No more staying at my ex house

[Nomoresleepovers]

Me and my ex share custody of our 4 1/2 year old son. His house is a 1 hour train ride away so to settle our son in I have stayed over for probably a total of 10 days? For the last 3 months to help settle our son in to sleep over by themselves. (The reason for the settling is that we had been separated for two years and our son had never spent the night alone with them plus they used to live much further away so visitation was infrequent/COVID travel restrictions are strict in our country)

The problem is that our son still breastfeeds to sleep (not great I know) but I have been working on this. At Christmas they had their first "Big Boy" sleepover and although they went to bed late and threw tantrums they did get to sleep for both the nights by midnight. I have praised my son greatly etc however because I have had family visiting who are unwell and have mental health issues and I live in a small flat I have not forced my son not to breastfeed to sleep between the 26th to now I did not offer etc (family members left 1 day ago) as it would have been detrimental to family members health.

I have taken steps to ease my Ds off breastfeeding such as wearing tight tops to bed strict bed times, warm milk before bed and now my family member has left their bed will be moved back into our room so no more co sleeping.

My ex is angry at me for not continuing the no breastfeeding and is meant to have them again soon for a sleepover but is asking me to come stay over for the 2-3 nights to "help build the child's confidence back up".

AIBU that it is better for our child to go stay without me and that my ex has to deal with it like any parent or grandparent would and it would actually help the child stop needing the comfort before bed?

I would like to say my ex isn't a bad father and does care greatly for our child but they are more of a Disney dad and expects me to do all the hard stuff.

Just to add - you're doing absolutely nothing wrong by breastfeeding and if you're happy to continue too, please don't listen to those chastising you for it.

@Alpenguin you breastfeed your child at 4.5 because it tastes like ice cream? What?

@SeasonFinale

On the basis you are choosing to BF your son YABU to expect the ex to have to put up with trying to get him to settle at his. It is your choice to BF him and you are kidding yourself that he can't stop cold turkey as you want to call it. If you want to BF then you should at least make the effort to help the ex with your son because this whole situation is of your making!!

This is total bollocks.

Loads of women BF 4 year olds. Plenty of us have partners, do you think our partners never put the DC to bed?

If you're BFing a baby, they need to be fed every day.

If you're BFing a 4 year old, they can adapt to different people putting them to bed, this is totally normal.

Sheesh, the ignorance about long term BFing on this thread.

@christmascharade but if you refused a feed how would your child behave? Would they have a tantrum if dad was putting them to bed?

@MerryChristmas21

He Him His

Correct pronouns still exist.

He can BF when he's with you & not when he's with his Dad. It's not complicated and at his age, should understand that. It's up to his Dad to find a routine that works for them.

Glad someone else has mentioned this. I've found it hard to work out how many children and adults we are taking about.

@christmascharade exactly, it sounds like the DD has not spent much time with her father before, the mum spent time helping show that her father's house is a safe place and it seems after two nights parenting alone he's decided it's impossible if she's still breastfeeding.

Continue or don't it's what your comfortable with but your ex needs to grow up a bit and learn to parent.

@Nomoresleepovers

I have dyslexia and my child's actually a girl. I just didn't want my ex stalking me again and using this thread to threaten me or something

Dyslexia is not an excuse for enabling a child's behaviour that impinges on their relationship with your ex partner.

[quote Nomoresleepovers]@KiloWhat it's fine it's my own fault, I didn't want to out myself by saying the gender as female but seems it was all to difficult for me[/quote]
Your were referring to the ex as they/them too though.

@Elieza

Like others have said, please don’t say ‘they’ when referring to one child, it’s ‘him’ or ‘her’. ‘They’ is a plural.

Re bf, I think you ex is trying to control you so you can’t date anyone else as you’re still feeding your child yourself.

Plus he doesn’t like to have to do any tough parenting. It’s just easier if you help. Easy bedtimes with minimal effort from him.

For your child, all this on off on again bf is confusing and quite honestly it’s cruel. You both have to decide what to do and stick to it. As it’s your body it should be your decision, but you can take his comments into consideration if you wish. Although I wouldn’t!

By 4.5 he will get his nutritional needs met by food. In traditional times without contraceptives, if you’d had another two babies in the intervening years there wouldn’t be enough milk for all so the eldest would have to be weaned. Probably the middle child too.

If you want to stop it’s therefore fine. An inbetween measure could be expressing milk and your son having a bottle of this milk at night at your house and take one to his dads for use there too.

It could be the milk he wants. Or the comfort of you. But he needs to grow up at some point and he has to manage without you when at his dads. So it seems sensible to give him a strategy to cope with this. A bottle of your familiar milk may be an interim way of doing this.

