AIBU to not want to give a bottle to our EBF baby to benefit my partner?

[gratedcheeseandham]

Would love some opinions because I can see both sides (sort of) and not sure if it’s anxiety from my side or not.

Partner and I have an 8 week out baby who is exclusively breastfed from the breast. He’s had no problems latching at all and I’ve absolutely adored breastfeeding. Baby has never had a problem with my milk, no tummy issues, has only ever gained weight (didn’t lose any weight after birth) and can be fed at the moment in 10 mins. I’ve had no problems with pain or engorgement. I feel extremely lucky that our BF journey has been going well - I am part of an antenatal group where a lot of people have struggled. In said antenatal group, every single baby (10 in total) have been introduced to a bottle, some are completely on formula and some have expressed breastmilk. I want to make it clear I have no problem with however any woman wants to feed her baby, fed is best.

Basically, my boyfriend wants to be able to feed the baby so he can take the baby places by himself. There is a dad meet up with the antenatal dads at the pub where they are all bringing their babies. Boyfriend is really annoyed that he either 1. Won’t be able to take the baby 2. I will have to be there in some capacity (I have suggested me coming, sitting on the other side of the pub with a friend not related to the antenatal group and bf can pass me the baby if he gets hungry. He is eating every 2 hours at the moment, however this can be shorter in the evenings). Boyfriend thinks I’m being extremely selfish in not letting me introduce a bottle to the baby and that I should compromise. My concerns to introducing a bottle are:

1. It will fall on me to do all the washing, sterilising etc. I explicitly asked if we introduced a bottle would my boyfriend also take care of the prep work - he said no, this would be split. I explained to him this included researching formula, finding and buying bottles, cleaning and sterilising and making sure baby is burped afterwards.
2. With pumping, I feel like it’s not exactly giving me a ‘break’ it’s just transferring the work. I don’t want to have to find the time to pump, then store etc.
3. This one is a bit silly but I’m afraid of baby preferring bottle over breast and rejecting breast
4. Feeding is the ONE AND ONLY thing that is exclusive to me. Boyfriend can bond in so many different ways - changing, playing etc. At the moment, boyfriend changes a nappy maybe once every three days (and never one with poo). I let boyfriend stay in bed until 9 (bf works from home) whilst I am up with our son from 6. I do 99% of the child rearing. In a stubborn way, I am apprehensive of relinquishing this one thing that only I can do.
5. I am already ‘compromising’ on other aspects of childcare, for example boyfriend wants baby out of our room 6 months exactly (even going so far as to ‘joking’ that on midnight of his 6 months he will go into his room). I wanted him in our room until he was at least 9 months, even up to a year. He is a great sleeper, though I know this can change, so it’s not the fact bf doesn’t get any sleep. In fact, he regularly gets at least 10-11 hours as he doesn’t wake up at all in the night.

To not drip feed, I am taking a year off of work. Baby will be going to a childminder afterwards. Boyfriend earns triple what I do doing a 100% remote 9-5 WFH project management job. I work as a secondary teacher in middle management. Partner thinks that because he earns the money he should have more say. I am completely fine with being attached to the baby for the foreseeable before anyone asks.

Partner is getting increasingly more irate with this topic but I just don’t want to budge. Do I need to give up some of my anxiety?

Tell him you’ll do it when he does his share of the dirty nappies!

It isnt about fault so much as how they both chose to set things up in their family life.

Op, don’t let anyone ruin breastfeeding- if it’s working well, stick with it!

my husband would wake up at night and fetch the babies when I was breastfeeding as he felt it was unfair that I was doing all the night wakeups on my own.
He also changed every single nappy for the first few weeks while working from home as I had tore while giving birth and he knew that would help me out.

this is what a loving husband and good father should be doing.

hopefully he’ll realise as time goes on how amazing your body is, your milk is giving your baby exactly the nutrients he needs for free with no sterilisation/bottle washing needed!

it sounds like his parents may be fuelling the bottle feeding issue as they want to do it on the occasions they see baby?

