumably you can always change it later.

It really depends on a few different things that are hard to predict. My gut feeling is that 8 weeks is very early esp if the baby is bf, and it could be quite stressful trying to express enough milk and get baby to accept a bottle. Bear in mind too that if you have a difficult birth, 8 weeks isn't really a long time to recover.

Play it by ear is my advice but do try to avoid putting unnecessary pressure on yourself. Those first weeks are hard and very precious so go easy on yourself.

18 months of paid parental leave between you, and two weeks enforced paternity leave! Holy moly - good for you!

No personal advice on giving breast milk out of a bottle, although I know someone who did this 5 days a week from 12 weeks to weaning, so I know it can be done.

My personal advice is to continue doing what you're doing: think about all the options, discuss them between you. If your experience is anything like mine (have 5mo PFB napping next to me), one or both of you may be taken aback by how you feel when the baby arrives. Flexibility will be key. If you want to start getting ducks in order now, I would do whatever to ensure you have flexibility when the baby arrives.

Good luck, and congratulations in advance!

I did it to go to college, one day a week from about 6 weeks. No problems at all.

Just be aware you might not be able to express. I bf my DS for 17 months but never managed to get more than a drip out with a pump.

I couldn't express a drop either.

Hej honey!
Our DDs had breast milk from a bottle fairly early on and it was fine. To be fair it wan't for every feed, but they both accepted the bottle with no problems.
We had our DCs in Belgium where FF is much more common and less looked down on so they would occasionally have formula if there was no BM in the fridge/freezer. Also fine.
Good luck with your plans

YANBU but you may be being unrealistic. Some babies just won't take a bottle.

I've found a lot of people give up BF at around 6 weeks, I think it's because it takes this long to establish supply/demand, and they dont realise this and think its not going well.
You will be fine, but I think start expressing to ensure lots of extra milk for when you aren't there as baby will naturally want more as a comfort thing when you are away. Also to ensure if your other half warms a bottle and then baby falls asleep, there is more milk available.

I did this as I had to in back to college. Worked really well. Daddy loved it. I would recommend an electric pump though it was much quicker and more productive than the manual one I started out with.

Also start expressing early to establish supply and get used to just expressing. It's an art!!

As others say, stay flexible until after the baby is born. Life changes so much (for the better, ime) when a first baby is born, it's hard to predict what will work in advance.

A few things to bear in mind - would it be a massive inconvenience for your DH to bring the baby to a cafe near your workplace for your lunch hour? That may make all the difference if expressing doesn't come easily to you. (I've never had any probs bfing, but not successfully expressed.)

Also - Will you, and then he, really be productive and fulfilled from working 1 day a week? Many, many jobs that is just too little time there to really fell part of it. If I were you, I'd be looking at a 2 day/3 day split.

I think it's perfectly do-able, you have all week to express enough milk for the one day.

If you express at the first feed of the morning, from one side while the baby feeds from the other (hire or buy an electric pump) it will be easy.

I went back to work (full-time) when my 2 DS were 12 weeks. In the end I bf DS1 for a year (but struggled to express enough and he had formula at the childminder's and bf at home).

DS2 bf for 4 years , I was better at expressing with him - did the above (morning feed, electric pump). Once he was 8 months or so he just had meals at the childminder's and bf when he was with me.

About the emotional side of it. Well it was hard but I had to do it or repeat a year of my course. My biggest bit of advice is don't try and make daddy do things the way you do. He will find his own way to settle baby, feed him, dress him etc. So don't stress about him doing things the right way. Also don't put pressure on yourself that we made this plan so I have to stick with it. It could all feel really different once baby is here and it is ok to change the plan.

Thank you for all the advice!

I will try to keep it as open as possible, in theory I'm happy with the arangement I just hope it all goes to plan!

The breast feeding advice is very interesting, I wasn't aware that it took so long to get into a rythem with it.

As surroundedbyblondes said FF is looked down upon here, they don't let you leave hospital till your milk has come in. People already think I'm strange if we ff they might think I'm crazy, but oh well so long as the baby is happy we will be happy :)

I think most parents do an even 9 month split or just have the mum stay at home for most of the time, I just feel like my DP will get the hard fun bit if he has the baby from 9-18 months.

YANBU
If you exclusively BF until around 6 weeks your feeding should be well established. I would have thought you'd be able to express while at work so you don't have long gaps between taking milk from your breasts. (it's the long gaps that affect your milk supply).
It will be tiring non? going back to work, but if you maintaining feeding and expressing (check out LA leche and UNICEF babyfriendly websites for advice about expressing) your baby can have your milk for as long as you want them to.
hope all works out well for you.

Just to reiterate, not everyone can express. I had no problem bfing and had a great supply but no matter what i did i just couldn't get more than an ounce.

YANBU

I don't think you're being unrealistic in thinking it's possible, but equally it might not be possible, depends on a few factors, e.g. ease of expressing, whether baby will take a bottle. So I wouldn't set anything in stone, wait and see is always a good approach.

My DS is 10 weeks and EBF, there is no way that I could express enough milk to leave him for a whole working day (although tbh I wouldn't want to).

I do think it sounds like a really good idea to split the leave with your DH though. Could you maybe do a mix of formula and breast milk on the day you are at work? Do also bear in mind you will need to express while at work otherwise your boobs will become very uncomfortable and it might mess up your supply which is pretty well established by 8 weeks.

My DS has started to take a bottle but he wasn't keen, I would recommend the MAM bottles and at the moment you can order a bottle and manual pump for half price and it's a really good pump so you could take it to work with you.

The work thing is for odd reasons really, I tutor little kids in English and it is really very well paid for what I have to do, it would be an extra 400 pounds a month just with me working 1 day. It's not so much for my career it's more to do with keeping intouch with those families, if I took 6 months off the kids would not be as attached to me and they would have got a new tutor.

I would only be working 4/5 hours but with 2-3 hours on public transport, it might be pushing the libral Swedish nudity culture to express on the train what do you think? DP could meet me for a lunch break that's a great idea!

My eventual plan is to study 4 days a week once my mummy leave is over (rather than go back to work), I will keep working with the families I had one day a week and study full time (full time study is only 3 hours a day here so it should be fine) I will get money because i will be a student but the extra 4/5 hours of tutoring will be usefull for extra money, so really it boils down to money.

Part of my decision to want us to share the leave is that it took a long time to get pregnant with pfb so i do feel like me and DP should both get a chance to be a stay at home parent as a little bit of me worries we will only ever have the one baby, a selfish part of me want to be at home all the time so i get all the special bits to myself and don't miss them.

Btw, be prepared also for people to expect you to give up breastfeeding at 6 months and feed Välling instead

definitly regualr expressing so think about how that would fit in. for the first 4 weeks i did 2o minutes of expressing ever 2hours it was full on. the realtionship my son has with dh now is still very special. It also meant when he was out of work it was ano brainer for him to do all the childcare and me worked fulltime as i totally trusted him to be able to manage. we now both work part time so the kids (3 Ds's) are in minimal childcare saves us a fortune.

Välling is that the porridge milk stuff?

rain did you have to do that in the night? I think I'm a little naive!

Yes, not sure there is a direct translation