To ask my dh to mind the baby while I make a bottle during the night?!?!

[Fuzzyduck21]

Ds is 4 months and wakes crying twice a night for a bottle. He's in a cot next to us. Whole bottle making process takes up to 5 mins if I also wee. Aibu to ask dh to try and comfort him while I make the bottle?! He seems to think so as he gets up for work at 5am. I've just taken ds downstairs to lie under a play gym while I make the bottle as dh has been making such a fuss recently but ds gets very upset and I thought it's kinder to ds to at least try and be comforted... Wonder whether your dh does the same?!

Unless you have problems there really isn't any reason for him to get up. My dh did the last feed about midnight then I was in charge. He needed to be alert for work as he is the sole bread winner so it was important that not only was he good at his job but he also did all he could for promotion for the benefit of all of us. However he would get up a few minutes early make sure bottles were sterilized for the day and would often make me a sandwich for lunch etc. He made it clear that my job was just to keep the baby alive he didn't expect me to do housework although I did it if I could as we both did what we could to help the other/family as we work as a team not as a competition to see who works hardest who is more tired. He was always telling me to just sit down and relax in the day and sleep when baby slept if I could or at least rest. When he came back from work he would take the baby from me immediately to give me a break. If it's your first child and you are on maternity leave you can rest in the day which he doesn't have the luxury of at work. At weekends my husband used to get up at 5 with our baby when he was often awake and take him downstairs and snuggle up and watch tv with him while I slept, a time he now looks back on fondly. We each pulled our weight in different ways.

Surely eye contact and interaction is during the day. At night it should just be feed, go back to sleep.

Also a few are saying to take cooled water and mix, but the water needs to be above 70 so that doesn't help really.
I think I'd have a flask of hot and some pre measured cold. Mix with say 2.5oz hot then add the 1.5 to cool like some have suggested

It's perfectly safe to make up bottles in advance with water properly hot, flash cool them and store in the back of the fridge. (WHO guidelines say you can). My dh did this late every evening ready for the next 24 hours. At night time take up a bottle or two in a cool bag so you have them ready. DS happily drank his milk cold - try it. With DD I used one of those fisher price bottle warming Thermos flasks to bring the temp up a bit. I did the same thing for taking milk out for daytime feeds.

However, it's not too much to ask that dh cuddles his baby for a few mins if needed!

Yep 20Apples that is daytime advice. At night if you breast feed you can co-sleep and feed without even waking up properly - make feeding time at 3am too stimulating and as the baby gets older there is a high chance you'll have an hour or two's wide awake playtime after every night feed, which is not going to do the baby's development any good (too little sleep and no day/ night differentiation) nor the bond (mother sliding slowly into sleep deprived insanity...)

For those who said they haven't met a baby that goes from sleeping to screaming in less time than it takes to make a feed haven't met my ds!

Mine does it too. He has two moods. Happy or furious. Sometimes he starts screaming in his sleep before he wakes up!

I make the bottles in advance. I know some people won't do that but it works for us

Do want to be woken up for five minutes when your DH is taking his turn on night feeds? If not then you might want to let him sleep while it's your turn.

I used to go to bed with a bottle or two of cooled boiled water made up...right by me...and a dispenser with the right amount of powder in it.

Pour it in, shake...bam. Done in seconds.

Seems we've jumped back to 1950.

If DH won't do it because he has to go to work the next day, what does he think you're doing? Parenting a newborn is a job, only you're not ever OFF duty! Of course he should help out. It's part and parcel of being a parent.

If he had a job where it was very important that he was well rested (eg. in charge of heavy machinery) I might suggest he sleeps elsewhere to not be woken but otherwise get over it. Everyone's tired when there's a newborn around.

I used to make the bottles in advance, store them in the fridge. Come downstairs with baby, flick switch on kettle then warm in jug. Feed baby then go back up again. No need for 2 people to do this.
Nowadays I would just take a carton of milk and a sterilised bottle up to the bedroom with me.

KP86 its not a 1950s concept that it only takes one competent adult to feed a baby. It doesn't matter which parent bottle feeds, but it doesn't require two adults to both wake up fully twice a night if there is only one baby needing feeding. Its just making a one person job into a two person job, regardless of whether the people are men, women, or agender

One parent doing some feeds and one doing other is a benefit of bottle feeding I guess, but it shouldn't habitually require 2 adults to do the same feed for one baby!

If parent 1 is struggling then parent 2 should help! Simple as that.

I used to go to bed at 10. DH would do the 11pm feed then go to bed. I did stupid am feed then we both got up for the 7am one.

It is hard if he is up at 5 but him shushing the baby for 5 minutes shouldn't be a ridiculous ask.

Yanbu. Dh did this all the time. He only had to stay in bed and cuddle the baby!