Have you asked him what would he do if baby had a dirty nappy at the pub? and if he can suddenly change it at the pub, why can't he also do it at home?

Your partner thinks earning more gives him more of a say?

He decides where baby sleeps at six months and won’t be taking over nights?

OP this is not good/( Sod what he expects - can he value what he has?

He already has shown a low bar in parenting by hardly changing nappies and never a poo one. And OP shouldn’t have to ask him to do a nappy change, sterilise bottles etc. He should just do them in the same way OP does them.

DH did pretty much all nappy changes when he was available to do them, without being asked to.

OP's partner is a grown man. If he can speak up about wanting to feed baby from a bottle, he can speak up about how desperate he is to change a dirty nappy but I have a feeling that hasn't happened.

Funny that.

He is a grown man, and that is why he wants to spend time with his baby and his friends where he has to do everything.

Why separate a newborn from its mum for no good reason? I get it if you had to work or had to do something, and obviously it’s different when he takes the baby so you can shower/ have a cup or tea/ have five mins to yourself but there’s no need for him to be brining the baby around like that? Sorry maybe this is controversial but it’s the dad’s job to be a support in the newborn stage… the baby doesn’t even know it’s not part of you right now. He can do PLENTY of solo parenting once the baby is older, there’s lots of time….

God, he sounds awful!

and OP is a grown woman and isn't comfortable with that. Probably because he can't even manage a dirty nappy at home.

Are there men on this thread? Or women who have never breastfed or have never expressed? Or women whose babies happily took to a bottle?

That's the vibe I'm getting from all the posters saying that the OP is being unreasonable.

I have breastfed, mixed fed, expressed and bottle fed.

Of all of those options breastfeeding (once established) is by far the easiest. No sterilising required, the milk is the right temperature, no need to keep the milk in the fridge until required and the milk is available on tap 24/7. Breastfeeding doesn't just nourish the baby, but provides comfort.

I can just see the dad going to the pub with the baby's first bottle then having to deal with a screaming baby that he can't placate.

This is such a ridiculous idea that clearly hasn't been though through by the dad. He just wants to look good in front of his mates. The only sensible compromise I can think of is that he takes the baby straight after a feed for a couple of hours then returns home for the baby to have another feed.

Stop with gifts cards etc to his side. They are his family, he is an adult and he can do that himself.

You are also bringing in the money. Why does your time mean less than his?

You are not his mother, you are his partner. The clue is in the name. I would really sit down and talk about expectations and what he needs to do to step up into his part of adulting.

I dont think anyone said she is being unreasonable. I certainly didnt.

It sounds like you have bigger issues than just the bottle question. Why is he not changing nappies?? For what it’s worth we introduced an expressed bottle once a day as the last feed about 9 weeks. This meant I had the freedom to sometimes go out and see a friend or do something in the evenings once baby was more reliable in terms of sleep. It may not seem like it now but a whole year (or more) of never being able to go anywhere in the evenings is very restrictive.

I think EBF narratives are incredibly unhelpful. I know lots of babies who were combi fed for a whole variety of reasons. For all of them breastfeeding was the primary form of feeding and the back and forth between breast and bottle was more flexible than most of us believed it would be.

I think if this is something your boyfriend wants to happen, it's something he has to arrange. I wouldn't be doing any research into formula etc. See what happens. If he is generally lazy he might get nowhere. If you don't want to pump, that's fair enough and of course it's reasonable for you to ask how he is feeding and maintaining those supplies from a hygiene pov.

That aside, I do think your fear about being the default parent is more likely to transpire if you can't let go of the need for control. I understand it, as I'm sure most mothers would, but it's worth recognising when anxious control is.more about your own needs than the baby's.

She doesn't own the baby. She is one of the baby's parents. He is the other. She doesn't make final decisions. He can take the baby right now to a different house and she would need to get court access to see the baby. Same as he would if she left with them.

