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AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

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Original poster

to ask how old your pfb was when you first left them for around 8 hours?

124 replies

MamaSmurf99 · 12/03/2014 22:42

My pfb was around 18 months old before I left her for this amount of time. I'm not saying that's right or wrong, it's just the way it worked out with breastfeeding, not having any family around etc. ExHs baby with new gf was born on Thursday night. I took dd over on Saturday for her to meet the baby and his gf had gone to her mum's, leaving the baby with him for at least the 8 hours dd was there. I know its none of my business, their choice and so on but wondered if it was odd that I wasn't away from my pfb for so long and if many people leave babies while so young?

OP posts:

GuineaPigGaiters · 13/03/2014 07:38

I was hospitalised when our PFB was 6 months for an emergency OP. Unplanned and very stressful. DH would bring her to me for the whole day and Then return too the Hotel at night. (Oh yes, we were abroad on holiday.)
Apart from that , not until 3.5years. I think I was overprotective....much sooner with dc2!

FederationPresidentBarryFife · 13/03/2014 07:40

The Op is talking about a baby that is under a week old....

anyway, I don't want to get into a statistics war as I just googled to get that one. And it's so bloody tedious. My point is bonding.

We'll have to agree to differ georgesdino. So that's you vs me (and the rest of the mammals on earth.)

georgesdino · 13/03/2014 07:46

I left my exclusively breastfed baby and left them a few times at under a week old. I dont think it matters as all and dont like the assertion a dad cant care for his baby for 8 hours. Craziness

waterrat · 13/03/2014 08:19

Maybe the mum hasn't slept since the birth and her mother could see she was going to lose it if she didn't take a proper break

In traditional cultures - ie how we all lived for most Of human time on earth - women would have had a huge support network for the first weeks after birth and would have had a lot more time to recover

When I was born in the late 70s my own mum had 10 days in hospital to recover as was standard and I slept in a nursery watched over by midwives so she could recover

It' may be unusual what she did but I don't think it's necessarily unhealthy. If she is struggling then sleep is the best Tonic possible

waterrat · 13/03/2014 08:20

I also think the dad is just as capable as any woman of keeping a newborn safe for 8 hours and its just as important for him to bond!

MrsDavidBowie · 13/03/2014 08:24

I went away when did was 8 weeks old for two nights....she had been exclusively breastfed till then but I had to stop immediately. Dh coped just fine.

LittleBearPad · 13/03/2014 08:40

Of course a father can look after his child. It isn't in built at all how you change nappies etc. Just let him get on with it sneezy and stop hovering over him.

Federation the comment was made excluding breastfeeding and other posters have explained how they did both anyway.

OP pull losen those judgy pants. It is nothing to do with you. And day three is when hormones hit. It may have sounded fine to gf to have DSD on Sunday when they spoke on Friday. On Sunday it may have felt like the end of the world and she just wanted her mum and left her new baby with its father. Shock horror!

LittleBearPad · 13/03/2014 08:46

And for what it's worth three months when we went to the Olympics and I though she'd be safer at home with my parents.

CaptainHindsight · 13/03/2014 08:55

Sneezy86
"Our hormones enable us to react to/take care of a baby in a way a man can't."

You need to meet my DH. He became a stepfather at 18 y/o and took on so much responsibility and made many personal sacrifices to be a father to my son.

Does he see it that way? Does he chuff. He just loves the very bones of DS and the feeling is mutual.

Is his bond different to a biological father because it isn't his DNA? I would imagine you will tell me it is but I would challenge you to spend half an hour in their company and then ask you if you believe in nature over nurture.

Love is a verb. Without action it is just another word.

arethereanyleftatall · 13/03/2014 08:55

For all those saying you never left your child for months/years,so in all that time you never went out of an evening, never worked, never did a hobby, never left the father in sole care, never spent any quality time alone with husband/other children etc etc. I find that really unhealthy. A bit of balance is surely a good thing.

MrsSteptoe · 13/03/2014 09:00

I honestly don't know if you're judging or not, OP, but if you're concerned about the GF, that's nice of you and actually I take you at your word. Hope she's OK, because that's better for everyone - including, of course, your DD. But I don't think leaving the baby in its father's care is a worry in and of itself, no matter how flustering he may have found it!

I had to go into hospital for 24 hours when he was about five weeks, and DH looked after him. OK, that's a situation that was forced on me rahter than a choice, but the point is that I had no qualms about leaving him with DH. DH wasn't particularly freaked out about it, but if he had been, I'd have taken the view that not much could go wrong, and being a bit flustered about it was no excuse - much better to get on with it than allow stereotypical roles to take a hold in anyone's mind - DS's, DH's or anyone else's. He has just as much common sense as I do, and he was highly unlikely to do anything or indeed fail to do anything that was going to cause any harm!

MrsSteptoe · 13/03/2014 09:05

Captain Hindsight Well said. It may well be the case that hormones enable us to do all kinds of things differently to men, but I really don't think on the whole that babies suffer for being left in the care of a man for eight hours, or even longer. Just because birth mothers do things differently, or maybe even marginally better, that doesn't make the alternative an automatically poor choice.