Off course he should help, but not on days he is working, if you are off with baby you get option to nap when they do.
20apples if I interacted with baby at night she'd wake up and we'd up playing games all night. Interaction for day. I was told to not even make eye contact as it wakes them up.

Yes KP86, but if there's a simple way for one parent to manage single handed without struggling (which there is) then that method should be adopted.

KP86 if it is a one off problem (illness or some minor accident like dropping everything, big crash, other parent rushes to help) yes of course - but every bloody night, twice a night, two parents getting up to sort one baby?

If its every night the parents find a solution to the problem - many have been suggested (for example ready made cartons) it is ridiculously inefficient and cumbersome to make a one person job into a two person job especially during the night when one could be sleeping and one doing the feed, and then on other nights the other parent could get a full nights sleep, instead of both waking twice a night every single night without reprieve.

I'm on the fence.

Does DH go to bed at a reasonable time?

In principle yes - takes two to make the baby, two should share the responsibilities.

However, if one person needs to get up and leave the house for work at 5am every morning and the other doesn't then it does make sense for the bottle night feed to be down to the one staying at home. Male or female. DH can 'make up for it' in other ways. Taking over for the early evenings for eg.

If i was struggling unusually: baby ill, wouldn't feed for some reason, dreadful shitty/leaky nappy, baby been sick over bedding, etc, then i'd expect a bit of support. However these things are exceptional circs. normally and a run of the mill night feed and back to sleep i'd be ok to do alone if DH was up at 5.

We used to take turns doing the night feeds, and whichever of us was getting the bottle ready, the other held the crying baby. He used to take ages to drink his bottle and to go back to sleep, so the one not feeding did get to go straight back to bed (though I never really slept til DP was back in bed). If we have another, we might try to do it differently, but we will still take turns. I don't hold with the crap that gets spouted about how he should get a full nights' rest because he's got work - it's not like you'll be sitting on your arse eating bonbons all day. A friend of mine let her DP sleep through all the nightwakings, and now she's back at work and still expected to do them all because "he's not used to it".

I'm back at work now and I'd much rather go to work on little sleep than look after a baby all day without sleep.

Gobby he did 4 days on and 4 days off.

Schwab - he doesn't get up up. He stays in bed for 5 mins soothing baby then rolls over back to sleep while I do the feed.

Mind are older and I don't need to be aware of updated guidelines.

I used to make up feeds for the 24 hours in one batch then dh would go and warm the bottle whilst I changed the nappy.

Making up a fresh feed every time, fuck that for a game of soldiers!

Wow, I thought the whole point of bottle feeding was that you could split it between the two of you.

This is quite the eye-opener. I breastfed and increasingly resented it due to being the sole feeder (especially at night time). I didn't really realise the many bottle-feeding Mums were also the sole feeder (especially at night time).

FWIW in our house DH would always to do the winding after the night feed, and sometimes do the nappy (if it needed it). I'd do the feed (breast), have a wee, a drink and then do the 'lay the baby down' after DH had wandered about with her and got her sleepy, as DD4 would only 'lay down' for me.

But -

He was ridiculously happy to do it and he was wide awake anyway.

He was expert at winding and his input made the whole thing quicker.

He did have to leave for work at 6.30 but we'd both always have been in bed since 9.30/10pm so both got plenty of sleep.

We were lucky - DD slept through from 6 weeks or so. So this stage didn;t last long for us.

Blimey the breastfeeding campaigners have missed a trick - never mind the arguments usually used to promote breast feeding, this thread could be used to convince people to try if it takes two people to do night feeds if you bottle feed

(Disclaimer I know there are a million and one excellent reasons people don't, and often can't breast feed but come on - do so many people really require both parents to do a bottle night feed? I am quite sure single parents bottle feed sometimes - in fact somebody who did posted..)

I always thought the great thing about bottle feeding in a two parent family must be that you get a full night's sleep sometimes because either parent can do it, giving the other a full night's sleep - so even the parent on maternity leave should be getting at least 2 full nights sleep as the other parent can do the nights before their days off, unlike with breast feeding. If both parents have to be awake for both feeds that means bottle feeding means two permanently sleep deprived parents until night feeds stop... I'm sure that is not necessary!

Yabu. It doesn't take two to feed a baby.

Dh is a sahd and I returned to work at 4weeks. I used to stay up and do the late feed (approx 10-11 pm) whilst he went to bed early and he would do the 2am feed whilst I didn't wake up. This meant we both got a fair chunk of sleep. Like others I would struggle to get back to sleep if woken in the night and i really don't function well with a lack of sleep. Plus dh could nap in the day when dd was asleep.

We also used to pre-make the bottles and leave them in the fridge. I know v bad. Which meant we could just whack them in the microwave whilst holding and comforting dd.