You mentioned you’re moving house shortly. A lot of change at once is unsettling for children. So if you’re going to make any bf changes please do it now so the new routine can be established before he gets his own room. Otherwise the change may be too much.

Re tantrums and hurting animals, that sounds very bad. It sounds like he’s not coping with the current situation. Or he’s just bratty and spoiled. I don’t know him so can’t say. But he can’t throw a wobbly and you give in. That just teaches him to throw more wobblies! You have to have house rules and stick to them. I think you do that though. Perhaps the whole sad situation with changeable on off answers is confusing him.

Get a plan. Keep to it.

More ignorance.

BFing isn't just about nutrition. It also supports the immune system, provides comfort and is a way of showing love (like a hug is).

Breast milk has been designed by millions of years of evolution to be the perfect nutritional balance for children.

It is brilliant for gut health - the oligosaccharides in breast milk feed - and therefore encourage the growth of - good bacteria in the gut.

The constituency of the milk changes in response to a whole range of things like the temperature, the age of the child and possibly even the sex of the child.

A 4 year old doesn't NEED breast milk, but if scientists could work out how to make and bottle it, it'd be sold as a health supplement. (FWIW, formula is nothing like breast milk).

@liveforsummer I think op just has issues with writing and the pronouns were just to much for her.

@5keletor

Just to add - you're doing absolutely nothing wrong by breastfeeding and if you're happy to continue too, please don't listen to those chastising you for it.

But if it impedes on a relationship with ex partner then , yes, it needs to stop. Primary aged children shouldn't be breastfed whenever. Where will it stop? Age 6 /8/11?

I recall trying to soothe a Yr2 child who'd had a fall. He kept begging for his mum's 'nubbly!'
He just had a minor graze but was hysterical as he needed mum's 'nubbly.'
We had to call mum in . Embarrassing.

[quote girlmom21]@christmascharade but if you refused a feed how would your child behave? Would they have a tantrum if dad was putting them to bed?[/quote]
It's many years now since I BF mine (till 4.5 and till 5.5).

No, they didn't tantrum if they didn't get a feed at bedtime. The breastfeeding is a red herring IMO.

The tantrumming and the child feeling uncomfortable at the father's are the real issues.

Both parents need to work on the tantrumming. The father needs to work on making the child feel comfortable at his house, rather than blaming it on the OP.

FWIW, formula is nothing like breast milk

Well, I’m not going to lie, this took longer than I expected. 🙄

No one mentioned formula. This kid is pushing five, for fuck’s sake. He/she/they don’t need formula. Keep your agenda out of it.

Sorry if this has been said. My NDN was BF and her DS didn't want to stop so she stayed with her sister for a few days and left him with his DF. He had no option so just stopped just like that.

@escapingthecity

It's not fair to your child or to their father to keep BF. It makes it impossible for your ex to parent properly on his own if you're there, and makes it harder for the kid to settle away from you. You need to be realistic about what it means to be separated parents: your kid needs to be able to settle happily at two homes.

More nonsense. A 4 year old

The extended breastfeeders are a defensive bunch. And it’s not “normal” to feed a child to 4.5, if we use the proper definition of normal, which is “conforming to standard or typical practices.”

... oops posted too soon.

It is very normal for 4 year olds to be BF by a mother and also put to bed by a father. Loads of families do this.

So you expect your ex to make your DC go turkey when she’s at his, but won’t deal with it yourself when she’s with you in more familiar surroundings. Doesn’t seem right or fair to me.

@Ileflottante

The extended breastfeeders are a defensive bunch. And it’s not “normal” to feed a child to 4.5, if we use the proper definition of normal, which is “conforming to standard or typical practices.”

In a historical or global context, yes it's very normal. Our society is weird about BFing, it's has some of the worst BFing rates in the world.

It's hard not to be defensive when there's so much bullshit spoken about extended BFing. The constant assumption that if there's any kind of issue it's got to be the mother's fault for BFing and that she should stop immediately, and this used as a stick to beat the mother with.

It's infuriating hearing the same old nonsense trotted out time and time again.

@PinkSyCo

So you expect your ex to make your DC go turkey when she’s at his, but won’t deal with it yourself when she’s with you in more familiar surroundings. Doesn’t seem right or fair to me.

Cold turkey? This is a 4 year old! Breast milk is not an addictive drug!

www.health-e-learning.com/articles/A_Natural_Age_of_Weaning.pdf

@PinkSyCo

Ridiculous to still be breastfeeding a school age child anyway. The only one to benefit from this is you.

Anyone who thinks that clearly has not breastfed a toddler.