DHs view on BF second baby

[StripedPyjamasandSpottyTops]

Just looking for some perspective here, I don't know if I'm being silly or not.

I aimed to exclusively breastfeed my first baby. We had a terrible traumatic birth, he never latched well, my milk took over a week to arrive (due to my birth) and after about two weeks I gave up. I had a BF last from the NHS come in every day and a private lactation expert come in too - it just wouldn't work. I expressed milk and mix fed him (mostly breastmilk until about 3 months then about 50/50) until he was 6 months old after which I gave formula only. My DH was great during this time, he had a month off when DS was born and probably fed him as much as I did and always did his fair share after than when he returned to work. DS was always difficult to feed even after the initial bit because he had awful silent reflux that had to be treated in hospital.

DS is now two and eats like a normal toddler. I am pregnant with baby number two and DH and I were out last night and got on the subject of feeding. I said I'd like to give exclusively BF a try again, but that I'm not going to stress if it doesn't work out and will be happy to give formula (instead of stupidly feeling bad about it like last time!).

DH said he really doesn't want me to EBF regardless of whether I can or not. He says that BF fine, but he want me to also express or give formula so that he can share the load with me. He also feels that his bond with DS is so strong partly due to the fact that he fed him a lot/was up with him in the night etc.

I should add that he's not the controlling type - we have a great relationship and he's genuinely concerned that he won't be able to help me, and bond as well with this baby as he did with DS.

I kind of feel like he's overstepping though, and that it's my choice how I feed. He sees it as a more shared decision, that we should discuss like any other aspect of parenting. I might not even be able to EBF anyway - or I might decide I don't want to. But I feel like it should be my choice?

Thoughts?

Your DH sounds lovely. I do think ultimately it’s your choice but if he is willing to give all that help I wouldn’t look a gift horse in the mouth.

Just for a different take on things - I EBF for FOREVER as had no choice - DD literally did not drink a thing that didn’t come from my boob until a few days after her 1st birthday. We are now expecting DS and while I plan to BF again I am terrified of same thing happening - but my DH while confirming his intention to help could not be visibly less enthused about sharing night feeds!

There's lots of ways Dads can bond with a baby without involving bottles, if you don't want him to. But just a tip if you are worried about delayed lactation, start hand expressing regularly post delivery, if your baby isn't latching and drinking from the breast. Aim to massage and hand express every 2 hours, a few mins not long but it will help.

I FF our first and DH was fantastic, he did so much.
I BF our second exclusively and DH felt his bond wasn't as strong with her as a baby.

But that didn't last long. She's 4 now and a huge Daddy's girl - even though I fed her until 2.5! He still bonded with cuddles and playing.

I think sometimes people can have misguided ideas about what will be most helpful.

I had a terrible time with DS1 and trying to establish breastfeeding, which culminated in him being fed expressed breast milk and formula as he just wouldn’t take to breastfeeding.

DS2, on the other hand, took to breastfeeding like a duck to water.

When I was pregnant with DS3, DH was opposed to me trying breastfeeding again - said if I FF he could help, said I was making things harder on myself and making more work for myself if I tried breastfeeding. And honestly, that couldn’t have been further from my perception of things.
I wanted to try to breastfeed DS3 because, based on my experience with DS1 and DS2, I believed that if breastfeeding could be established relatively easily (this could of course not be guaranteed), then breastfeeding would be easier for me than FF. Especially as, despite all this “I can help with FF” talk, I knew that DH would be away at work most days after his 2 weeks paternity leave, and would likely sleep through most night feeds.

In the end, once I was able to to convince DH that I wasn’t acting out of some desire to martyr myself, I tried DS3 with breastfeeding, and happily he took to it very easily. If we’d had the struggles with him that we’d had with DS1, I’d have switched to FF pretty quickly.

Theres many, many ways that dad’s can help out, and many ways that they can bond with a baby, that don’t involve feeding.

The 'there are many ways dad's can help out' itself reinforces the idea that a dad is a helper rather than an equal. Being able to share feeding and night IMO really helps with equal, rather than just adequate bonding.

Sheep, I agree with you on helping v shared parenting but disagree on the implications. You can bf to toddlerhood and share parenting completely. I'm testament to that. It's about considering the long term as well as babyhood. My husband stayed at home during the toddler years. This was far more important to shared parenting than whether he managed to do any night feeds. However I think the shared perspective can be achieved even if dad works, it's about a total attitude. Eg one friend of mine, full time working dad, always done around half the night time parenting (despite kids being bf, I'm talking about changing nappies, comforting, rocking etc); does school run half the week; helps plan the childcare; ferries kids to clubs every Saturday v another friend of mine who feels like a lone parent despite being married (husband works away a lot; never does any school pick ups; childcare her domain; does diy or other stuff at weekends to avoid childcare). Basically what I'm saying in the long term creating a bond and doing the heavy lifting with caring for children is about a lot more than boobs

Thanks everyone who has replied. Some real food for thought; it's great to see different perspectives.

