Best way for partner to help at night

[Sa11yCinnamon]

Hello, looking for some opinions/advice from anyone who's been here.

My baby is four weeks old and currently exclusively breast fed. I'm enjoying feeding him, he's gained a really good amount of weight so I'd say it's going well.

My partner wants to be able to do more to help at night, as obviously I'm up for hours. I'd like to try the baby on a bottle soon anyway and am going to start trying to express milk this week, but build up a little stash before giving it to him.

My partner wants to be able to help sooner (as I'm sort of a tearful zombie at the moment) and suggested formula which I really don't want to do before I know if I can pump enough, or alternatively that I do all the feeding and he does all the soothing and settling - we've done this a bit already but I feel bad waking him if he's asleep and I'm already up, so would be a more even split.

Just wondering if anyone has any other suggestions? Or reassurance that baby will start to sleep more soon (wishful thinking there!) 😂

My advice would be to try express as much milk as you can during the day, see if you can get enough for one feed per day.

Breastfeed baby at 7pm and then you go upstairs and go to bed. Hubby stays downstairs with baby in Moses basket. He feeds baby at 10pm and then settles baby to bed upstairs and comes to bed. And then hopefully baby will sleep for at least 3 hours before another feed. You get a lovely 6 hours sleep.

Yes it antisocial and you don’t get to spend an evening with hubby for a while, but it’s a short space of time in your lives and lack of sleep is just torture at this early stage. Baby will soon sleep longer spells.

Honestly?

expressing is a pita and I would avoid if you can.

if you want to keep bf then to maintain your supply you will need to express whenever your baby has a bottle. Especially at night as this is when the milk making hormones are triggered.

i always found expressing so someone else could feed tripled my work. Instead of me sitting and feeding while someone else got me snacks and did the chores, I was washing, pumping, shoving a wash on, making tea, while they sat on their arse with a bottle.

bottles aren’t the “help” you need Ime.

expressing can be soul destroying if you can’t pump easily, some women can’t. And you’ll never pump as much as your baby needs without a lot of work or it affecting supply.

very soon your baby will get more efficient and the up for hours in the night with be a thing of the past. Do you have a bedside cot? I used to be able to grab baby, feed, put them back in about 10 mins barely waking. With a bottle by the time your partner gets up, makes the bottle, feeds, resettles, you will be awake and may well have just fed.

Best thing a partner can do to help the nights is to make the days as restful as possible.

Maybe he has some cuddle time in the early morning before going to work.

maybe he lays out breakfast and brings you tea in bed. Perhaps leave some sandwiches in the fridge so you don’t have to make lunch.

he does the house work when he gets home so you can nap in the day.

all these things are super supportive.

@toomanytonotice

i always found expressing so someone else could feed tripled my work.

This is absolutely a concern, but on the flip side I want to be able to leave him (for a wee while, occasionally!) and know he won't be starving. Will give it a try I guess, and look for a new plan if it's too much!

I'm going to suggest this to him, thanks 😊

@toomanytonotice

very soon your baby will get more efficient and the up for hours in the night with be a thing of the past. Do you have a bedside cot? I used to be able to grab baby, feed, put them back in about 10 mins barely waking. With a bottle by the time your partner gets up, makes the bottle, feeds, resettles, you will be awake and may well have just fed.

Meant to reply to this part too! We do, but at the moment baby is up for 1-2 hours so I take him to another room. It's really good to know that will reduce in time.

Thanks, he is good at stuff like that but just sees the nights killing me. Hopefully it's short lived!

As above, his energy can go into making the days as easy as he can. Bring you breakfast, leave you snacks and lunch, have the evening meal sorted, clean and tidy, do the admin.
This is such an intense phase, and it won't be improved if both adults are struggling with broken sleep.
I also agree that pumping is a massive increase in workload and for me, very little milk to show for it.
Both mine were (safely) in bed with me so night feeds didn't involve getting up or being properly awake.

Agree with pp, there's not much they can do with ebf. I always found it was better to have one person rested. He does everything he can do to make your days restful.

You do get used to it though. My DC woke hourly until 4 (years!)

My partner has taken my daughter every Saturday and Sunday morning from 7-10 am whilst I get better sleep. At first he had to bring her back when she needed a feed. If she would accept expressed breastmilk which was on and off he gave her a bottle. At 10 months she went on formula. She's still on a great sleeper aged 4 and he still takes her every Saturday and Sunday

It is. It changes so quickly,

TBH I found expressing and bottle feeding more work than it was worth. Things did settle and I was able to get an hour or so to myself by a few months.

I've got a 4 week old baby too and I express once a day, first thing in the morning (or as early as baby allows!), as I find that is when I can express most milk.

My husband then gives the baby the bottle of expressed milk in the evening when we go up to bed, which works well for us because she sleeps for a longer period after having the bottle, as she gets more milk in one go, so I get a longer sleep. It's also a good way for us to initiate a bedtime routine as she starts to associate the bottle with bedtime.

When she wakes in the night, my husband does the nappy change and then hands her over to me to feed. I feed lying down in bed and then he transfers her (sometimes successfully..!) to the next-to-me once she is asleep. So, although I do have to wake up and feed her at night, I never actually have to get up which is nice 🙂

I expressed enough so DH could do a night feed.

That was the single best way to enable me to function.

Outsource to him whatever you can. It's not just feeding.

He does washing cooking cleaning. At night do early Eve feed he burps changes and settle baby. You go to bed. He brings baby to you for next feed. You literally feed. He takes baby burps settled changes etc. bring baby back for next feed. Until an agreed time when he then goes to bed. We used to swap around 1am

Thanks so much for all the advice, you've given us plenty to think about! When we're less tired we'll come up with a plan 😂 Really appreciate you all taking the time x

The best thing we did was hand baby over to dad in the morning - 6/7am and let mum sleep until lunch. Dad could bottle feed in that time. It doesn't really matter when you sleep, just as long as you get a minimum of 4 uninterrupted hours.

ETA that pumping is a massive bloody hassle but I used to use a haka on the opposite boob during a feed to catch my letdown.