Partner desperate to feed expressed milk from a bottle

[ruthymay]

Hi all,

I am pregnant with my first child and have always been a massive advocate of breastfeeding, my mother breastfed me and both of my sisters and I have grown up around it. I plan on breastfeeding when my baby arrives and my partner is supportive of this. The only problem is that he is desperate to be included in the feeding and wants to feed the baby expressed milk from a bottle. This is not an idea I am at all keen on as I think it is best straight from the breast and don't want to enter the realms of nipple confusion etc.
My partner and I have both done a lot of research on breastfeeding so he is totally clued up about it but still feels like he wants to help out with the feeding. Has anyone else experienced this or have any advice on what I can say to him to help him understand how much I want to exclusively breastfeed?

Wait and see what works for you. My DH was never that fussed about feeding, he does plenty of other stuff, though I did express far too early for me with hindsight and ended up with all sorts of oversupply issues. But now DS is nearly 7mo and has never taken a bottle, it hasn't been a problem until now. Everyone's situation and what works for you, your baby and your DH is so different you really need to wait and see. Try not to worry about it or make any firm plans now. As long as you are clued up on expressing/oversupply/nipple confusion etc then you can make a decision later.

Hi OP, I don't want to enter into a bottle/breast debate, but just wanted to tell you about my experience. With DS1 I breastfed him, but after two weeks DH took over doing the late evening feed with expressed milk. Believe me, after two weeks of a brand new baby and doing all the feeds I was SOOOO grateful for the chance to go to bed early (knowing that I would be up again probably at least twice during the night!!). Keep an open mind - whatever your best intentions now, you may feel differently once the baby arrives.

TSC, Emsyj, I have one of those babies too.

Tbh I think it's nigh on impossible to explain if you haven't experienced it.

Also, yy to japhrimel's earlier post about potential pitfalls.

I think the OP has a right to say wait a good while before feeding the baby and do all the other things that are helpful in the meantime. Nothing to stop a dad burping a baby, changing, and especially bathing.

My mum recalls family stories of her older sister being carried around the farmyard by my grandfather while she cried with colic -- no sterilisers or pumps back in the early 1930s in rural Ireland, so bfing was granny's job, but granddad walked miles with my infant aunt wrapped in her blanket, for weeks. That was before the word 'bonding' was dreamed up.

To be honist I don't think I'm expaling myself very well never was very good with words.

Emsyj, I haven't explaned myself very well. I didn't go out with the gril's with DD either not untill DH was able to seatel her at bedtime around 16-18months. In fact me and DH didn't go out together untill she was 10months and that was an afternoon when IL's could give her a snak as she wouldn't take a bottle. I appicated I was very lucky with DS in that he's a fast feeder and therefore I do get a 3hour window. DD took 50minutes for a feed every 2 hours for the first 2months of her life and then started going 5hours at night but it took us untill 4months to get that to 7pm as initaily she would do it from 1am so I do feel your pain. Althoug in highsite I would have left it at 10pm if I'd know she'd take another 2 1/2year to sleep through every night. I was prepared for DS to be just as bad and if he had then I just wouldn't have gone out. In fact he's been a lot easier but he doesn't have reflux like DD did and I've learn that cosleeping is the savour of my santiy I appicate it isn't for everyone but I do appicate the extra sleep I get from it. Have you read DrSears, there a really good set of book's saved my santiy with DD.

It does seem that I have opened up a can of worms. I certainly didn't mean to offend anyone, and thanks for all the advice.
I will certainly have to see how things go but think it seems like a good idea to wait until bf is well established before thinking about expressing. I have no idea how expressing or breastfeeding will go so I will just have to wait and see.

Sorry ruthymay, I was just trying to say something that ovusly still hasn't come accross right.

As your orginal post you can start expressing early on before you think about giving a bottle, but you have to be carefull this doesn't lead to problems with oversupply so you'd have to express at the same time everyday. This way your body just take's it as an extra feed. It's adviced to wait untill 6 week's before introducing a bottle anyway in order to ensure BF is well established and your baby doesn't prefer the bottle to the breast.

If your very keen of BF I'd recomend you find as much support as possible before hand, find your local BF group go along we are always happy to see pregant mum's. Plus it's then somewhere familer for you to go to. Kellymom is a very good website with lot's of usefull information for you to well worth a read while your pregant.

When it comes to supply, your breasts are going to produce milk on a regularish schedule (or even when you hear another baby crying if you manage to get out without your own if you're anything like me) and this will lead to engorgement that can be quite painful in the early days. Your boobs will operate according to their own set of rules without much control on your part. You can press on a breast to stop the let down reflex but then you begin to interfere in the milk production cycle. Or you can express instead of feeding if you experience the reflex, either a feeding's worth or just a little to relieve pressure. The pressure relief will again interfere with supply.

Expressing as a regular habit in order to provide milk for a feeding is best done as part of whatever routine the baby develops, but it's a good idea to do it only once milk supply is established. Bear in mind too that no routine is set in stone. Growth spurts and irregular sleeping and feeding are par for the course and you might end up sore and engorged (with concomitant difficulties getting the baby latched on) no matter what, but they are more likely to happen if you are trying to express in the early days.

