To Express so that DP can feed sometimes

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I'm only 23 weeks at this point with my first, and fully intend to breast feed, my mum EBF all 5 of us and my sister has with her 3 so not worried about support or anything.

DP has expressed some disappointment at not being able to feed baby and has asked if i could maybe express enough to do 1 night feed per day, my sister has already offered a hand pump that she bought that she only used a few times and I thought I would have a go and see how i get on. We are looking for a breast shaped bottle and DP's sister has offered a steriliser.

When I mentioned this to my mother she said this was selfish! She went into a lot of reasons to do with how difficult it is to pump and how it's not fair to baby to make it drink from a bottle and its not sterile anymore because it has to go into a bottle and how difficult it is to store the milk and saying it would interfere with supply if i pump so i would start producing less. She has a history of objecting to DP's ideas and he has had to give way with some other things he wanted, so i'm not sure if she is being unresonable because of her dislike of DP or if she is having valid objections.

Do it if it works for you, but don't get discouraged if it doesn't.

I found that I got too engorged if I skipped a feed to let dh give a bottle of expressed milk so I ended up having to get up to express anyway, plus he didn't really want to do the feed that would have given me the best chance at a rest (eg 3am) - he preferred an earlier time slot so he wasn't too tired for work the next day , so it wasn't really any advantage to me.

Plus I found expressing a right pain in the arse and so with ds1 stopped as soon as I could (he wouldn't latch properly to start with so I had to do loads of expressing), and with ds2 found he refused bottles so the milk was wasted.

Some people get on really well with it, and for some people it works out like your DM describes, and for other people it's something in the middle.

The most important people in this matter are you and your dc, so do what suits the two of you best, and you might not know what this is until dc is here.

If that's what you and your dp want to do then go for it. It's not up to your mum. My DH would give my dc expressed milk (although as mentioned above some babies will refuse a bottle and mine did for quite a while). I was advised by breastfeeding consultant to express while dp is giving bottle so as not to cause issues with supply. However, when I was shattered I did use him feeding as a chance to catch up on sleep instead of expressing. As long as I didn'the go too long between feeding dd myself my supply didn't seem to be impacted

Shit sorry hit send too soon!
But only do it if you're feeling confident that baby is nursing effectively and you feel you're getting enough rest during the day.

Expressing if you have a 2 week old that is feeding every 3 hours and is happy to be put down in the day is pretty manageable, expressing with a baby that doesn't like to be put in a swing chair or wants to feed every 90 minutes is a different kettle of fish.

Wait until you've got the hang of breastfeeding and your supply is established - around 6-8 weeks. It can be a bit of a faff - not so much the sterilising as finding time to express when the baby doesn't need your attention can be tricky, and you won't get much to start with, but if you express once a day you should find within a week you're getting more. I was getting maybe 50ml at first, but now I can get around 100-150ml in 20 minutes with a Medela electric pump. My DD is now fine with a bottle (I'm using a MAM anti-colic one I got free from Boots) which means I can leave her with DH for longer than an hour when I need to. But don't worry about it at this stage or rush out to buy loads of kit, just focus on getting through the early weeks, and don't feel like you need to justify your decisions to anyone else - it's between you and your baby!