For considering leaving my 4 month old and nearly 3 year old with family for the weekend?

[loveroflife]

My friend is getting married in Spain and DH and I have been invited - she has a no children rule, which is fair enough.

By that time I will have a four month old and a nearly three year old - AIBU in leaving them with family while DH and I go to the wedding?

It will be Fri-Monday and my mother and sister will move into our home.

I have never left DS so first time away from both.

My main concern is breastfeeding - I struggled with DS and gave into the bottle after 8 weeks after combination feeding, my concern is that if I ebf the new baby he/she will not take a bottle for that weekend.

I don't want to make it a traumatic experience for mum, so I would have to introduce a bottle at nights at say 3 months, so he/she would be happy to take it when I am away - I am worried that when I return he/she won't want the breast again and I will have to bottle feed (I am determined to stick with breast this time.)

I'm already finding lots of excuses not to go, but DH says we should attend as we don't go anywhere and I will regret not seeing my friend marry.

Has anyone else left their children at similar ages?

Thanks

Yanbu, I am going to new York with dh in august when dd1 will be 4 and dd2 will be (fingers crossed) 8 months. I am not planning on bf though....but in principle yadnbu.

If it helps you persuade the bride, someone brought an uninvited baby to my wedding (didn't ask, I'd have happily made an exception if I'd known the circs) and I didn't even notice until about 8pm! If the guests were cooing over him, they certainly weren't taking anything away from me by doing so.

Honestly, I wouldn't want to leave a 4 month old for a weekend to fly to another country. Regardless of how they're fed. I'd be sobbing my heart out at the airport.

If you want to do it, fine, but it will be disruptive to BF and you'd need to pump and dump to stay comfortable. Your DH doesn't sound particularly helpful. What does he feel he's missing out on?

I chose not to leave my ebf babies for longer than 2-3 hours til they had started weaning. So baby at 4 months would have been coming with me.
Other people have different views, but I think 4 days, possibly at prime growth spurt time may not be the best option. It would be a lot of work to express enough milk, and then you would need to express every few hours in Spain to keep up your supply.
If you want to go, I suggest posting on the breastfeeding board to get some advice on how best to manage things from the very knowledgeable people over there.

I don't think YANBU to consider it, but I couldn't have done it. I'd consider leaving the 3yo with either mum or sister, and take the baby (and the other person if possible) to Spain.

My DH and I went to New York for a week when our DS was 4 months and it was fantastic. We missed DS but from the sounds of things he didn't miss us! YANBU for considering the trip. I planned to ebf too but it didn't work out - how do you really know what you're going to do until the baby arrives? I would plan to go to the wedding, and change my plans only if I had to, ie my baby wouldn't take a bottle.

YANBU-I went to Dublin for a weekend when dd2 was 3mths old, yes I missed her, yes I was happy to come home to her, but it was my best friends hen weekend, I was maid of honour and had organised the whole thing so felt I couldn't not go. I pumped a lot in the weeks leading up to going away so I left lots of frozen bm, have her a few bottles of ebm in the weeks leading up to going so I knew she'd take it. I pumped every 3/4hrs and just before bed/on waking while away.

Dd was fine, latched straight back on upon my return and I continued with bf until she self weaned at about 15mths. So it can be done, yanbu, but if you don't want to go and you tell your friend that, yanbu either.

My DD is 5 months and couldn't imagine leaving her. Longest I've left her was 4 hours and that was with DH and I was only 5 minutes away at the hairdressers. I still sent 6 texts in that time!

Fairly recently I went on a hen weekend where one of the other hens had left a young, ebf baby. She did manage, her baby took the expressed milk and was able to resume bfing afterwards. However by saturday night she was really suffering with expressing, soreness and missing baby.
There is absolutely no way I could have gone away for a night, and certainly not a weekend, when ds2 was that age, but he was the worst sleeper imaginable. Also your dc1 may still be adapting to having a new baby, ds1 needed a lot of extra attention when ds2 was small, as he found all the change unsettling, don't underestimate how much a 3 yo still needs you. It's lovely that your mum and sister are offering, at that stage I used all babysitting favours to spend extra 1-1 time with ds1, he needed it as he had a lot of jealousy issues.
I would never put a wedding before my dc, in these circumstances my dc, my mum and my sister would all have had a miserable weekend. Your dc might be very different though, so it wouldn't necessarily be the case for you.

In theory YANBU. I have left my 9mo several times with my parents for a night or two. I enjoyed the break, and I know DD and my parents loved the bonding time together.

However, if you are still bf at this point then this could be a real issue - your baby may be happy on the bottle, but you will need to express for those 4 days.

I have to echo what the other posters say about knowing your baby before you can make this decision. If your baby sleeps well, will take a bottle and is generally happy with people other than mum and dad than this could be a great experience for everyone. But if he isn't, then this could be a nightmare.

Can you wait to make a decision?

I can't believe some of you are saying "accept you won't EBF" for the sake of a wedding

The three year old, fine, but surely your friend will understand the need to take a small baby? Four months old, breastfed or not, is so little to be left for the weekend.

Think your H is being a bit of a tit about it too.

I have a three year old and a five month old.

I'm not sure I'd even look back

I left ds2 when he was 3 months old to go to a wedding, but we left early on Saturday morning and returned about midday Sunday. In-laws looked after both ds1 and ds2. He was ebf and that didn't change! I expressed and froze milk in the two or three weeks leading up to the wedding, but I regretted not getting him used to a bottle like you suggested. In the event, he didn't take much from the bottle, but enough to let him sleep during the night and as far as I know he wasn't a nightmare! When I came back, he went right back on the breast and didn't take a bottle again until he was maybe 8 months. It had no effect on his feeding at all, in other words.

