To want to breastfeed?

[BeakyFlapdoodle]

My DH wants to bottle feed our 5 week old.
He says that he's unable to bond with our daughter because all she wants is me and my boobs. He doesn't like that he's unable to settle her when she cries.
He says that formula is just as good and that I'm 'killing myself' for no real reason. (I'm not. DD is going through what I assume is a growth spurt and has fed every hour today and last night. She's normally three hourly, which I think is pretty good and manageable..?!)
DH says we should give her formula last thing at night and we'll get more sleep (he's getting quite a lot of sleep ) he's been out to buy bottles and formula 'just incase'.

At the moment there's no other way of settling her. Is this normal? She's a contented little baby and is gaining weight well. I'm really enjoying feeding her.

Feeling my confidence slip away a bit as he's being so unsupportive.

Advice?

I agree with Nickname

Plus like I said, at 5 weeks, surely it would affect her supply of she started offering a bottle. And that could be permanently affected which could result in loss of breastfeeding altogether

I would be interested to know whether everyone who has suggested expressing has done so themselves. I have because I developed thrush and feeding DD was like feeding a piranha, so I had to express for a few days.

Once we had gone back to breastfeeding it was so much easier than the faff of sterilising bottles etc.

nickname I exclusively expressed for 10/11 weeks - expressing for one feed a day would be easily manageable tbh. Only if the op actually wants to though.

Also you don't have to sterilise for breastmilk - hot soapy water and left to air dry on kitchen roll in a big Tupperware box.

Should add if dh wants to feed the baby that badly then he can do all the washing up of breast pump etc anyway.

It is better for the baby to get breastmilk rather than formula milk, even one feed can disturb the baby's gut bacteria.
She is already ober a month, less than 5 months until he can start feeding her stuff.
About bonding, I second going for a walk with baby in the sling. She will probably fall asleep too.
A recent study has shown that formula fed babies don't sleep more than breastfed babies, that's a misconception,
Good luck OP, get a midwife or health visitor to get your DH a talking. You don't need to feed someone to bond with them, but it does take time and patience.

Over not ober

"Also you don't have to sterilise for breastmilk - hot soapy water and left to air dry on kitchen roll in a big Tupperware box."

I wasn't given that advice 16 years ago when DD was a baby.

"You don't need to feed someone to bond with them"

That's the point I was trying, but failing to make. I think the husband is under the misconception that you do.

YANBU - he is. There are other ways to bond without feeding. My DH did most of the bathtimes when DS was small. That was their time and my time for a break. There is also cuddling, winding, playing etc. After about 8 weeks I did express occassionally so DH could feed DS if I was out for a couple of hours. That might be something you could consider. I used to find it a struggle to do but many don't. Stick with the BF. This is your call.

nickname it's what the hospital told me and it's the advice given on many websites now.

It's not on for him to tell you what to do. Breastfeeding my babies and bonding with them was one of the best experiences of my life anyone who tried to stop me would have had a short sharp shock!
That said, I'm gonna go against the grain and say that, honestly, our dc did not bond with dh in quite the same way until they turned 1, in fact 2 yr old ds still favours me quite savagely! But dh is massively pro breastfeeding and was happy to play more like a supporting role and wait patiently for them to realise he is by far the more fun of their two parents!
Does your do respond to logic? Can you show him stats on health benefits etc?
Also, has your lo smiled yet? When she does your dh may feel more included because then he can start trying to make her laugh and smile.
The early days are quite tough on mum and dad. Your family unit has changed forever in a relatively short space of time so be gentle with each other (and discreetly shelve the bottles lol).

Eye contact, touch (skin on skin), compassionate attempts to understand & comfort, singing & talking. These are what promotes bonding & he can do them all.

Expressing can be very difficult & unpleasant & there is genuine debate about whether it is the same as milk taken directly from the breast. For eg the 'backwash' effect is believed to tell the mother's body about antibodies needed by the baby. Also milk is different at different times of day & thus expressed milk should be consumed as close to the time it was expressed as poss. Finally, unless paced feeding with skin to skin, there is not the same oxytocin hit as with breastfeeding.

If bf is going well & the mother is happy, it's really best not to interfere with the process.

My only interest is in whether I need to consider my DH feelings when it comes to feeding OUR baby. He has one preference, I have another. Why do I get to make the decision?

Ignoring the issue of how formula compares to breastmilk completely - a major consideration for me, was, who does the work of feeding the baby?

DH only had 2 weeks paternity leave after each baby was born. He's a very heavy sleeper, which means all night feeds are down to me however baby's fed, plus he has the sort of job where he could genuinely be putting other people's lives at risk if he gets chronically sleep deprived. That leaves us with 2 days out of every 7 where DH can realistically take a share of the baby feeding.