I recommend Kellymom too. I also think your DH needs to really understand the physiology of breastfeeding, especially the fact that supply and fullness of your breasts are part of a process that operates outside of your conscious control and that you and the baby need each other for the comfort of both. He also needs to look at stress a a factor in breastfeeding. Of course, you may find when the baby is there that having him do some of the feeding results in less stress for you, but he needs to make stress reduction using whatever means are necessary a priority, and not prioritise the relatively newly invented necessity of bonding.

Op, you've heard lots of experiences here and just thought i'd add mine.

Until ds was one i expressed for the bank but never bothered giving him a bottle (and still haven't so won't ever now). Never felt the need to be away from him at times he'd need milk. Early days i stuck with him and fitted social stuff around him by taking him with me and going out earlier or having people to ours. I took full nine months mat leave then went part time so work not a problem. Basicaly i never had a reason to give him a bottle so didn't. Dh is very well bonded with ds. He does most baths and takes him out for walks in the sling. There is tons to do when you have a baby without adding to the work load!

As others have said, see how you feel. You may want a break. You may not want the faff. Good luck anyway.

"Its quite another to ask the sleep deprived mother of a newborn to express several times a day, wash the breastpump for next time, fit in the expressing around feeds, deal with engorgement, blocked ducts, mastitis from missing a feed out, deal with interruption of supply from missing a feed, deal with possible nipple confusion and fussiness at breastfeeds because of the fathers input into feeding. If his wants didn't make her deal with these things that she is clearly unhappy with then fine, but thy do and its a lot to ask of someone imo."

Oh FFS

Nobody is asking that.

A father to be is asking his pregnant wife to consider let him give a bottle of expressed milk once a day.

If she's too tired to express, or hates expressing, or just can't express anything (as happens to lots of women), I'm sure he'll be OK with it.

He's not asking her to wash the expressing equipment. DH mostly did that for me when I was tired. You don't have to have breasts to do that.

As for engorgement, blocked ducts and mastitis - why don't you add in the cancer she'll get from not breastfeeding enough? Jesus, talk about scare mongering.

He's not asking her to get mastitis. Mastitis is not a necessary consequence of expressing, nor are blocked ducts or engorgement.

If you express at the right time you don't suffer any "interruption of supply".

I mean I get that you hate the idea of a man giving a bottle to his child, but really, do you need to tell so many lies about what it is like?

spidookly

I am not "telling lies"

Those things are more likely if you go too long without feeding. Most people won't be able to express enough for one feed in one go and will probably have to do some expressing while their DH is out so will get lumbered with the washing up.

You don't "get" that I hate the idea of a man giving a bottle to his child. You are missing the point spectacularly. Its the OP who doesn't want to bottlefeed, not me. My own children range from being formula fed from 3 days old to going from bf straight to a beaker. I have mix fed. I have expressed for tube feeding. I have expressed so someone else can give a bottle feed so I can go out or take a break. What I have not done is express against my wishes to keep someone else happy.

What you are failing to get is that being pg and being a mother does not give another person equal say over what you do with your body. The OP does not want to express. She may well change her mind when the baby is here but right now she really doesn't want to. That should be a good enough reason for her not to do it but apparently its isn't so she wants an argument to present to her DH and I don't see why pointing out the -ve side of expressing and bottlefeeding shouldn't be it. He is asking her to do more work than she needs to in order to do something she isn't comfortable with and I don't get how that is ok. Would you still think the father had a right to tell the OP what he wanted her to do with her breasts if she wanted to ff and he wanted her to bf? I don't mean just say that her would like her to, I mean pressure her about it enough that she seeks advice on how to deal with the pressure.

What is being lost in the undercurrent of bf vs ff is the way the fathers right to parent as he sees fit is overriding the mothers right to not do things with her body that she isn't comfortable with. There are threads on this theme all the time and I find it depressing. "DH is insisting I bf when I don't want to"/"DH hates bf and wants me to sit in a cupboard to do it"/"My nobber exP is insisting on coming to the scan/the birth. Am I allowed to tell him no?"/"DH wants his mother/brother/mate in the delivery room. I am not comfortable with it but he needs their support"/"DH says if I have my mother with me during labour I have to have MIL too to be fair". I don't know why women are expected to put up with this. MY SIL has recently given birth in a hospital that has 15 straight hour of visiting time a day for fathers so the fathers can bond. Its lovely that they can spend so much time with their newborn but its at the detriment to the majority of mothers who are recovering from a birth in a room filled with talking men. All other wards apart from intensive care structure the visiting to allow patients to rest, even if its just 1-2 hours after lunch but on maternity the wants of the fathers override the needs of the mothers and it sucks. At least I think it does.

what ello said

Well said, Ello, and to extend what you said -- What if he wants her to get a boob job done at some point, for his gratification?

It should not be accepted as a given that feeding is the only way a man can 'bond' with his child. There is no sure fire, guaranteed way to 'bond', no magic moment, as the experience of millions of mothers can attest.

This insistence on feeding smacks strongly of 'What about the Menz?'

Completely agree with ello, very well put.