Goblinchild · 13/03/2014 09:13

What a mean post OP.
I left my PFB when she was 4 months old, because I had to go back to work full time. She was fed EBM by her father, I was out of the house from 7am to 6pm 5 days a week.
They were both fine, partly because neither OH or me had any experience at all of babies and small children, so we'd worked things out together as we went along and there was no chromosonal smuggery involved on my part. We were as clueless as each other.
OP, I'd be wondering what I could do to help, why my ex was still so clueless when this is his second child at least and how I could help make his gf feel like she was the most amazing person to ever give birth.
Or I'd keep contact to a minimum as anything else would be unkind.

FederationPresidentBarryFife · 13/03/2014 09:13

Just because birth mothers do things differently, or maybe even marginally better, that doesn't make the alternative an automatically poor choice.
I totally AGREE. I just objected to the idea that being with dad or someone else was no different to Mum. I just think the hormones etc are all playing a role.

But back to the OP - I think YANBU. It's a bit strange to leave a newborn so young, all day BUT maybe she needed a rest and no judgement there!!!!

Goblinchild · 13/03/2014 09:18

I suppose that opening sentence is one of the reasons that WOTH mothers occasionally want to kick SAHM.
Federation, you make it sound as if she left the baby in a box in the luggage office without food. Presumably the baby could rely on its father for 8 hours? Even if the OP had rendered him almost ineffective as a carer for a newborn?

FederationPresidentBarryFife · 13/03/2014 09:24

No i didn't!

I just wouldn't have left my own newborn for so long. Not that her Dad couldn't have coped just MY hormones wouldn't have allowed me!

NOTHING was said about SAHM WOHM etc etc Just people projecting. As usual

Lj8893 · 13/03/2014 09:46

At 3 weeks old we left dd with my mum and stepdad for 4 hours to go to my Mils birthday party.
Dd is now 19 weeks and will be staying overnight with Mil on Saturday so we can have a night out to celebrate my birthday, I'm quite scared really but I know she will be fine.

Goblinchild · 13/03/2014 09:51

'Dad's can do a lot, mine did. My DH and my DF for me! But, c'mon. A new baby should be with it's mother. Hence the searing agony felt by some when MIL comes bustling over and takes the baby off to show friends etc etc
It's not a feminist issue. Or don't muddy it if it is. Men should be an active SUPPORT, as should society but don't strip motherhood of it's singular importance.'

I'm happer now that you have personalised this opinion and accepted that it was ' MY hormones wouldn't have allowed me! ' rather than a blanket assertion that all new babies need to be with their mothers all the time. Despite the eternal MIL's wish to share the child.
To my mind, it is a feminist issue, as it is used as a way of controlling women by telling them how they should be feeling and behaving and that their hormones drive their brains.
Which is an age-old explanation often given as to why women aren't suited to certain jobs, because of their natural female instincts getting in the way.

DidoTheDodo · 13/03/2014 09:52

Yes really.

Gladvent · 13/03/2014 09:53

I thought this was about being left ALONE. I was going to say I leave my 9 year old in the house for maybe 20 minutes now and then. Would like to know what is normal for leaving them for longer!

CaptainHindsight · 13/03/2014 09:55

Couldn't have said it better Goblin

ZanyMobster · 13/03/2014 10:05

DSs both stayed at my mums by 4 months old, went on first night out after a couple of weeks with DH for our friends 40th birthday, my mum babysat, i was breastfeeding for a couple of months so I expressed in case but I managed to get back in time that first night.

I wouldn't have had any issues if I had been bottle feeding though, DH was perfectly capable as we my parents. We even went to the theatre when DS1 was about 3 months old and my friend babysat.

I am not sure I wanted to leave my DCs under a week old (well DS1 was in NICU for a week so i wasn't actually with him) but I know when he was about 6 weeks I was on the verge of PHD and had to have some time alone so family helped out for 3 or 4 hours here and there.
I am lucky to have people around i trust with my babies and am fairly relaxed about it all. I could not imagine not going out for 18 months.

Anonymousy · 13/03/2014 10:12

Not quite 8 hours, more like 6 I should think. During the day when we went to a wedding and she was about 4 weeks old. I went back home to feed her (EBF, but she would take the odd feed of expressed milk), and returned to the dinner for a further few hours.

Meh, she was fine and her godmother was perfectly capable of looking after a baby who was almost guaranteed to sleep 20 out of 24 hours.

MyNameIsKenAdams · 13/03/2014 10:17

I dont count it as "leaving the baby" if its with the other parent.

A grandparent, friend or childcare, yes, but another parent, no.

meganorks · 13/03/2014 10:22

3 months was left overnight. Left for aevwral houra at a yime long before that though. I don't really get why people get in such a flap about it. If you know they are with someone who you love and trust what is the issue? DD2 is actually harder as refuses bottle and sleeps terribly. So she had been left a couple of hours up till recently when I left her about 9 hours. No overnights because of the terrible sleeping. Hoping to sort that soon though...

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