Pumping & Expressing - To Tell DH I Don't Want to Hear It?

[BFPDec21]

I'm triple feeding - breastfeeding, small amount of formula and pumping when possible and feeding our baby that in place of a supplement where I can. He was slow with gaining weight previously. The aim is to get rid of the formula and top up with expressed milk or just breastfeed. It's been an uphill struggle but we're so near to getting there.

DS is 4 months old, quite a sleepy baby by nature but alert and still likes to play for a short period. I'll add he's going through a sleep regression and I'm rolling with the punches.

DH said to me the other day, "I read that babies get hormones from milk at certain times a day, some make him sleepy and some wake him up so if you are pumping during the night, when you feed him that milk and give it to him it'll make him sleepy during the day". I shrugged it off and said many women pump and do the same. What about their babies?

So then today he's sent me an article saying mums should give their baby pumped milk at the same time of day that it's pumped and said "told you". Maybe that's consensus and people already know that but I'm having to pump during the early hours because DH is falling asleep when he does a feed during the evening.

I'm on maternity leave and spend all day with DS, sometimes end up doing most of his care day and night as we have an older child. Then pumping on top of it whenever I can fit it in. I said to DH that maybe scientists should just give mums a bloody break and what is in his formula is worse than some sleep inducing breast milk (it is as he's on a prescribed formula and the ingredients aren't great but he needs it because the supplements have since impacted my supply so we can't do much about it at the moment).

DH then asks why his formula is bad and I've lost it with him.

AIBU to have snapped?

Breast milk truly is incredible.
Your DH is right.

It changes depending on the time of day and to meet your specific baby’s needs without you needing to change anything.

However, sometimes it’s just about getting through it with whatever works best for mum.

Thousands of babies are brought up on formula and they are just as healthy as breast fed babies.

So yes your DH is right but it doesn’t matter as you are the one lactating and suffering all of the consequences that come from it.

Totally acknowledge there are many, many breastfeeding mothers not captured by the stats, that BF is not for everyone and that a deeper analysis of any statistic is always a great thing.

However, I believe it is also true that the WHO stats are applied universally by the same method, so how high the standard is doesn’t change the fact that UK BF rates are low compared to other countries.

Given that OP’s DH is trying to be helpful with research I thought it may be of some use to her to have this info at her fingertips. Personally I think it does at least help demonstrate what hard work BF is, and therefore that any perseverance is worth his support.

Not at all trying to be goady or controversial. Apologies if I gave that impression, I didn’t mean to.

OP I also triple fed DC1 and it was so hard, as soon as I managed to stop pumping and topping up I never wanted to look at a pump again.
I did initially do night milk at night etc but didn't notice any difference.

@samqueens i didn't take your post as goady, and understand the criteria are the same across countries, but what I would say is the breastfeeding support I had in hospital in the UK was so crap that it is why I ended up needing to triple feed in the first place. If I'd been elsewhere my baby would have stood a higher chance of getting into that 1%, if that makes sense?

Than you for understanding. Makes total sense It’s exactly that message about support that I was trying to get across (in this case the DH’s support).

BF support in this country is rubbish as is (in my view) the medical establishment/state spouted fiction about it being easy - and if it isn’t then you’re doing it wrong. Personally I think this makes many people feel like they’ve failed before they are off the starting blocks.

It’s bloody difficult in numerous ways and I don’t think it does anyone any favours to pretend it’s all some bloody idyll. Hats off to all those doing it in any combination and for any length of time at all I say!

Than you for understanding. Makes total sense It’s exactly that message about support that I was trying to get across (in this case the DH’s support).

BF support in this country is rubbish as is (in my view) the medical establishment/state spouted fiction about it being easy - and if it isn’t then you’re doing it wrong. Personally I think this makes many people feel like they’ve failed before they are off the starting blocks.

It’s bloody difficult in numerous ways and I don’t think it does anyone any favours to pretend it’s all some bloody idyll. Hats off to all those doing it in any combination and for any length of time at all I say!

I exclusively expressed for a year for my last baby and it makes absolutely no difference at all what time the milk was expressed. Babies go through so many developmental stages and their sleep patterns vary wildly.

There's no way on earth I'd be throwing out any milk either!

Simple solution, you pump in the night, your DH uses that milk the following day so he can wake up every 3.5 hours, you will have to set an alarm for him.

FFS not all mothers manage to breast feed at all.

It’s called milk flux and for my milk anyway do believe it’s true. However I don’t think it needs to be the exact time. Just don’t so crazy opposites like feed first morning milk as last night feed - which is what I did as couldn’t pump properly so that’s the only time of day when my let down was fast enough to catch a fair amount in the Hakka. Baby was wired! And it was hilarious if not slightly terrifying.

That aside what’s your dp complaint about anyway. That the baby is too sleep!!!! Does he have a screw loose? Who on earth has ever complained a baby sleeps too often 🤣

Like other posters are saying, I don’t think this could possibly make any discernible difference. I exclusively expressed til 6 months, and had no awareness of difference in milk throughout the day. I pumped 4 times daily, dropping the middle of night pump after just a few weeks, and usually fed milk from around 12 hrs before - so by your DH’s reckoning i was probably giving exactly the ‘wrong’ milk at the wrong time… but DS slept like a dream. You will get the sleep regressions and leaps causing little blips, you could sending him some links to information about those! But seriously, tell him to naff off with his ‘research’ - you are doing amazingly and a mama’s instinct is the best guide in this situation.
I’m sad to read how you feel about giving formula though. When I was discharged from hospital with DS, terrified about how I could get him to latch (spoiler - he never did) I bought three bottles of ready-made formula and they sat on top of my fridge throughout those first few weeks and I was always so, so grateful for their presence and the insurance they provided, imagining living in a time when there was no such thing as formula and breast pumps. I really do think combi feeding is the way forward, and you are smashing it!