So, given that even if baby's formula fed, I'd have to be doing the bulk (at least 5/7ths) of the feeding, plus any cleaning / sterilising during that time, I felt that it was absolutely fair enough that I should have the final decision about how our babies were fed. DH was happy to support whatever decision I made.

If breastfeeding goes well, then IMO the benefits of switching to formula so DH can help feed 2 days a week are far outweighed by the increased work created by formula feeding on the other 5 days a week.
(Especially at night. DS1 was bottle fed, DS2 breastfed, and night feeds were so much quicker and easier with breastfed DS2.)

Oh, and re. giving baby a bottle of expressed milk. DS1 - bottle fed on (mostly) expressed breastmilk till after we started weaning. No problems expressing lots of milk there. DS2 - breastfed. Expressing even enough milk for 1 bottle for him was a major time consuming PITA because my breasts couldn't seem to produce enough milk to both feed him directly and express enough milk for him to have a bottle from someone else later. I'm sure it works better for some people, but me getting any decent quantity of expressed milk for DS2 really wasn't easily manageable.

Expressing is easy for some but not for others. For me if I expressed first thing in the morning I could easily get up to 9oz and still have enough if she was hungry. Some of my NCT friends weren't able to express much more than an ounce. We gave a bottle of expressed for the first three months, and then I just breastfed until eight months. DH bonded with our DD by laying her on his chest snoozing after I had fed her, winding her and rocking her off to sleep.

His main bonding was as she got older and he could interact with her more.

I very rarely got more than an ounce at a time expressing and kellymom says often you get between 0.5 and 2.0. I hated expressing.

I had no joy with expressing either. It's sodding hard work and after spending weeks on end building a freezer stash, it turns out it's all ruined and has to be chucked. Defrosted some one morning to add to DD's porridge and noticed a really awful metallic/vomity smell. Apparently something to do with excess lipase in some people's breastmilk which affects the milk when it is stored. Not harmful but DD turned her nose up (don't blame her) so that was that. So my advice if you're going down the expressing route is to have a little trial run before you go full steam ahead building your stash so you're not doing it for nothing.

Don't be pressurised to FF. I only BF my 5mo Dd for the first 2 weeks and was devastated I couldn't carry on (not through lack of trying). My Dh was amazing, said it was the most beautiful thing he had ever seen and actually started to cry. It was me feeling guilty that I wasn't allowing him to bond, he just kept reassuring me all was fine and he was bonding between feeds doing nappy changes, cuddles and bath time. There are plenty of opportunities for your DH to bond. As long as you are comfortable and happy carry on.

Wow, I'm surprised at all the negativity around expressing. Yes some people do have trouble with it but personally I can get enough to feed my twins in a 15 minute sitting. Don't try to turn the OP off what may be a perfectly viable option because it didn't work for you. This solution could make Op, baby and DH happy so why so negative?

I breastfed my DS for over two years and only stopped so I could get pregnant. It was a wonderful, gorgeous experience and I wouldn't trade it for anything.

Now that I have twins and a toddler I have to be realistic that I just couldn't get the sleep required to function in the day for my DS unless I was expressing so DP could take half the night time feeds. He loves taking care of them by feeding them too and I am so, so thankful that I'm sleeping well this time around because I was really worried about being an exhausted mess for DS. I'm getting more sleep. Ow than I did for two years with him! Could just be baby personalities of course, or it could be the giant belly full of warm milk right before bed. Who knows?

Op, if you do try expressing just make sure it's a really good pump. You can rent s hospital grade one and just see how you go. One or two feeds a day will NOT impact your supply negatively.

Don't feel bullied into expressing.
I tried and hated it. And dd hated it.
Dd was a real daddy's baby even though he'd never fed her. Your DH is BU.

TheSky, only one study has claimed that about the "back wash" and the study is dubious at best. When your baby is sick you will develop your own antibodies from your own immune system to help prevent you from getting sick. The baby gets these antibodies in the breastmilk regardless of how it gets into the baby.

There is no reason you can't feed skin to skin.

All this is so over the top though. We're talking one or two feeds per day. Not the end of the breastfeeding world.

Someone else was talking about mixed feeding. My HV said only one formula feed per day wouldn't interfere with all the good stuff breastmilk does. I still opted to express instead but I'm sure she knows her stuff.

Wow, to describe breastfeeding as enjoyable at 5 weeks you are doing amazingly well. It's still so intense at that stage. If you don't feel the need to introduce formula or expressing then don't, just adding unnecessary faff. If your OH is worried about you, reassure him you feel fine and are coping. But wanting to introduce a bottle so he can bond is selfish. There are lots of other ways to bond. Yes establishing bf can be all consuming for the first few weeks, but reassure him that it's not like that forever, things will start to click and calm down really soon. If only bf will settle her at the moment he can bond by holding her and talking to her when she is awake and settled as she will be getting really interested in faces and will be starting to coo and smile. My DD3 is 7 weeks and DH saw her first smile!