Sorry OP, he has the makings of an awful arsehole.
He wants a play toy to bring with him.
He does the bits he wants but won't do bits he doesn't.
He does the bare minimum and is profoundly disrespectful of what maternity leave is.
You are taking a massive financial hit and he won't even cover 100% of costs.

You have chosen poorly. He's no prize.
I hope you haven't been silly enough to give the baby his name?

Also there have been threads about how difficult life is in france if you ever married and wished to divorce.
A total nightmare.
Be aware.

You are correct that you are so blessed that breastfeeding has been so straightforward.
I did it for my children and it was not one bit easy or natural.
I had to really stick with it and was happy giving up at 7 months.
You are having a great run and that experience is not guaranteed with every baby.

Enjoy every moment of it.
Hold firm and do not be bullied by this twat.

He really doesn't sound great so keep family and friends close.

The whole money thing is a red flag.
A decent man would be covering everything.
You are taking such a financial and pension hit for this year, that him not covering all costs when he can is appallingly mean.

Don't ignore the above. Women like you end up using up their savings because of mean men and put themselves in a very poor position.

Don't move an inch on breastfeeding.
Good luck.

Judt read your update.
He is so lazy.
He thinks everything is your job as he is bringing in the money?
Just awful.
Don't rush into marrying such a selfish man.
I think you need to wake up to the fact that you are seeing the real him now and going forward and it doesn't look good at all.

His comments on earning more so he 'shouldn't have to' do much at home are really worrying. It's not great now and it definitely won't be great when you are back at work and still expected to do it all at home. You need to challenge his views on 'women's work', although this is likely to take some time.

She is breastfeeding. It involves her body including expressing if need be so she does get the final say in this instance. If she doesn't want to express, she doesn't want to express.

Op - why won't he just do the co pub thing?

Personally, I would express on the condition he does all the bottles, pump etc. Then leave him to work out the bottle feeding on his own at home. I have never encountered an EBF baby who just took the bottle. Does your partner realise it's not that easy? I suspect if he knew this he would be glad of your VERY generous offer to sit in a different part of the pub.

The only reason to use a bottle is if you want to because you are struggling with feeding or need a break. If that isn't the case then baby's best interests are to carry on exclusively breastfeeding- it's going well and is providing the best source of nutrients and antibodies. Dad is putting his own interests above the baby's unfortunately.

But expressing surely has to be the decision of the mum, as she is the one doing the work?

Decisions being made in the home purely on the basis that he earns more is wrong, I am disappointed that posters defending the partner can’t see this.

I think I would use his desire to do the dads group to make sure he did more generally. I think it's a good idea for him to meet with other dads. He may well get a better idea of what dad's do. So initially he gets baby ready for the meet up including changing his nappy. It's pathetic that he doesn't change his own child's nappy. I would express milk but no guarantee baby will take a bottle. Your partner needs to practice beforehand.

I’ve had 3 babies, they’ve all been EBF but we did (try to) introduce bottles with expressed milk as I went back to work after 6 months and partner took on the babies until a year.

None of them preferred a bottle, ever. They always preferred boob, the second actually wouldn’t take a bottle, we probably left it too late to introduce with them. We tried lots of different types of bottles!

I pumped from one side when the baby was feeding on the other side, mainly using a suction silicon pump which was simple to clean. Personally pumping wasn’t ever a chore. I donated my pumped breast milk with #2 since they wouldn’t take a bottle and I needed to pump in work

I forced a dummy on the first and it was more trouble than it was worth. The other 2 never had one.

We moved #1 into their room at 6months but ended up with a floor bed so we could sleep in with them 😂the other 2 were in our room until a year and DH slept in a spare room.

Do what you feel most comfortable with but 8 weeks is still very little and things will change (including sleep!!). My own personal experience is that having a baby who takes a bottle is more helpful than a baby who doesn’t (but I went back to work earlier)