I'm not even 100% sure I want to EBF. I just want to be able to if I want to without feeling like I'm taking something away from DH I think. Ideally I'd probably BF, but also give a bottle or two a day of expressed milk or formula, but I don't know how realistic that aim is.

I'm a SAHM and my DH leaves for work at 7am and isn't home until 7:30pm due to commuting time. So once he's back to work (he's able to take 3-4 weeks off after birth) he'll only be around evenings and weekends like now.

I don't know what's going to happen - I'm having an ELCS so it's likely my milk might be a bit delayed again, I'm looking at harvesting some colostrum beforehand if I can but if needs be in the days it takes to arrive I may end up giving formula to tide us over. I'm not anti-formula by any means. I recall the midwives saying that whatever colostrum I made (mostly hand expressed and syringe fed because my baby's face was so bruised she couldn't open her mouth to latch) last time was enough for my baby. That was rubbish. I was making 1-2ml a day for four days and my baby was a 9lb-er who'd endured a 3 day labour. She was starving! So I gave a few oz of formula then, when I copped on and realised what the problem was, which probably didn't help my supply come in, but she got fed.

If say don’t worry, there are still 12 hours minimum a day you can cuddle the baby, and nappy changing and bath are all bonding experiences. i hated expressing and didn’t express much so my dh thinking that is a good solution would go down like a lead balloon. Maybe if he agreed to spend the time I was expressing stabbing himself continously with a fork...

breadwidow, I've never truly known an equal parenting approach (ie where the child truly regards both parents equally), which involved exclusive breastfeeding. Maybe in later years, but not in the early months. We have shared the feeding equal, and have a very equal parenting relationship.

If my husband wasn't doing night feeds, then he wouldn't need to do anything at night - our baby falls straight back on sleep, doesn't need changing at night (has never done a night poo), so feeding is the only night task.

I'm not saying that dad can't have a good and fairly equal relationship if mum ebfs, but it does put a certain slant on things. Mum will have to deal with potentially multiple wake ups at night, being very tied to her baby's side in case the baby is hungry, cluster feeding etc.

That's fine, and things can even out in years to come, but often if things start off inequal, they continue that way.

I personally think that mix feeding is a wonderful way of getting the best of both worlds.

I agree if you are going to divide up tasks like that in the early months, mixed feeding will allow more equality. But as the early months are just that, months, its a rather simplistic way to look at parental duties. You can bf and have shared parenting.

I should say, there was full shared parenting from about 6 months with my 2, I was back at work by 7 months with no 2 so DH had full responsibility in the day time. And I would say it was nearly equal in the early months, esp with baby no 2

I agree with your husband. What you did worked last time do just do that again.

What we did last time didn't really work though. Not for me anyway, and it was borne out of necessity and (silly) guilt. I tried v hard to BF and couldn't so I expressed for six months and mix fed with formula. I didn't have the pain that a lot of women seem to get (except sore nips sometimes, Lanisoh sorted that) and I could get lots of milk off but it was bloody hard work, and took up a lot of time - to get enough to feed mostly BM for 3 months then 50/50 BM and formula until 6 months used to take me about 4/5 hours out of each 24 (a bit less after 3m).

Striped I’ve had two ELCS and my milk came in day 2/3 which is fairly typical. Don’t stress about that. With baby 2 I literally had her in the breast every minute she was awake for the first few days and my milk supply came quickly and has been way more plentiful than with baby 1.

I agree that having exclusively BF my two I do most of the nighttime work. And I work so I do express and baby takes bottles when I’m in the office. However honestly I wouldn’t be able to roll over and go back to sleep listening to baby crying for milk while DH went to warm a bottle. It’s faster for me to BF and it’s an instant comfort to her. We just bought a cosleeper cot to make it easier. 10 min and we’re done!

Expressing enough breast milk to completely or even 50:50 feed a baby is very hard work.

I did similar with DS1, and I’d decided that I just wouldn’t be able to do the same with DS2. I just couldn’t see a practical way to spend several hours a day expressing while looking after a toddler and a baby. Because of course you have to express across all 24 hours if you’re planning on expressed breastmilk being a major part of the baby’s diet.

So I’d decided that if DS2 didn’t take to breastfeeding, then we’d go straight to 100% FF.

And he took to breastfeeding very well indeed. I agree with what eeanne says about the night feeds - yes, as I was breastfeeding they were all down to me, but the breastfeeding night feeds were so much faster and easier than DS1’s bottle feeding night feeds had been. Plus my DH is rubbish at waking up in the night.