We did stay in the hotel where reception was do that I could express. Sadly, also found out that it's not a myth that your milk will flow when any baby cries. In the middle of the wedding ceremony, I soaked my (thankfully black) top!

I booked tickets to see one of my favourite bands when I was pregnant. DS would be 5 months, I figured that would be plenty of time to leave him for an evening.
In reality it was really difficult. DS was exclusively BF and refused bottles. I managed it, but by luck more than anything as DSis lives next to the venue and had DS, with plans to ring me if he needed me. I checked my phone often while at the gig. I gave him a big feed before going and DS was happy with his auntie. I was only away 3 hours and it was so much harder than I'd imagined!

There's no way we could have done a weekend. I think the adults involved are asking you to do something totally unreasonable. At that age, if you're BFing, either the baby comes too or you don't go. People may not understand this, but you need to be firm that those are the rules, if you want to BF IMO.

Good luck! :)

6mo DS hasn't been left with anyone for more than an hour - point blank refuses a bottle, even if its EBM.

If you do EBF successfully, leaving the baby for 4 days would probably cause issues, even with pumping. Personally it's either me-and-baby or none at all ATM unfortunately

I would also be worried that my baby would be very distraught if I was gone for 4 days. There is no way of explaining to the baby that you'll be back. 4 days would seem like forever to such a little one.

Just realised it's 4 days/3 nights, that is a long time, especially when you haven't been away overnight before.

1. Can you make it a shorter trip?
2. Actually, you're already thinking of excuses not to go and to me that indicates that you don't really want to. Tell your husband how you really feel, and maybe plan an overnight stay somewhere for the two of you in this country.

You haven't had the baby yet, and I really don't think you'll be able to make a decision until you have - until quite close to the wedding itself, actually.

The best you can do at this stage is say, "I won't be able to decide until the baby is born and I see how settled s/he is, sorry. If you need an answer now, it will have to be 'no', but if you're happy to wait until a few weeks beforehand, it might change to 'yes'".

Good luck with the birth btw :)

The problem with bf that you may have had could of been through combination feeding, to early, not all babies take to combination feeding.

So firstly you have to decide how important bf, is.

Secondly, how much that you want to go to the wedding. If my DH had of suggested leaving my babies, when he could have gone alone, he would have been told, straight, that it was my decision alone. That is a new mums right, no mother should be seperated from their babies, unless it is a need within themselves, to have a break (and i'd question a full two days, tbh).

Thirdly, it depends on whether your mum or sister is a secondry care giver to your children, which means daily contact from birth, until you go.

Those who are talking about babies older than 6 months, that is very different to a new pre weaned, baby.

Personally, I wouldn't leave a baby for a long weekend at 4 months but that is a personal choice.

As regards the breast feeding, you would definitely need to introduce a bottle early (before 4 weeks probably) to ensure that the baby could take a bottle happily. You would also need to express regularly over the weekend which could be really difficult in practice. You might find that, after 4 days, your milk supply isn't as good as it was before you left.

I think your options are:

1. Say no to the invitation.
2. Ask if taking the baby would be a possibility (possibly with a family member to babysit in the evening).
3. Go but accept that there is a risk that the bf may not work out on your return and that you will have to express whilst away with possible sore/ leaky boobs!

Sorry but no way would I go if I was BF a 4 mo. I'd say to your friend you can come with baby or you'll have to decline. It is just too long imo to leave such a little baby. And it would be an awful lot of stress just for someone else to have a party.
This IS what happens when you have children - you can't party as hard or as long as you used to. Compromises have to be made at your own expense and not generally at that of your children.
If it's your DH insisting then I'd be telling him to get real and remember you're parents. One night away maybe but 4 ...
Not for me ... but my friend did this and was perfectly happy - But I couldn't have done it.

Re leaving DCs for a weekend, do what you like.

But it seems extremely odd to me that you are contemplating arranging your new baby's feeding pattern, and potentially risking not being able to BF successfully - which is REALLY important to you! - over something as trivial as a wedding.

My DS is 6 months and is predominantly breastfed but has always been able to take the occasional bottle of formula/expressed milk (was poorly as a newborn so was unfortunately not able to ebf).

In all honestly there's no way I would have been able to leave DS for that length of time with my mum or sister (or even for that matter with DH). DS is a very clingy baby and has only now started to sleep/nap and while I have left him for a couple of hours now's a bit older the thought of him being upset that his mummy isn't there to comfort him for such a long length of time would break my heart.

The breastfeeding issue is to me a big additional complication (I would need to express every 3 hours minimum) but to me an even bigger issue is a baby like mine needs to be with his mum full stop. I know it won't always be like this though so it doesn't bother me that for the time being we're 'missing' out on some things. Guess it does depend on the baby's temperament though...

We were living with my pil when we had dd and when she was about 6 months mil suggested that dh and me could go away for the weekend for a break if we wanted and she would look after dd.
We jumped at the chance of a nice break.
DD was fine. She was ebf. I had expressed loads and frozen it.
I on the other hand was a mess. At the beginning it was fine but by the night i was in agony. I was so sick of expressing and it was so slow and painful.
We drove back the next morning and it was only an hour away from home and quickly put dd back on the boob and it was relief.

Definately could not do 4 nights.