DH going away, 9 month old baby

[ChunkyFTMMum]

DH is planning on going to an event relating to his hobby. He'll be away for 6 days, requires an overnight flight. It's not for work or a stag go, no other good mate is going (although he'll know people there). He bought the tickets a year ago, when I was pregnant and had no idea how hard this stage would be.

Background:

• Baby is 9 months, wakes between 1-6 times a night (1 is rare, usually 2-3, 6 if he's teething).
• I work full time (I had to go back at 6 months).
• exclusively breastfeeding. I pump at work but baby is glued to me all evening and morning when I'm home
• baby is often extremely overtired in the evenings. I don't know if it's separation anxiety, or he doesn't sleep properly without me around, but he's often a nightmare from 6pm.

He's already been away for work a few times..so I am perfectly able to cope. But it's really really hard work, especially now I'm working full time. It just feels off. He said he'll cancel if I ask him to but then I'm the bad guy and I know he won't like it.

Yes, I can bank this to go away on my own at some point. And I will. But a long weekend with an older child who sleeps through the night and is not as intense is very very different.

It's a fucking hard stage. AIBU to think he should cancel? Wtf do I do? How do I approach this?

How’s she going to be fine when she can’t even cope for a week?

You have missed the post. I think OP means baby gets no formula, not that they get no solid food, so yes EBF isn't the right term.

OP believes baby wakes so frequently due to teething and also for the contact time as she is apart from baby a lot.

Replies like this are missing the point. Yes, I’m sure OP will be fine, we can all usually manage when we have to. However, she’s not a single parent she is married and therefore supposed to be part of a team. She’s also working full time (when many mums in the UK were still in maternity leave when their child was 9 months old) plus breastfeeding a child with a milk allergy.

The problem isn’t that she can’t cope, it’s that as part of a marriage you should be able to pull together as a team. Furthermore when she has told her partner how much she is struggling he hasn’t stepped up as should be expected in a partnership. Instead, he has doubled down and left her too it.

She’s explained his allergies and how the hypoallergenic formula didn’t work either.

@ChunkyFTMMum

Your situation sounds very difficult, OP.

Would it help you to have a temporary nanny for a few weeks, just to make things a bit easier for you?

https://www.norland.ac.uk/employing-a-norland-nanny/

She clearly can. She doesn't want to. And why should she?

I literally cannot believe the number of women, on a parenting site no less, giving an OP - who is clearly struggling at this moment - shit for not sucking up a week of misery so her husband can fuck off at will on a jolly.

Either you all have shitty partnerships in which you have low expectations for mutual support, or you should give your heads a wobble, as people like to say on here.

YANBU. You’re back working FT. It’s a hobby, it’s for 6 (!) days, not one weekend night. He shouldn’t be going. He can go to next years when life is a bit easier.

I couldn’t agree more! I don’t even have kids and I can’t believe how unsupportive women are being to the OP. She is working FT for goodness sakes!

OP doesn't live in the UK so no family are available to help out.

And also start on about how she’s not parenting right, she needs to give up on bf and switch to formula, sleep train, stop giving 4 am feeds, introduce a strict routine, go part time at work…not to mention the baby is probably hungry try formula crap.

because “that’s how I did it and it definitely works” Clearly amazing parenting not just luck 🙄

i’m honestly not surprised bf rates are so low in the UK at least. This was my experience too- any slight hiccup was met with “just give formula and stop being a martyr”

it’s not o/p’s parenting that’s the issue it’s that circumstances (work is clearly out of her control short of moving country) have led to a bit of a crisis point and her dh happens to have made plans leaving her in the shit. I can see both hers and her Dh’s pov tbh, and it’s not an easy one.

o/p hope you get through it and rest comes your way soon.

Am , let him cancel OP ..
They’ll be more opportunities for him to go away , you need him at the minute & 6 days is a bit to be fair ..
Don’t overthink it , you need him now , that’s all 🤷🏻‍♀️ x

Please don't. Increased baby mortality

You don’t really seem educated on this. Following the Safe Sleep info from Lullaby Trust, there are incredibly low risks of co sleeping if done properly.

kindly you are chatting shit

Kindly , you clearly don't know what you are talking about. Hope you can educate yourself.
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-scotland-68101937

Have you actually read the link you shared? It’s clear that in most of those case, the co sleeping guidelines were not actually followed.

If you had read OP's posts, you would see that she has said that:

'Baby has a severe dairy allergy and completely rejects hypoallergenic formula, we have tried, under the guidance of a paedetrician. Some parents add Nesquik to it to make it taste nicer. I am not willing to add Nesquik to my 9 month old's milk when I have plenty of milk for him.'

Therefore, formula milk isn't a solution in OP's case.

It's irrelevant anyway. OP doesn't find that co-sleeping helps and she struggles with a bad back.

Options 1. Tell him not to go. He goes anyway. You cope.

1. Tell him not to go, he stays, you both cope.

3. Don’t tell him, he goes, you cope. You will cope because you have no choice, you might not enjoy it but you’ll cope, plenty of mothers do. But I don’t think you should have to and I think that he should put his wife and baby before his hobby. But unless you specifically ask him not to go (not just rely on his half hearted offer) then he will go

Maybe because I don't know very many people that want to hang out with their father in laws while they're breastfeeding constantly and in their pyjamas covered in dribble and sick?

Forget the cleaning. Your dh can do it when he gets back.

Get your DH to batch cook this week so you have decent food you can reheat in a microwave.

Push your double bed against a wall, toddler sleeps close to the wall in a sleeping bag. You sleep on the outer side of the bed with a blanket.

I'm a single mum and have done 16 years by myself. It's not the best fun but it's perfectly doable.

She has asked him not to go but he is still going. He obviously doesn't care that OP is at the end of her tether and not coping.

This thread is full of posters who can't be bothered to read all OP's posts, who ask the same questions over and over again that she has already answered and who imply that she just isn't doing mothering right when it's highly unlikely that the posters on here live in countries where 3 months unpaid maternity leave is standard (OP got six months) before going back to work full time.

I find it quite refreshing when an OP responds to a pile on by fighting back instead of being driven off her own thread as often happens. OP may have been exasperated by and fairly rude to some posters, but loads of posters have been sanctimonious, unhelpful, rude and completely unsympathetic to a mum living overseas, struggling with a teething baby while workiing full time in a demanding job while her DH swans off for a week to do his hobby.

She can cope. We all cope. I didn't want to cope when my husband walked out in lockdown and left me at home with 4 kids and no access to any support. But I did.

Whether she should have to, is entirely different.

Look, I will cope. It will be fine. I am a competent adult. I asked if I was U to not want him to go on a totally optional selfish trip at a time when things at home are hard. I wished he chose to stay to help me out. I was having a particularly bad day when I posted.

Baby now has 6 teeth as of this morning so maybe he will stop teething for a while.

He wanted this child as much as I did. And he was equally naive to think 9 months would be easier than it actually is. It's not just me that was stupid to think booking this was fine before we had even had the child. And plans change, all the time.

It's funny, I've posted on MN about advice on sleep training before and I was piled on and told it's evil and cruel. I've also seen a lot of shitty comments here to women who choose formula over BF. I guess we can never get it right.

And I completely appreciate the helpful posters who understand and empathise. I really do, thank you ❤

I was rude to posters who, frankly, deserved it. I posted on a public forum so I know I'll get all kinds of replies but I don't have to be grateful for them either.

Question is "AIBU to think he should cancel?". To which my answer is unfortunately yes, of course can feel overwhelming with first child, but these types of things will occur thousands of times over the time until your DChildren are grown up (and even thereafter!). That's life.

Embarrassingly for you, the link you’ve posted actually proves my point. Have you read the article?