Can I leave my baby at 1 month old?

[Crossfitgirl]

Probably a daft question but... Hey ho!

I'm a first time mum, due mid August, no idea besides what I've read on what to expect in the first month besides lots of bf and sleeplessness.

DH wants to book show tickets for a comedian at the end of September, so baby will be 4-6 ish weeks old. I'd love to go, it's just an evening out, but...
I plan to breastfeed, no idea how long it would be between feeds, or whether I'll be able to express at that point, or if I do start just with bf whether its enough time to get used to expressing or get the baby used to a bottle etc. I'm down with formula if needed but hoped to exclusively bf or at least bottle feed my breast milk if poss.

In your experienced mum opinions, am I going to be able to express into bottles for my mum to feed the baby for a few hours by that point / even feel up to going out at all in the first 1-2 months? (assuming my mum will happily take them for an evening)?

Don't even know if I'd even want to leave the baby at that stage but also may be in need of a date night and a good laugh??

Bearing in mind I've never done this before so please be nice!

The show starts at 8pm 😂

What time will you expect to be home?

First thought is no. I’ve BF and Formula fed at a mixture with all of mine who are now teens but my first thought was no way, I was fit for my bed by 7pm ready for the night feeds every night at that stage.

I'd say maybe 11ish if the show is a couple of hours or so?

I mean, 8pm is nearly bedtime for me as it is 😂 just had a great time recently at a comedy show and thought it could be a good laugh.

Maybe it will just be too much hassle to organise around for so early on, specially if I'm too tired to enjoy it?

It's totally doable but depends on how you feel. If you book the tickets, would it be the end of the world if you couldn't go nearer the time and you sold them or your DH took a mate?

Both DH and I left our baby at 6 weeks to go to our nearest city for an evening event (that we'd had tickets for since the previous year). I'd had an EMCS too for context. Baby was ebf, stayed at our home with grandparents and took a bottle. Baby was fine (won't take a bottle now though for love nor money and still ebf so glad we took advantage when we did!)

The worst part was having to take a pump and express in the toilet so I missed some of the event. And it ever so slightly reduced my supply over the next day or so, but as my supply was well established it wasn't a problem. If you're away for hours you will need to pump, or it might increase your risk of mastitis (and it feels rubbish having engorged boobs). Also if your supply is not great, it might cause more issues that early on. Plus what if you get stuck there for whatever reason, will you have enough expressed milk? You do need to be careful with expressing in the early days and not go crazy as your supply is settling. A let down pump (like nature bond) is great for collecting a couple of ounces here and there which won't muck up your supply like active pumping will.

The main considerations I think will be does the baby take a bottle and do you feel okay leaving them? You won't know about the bottle or how you'll feel until they arrive. I had all sorts of plans for trips when our baby was around 3 months old and my friends with older kids just looked at me and smiled. It wasn't until the baby arrived that I realised my plans were nuts and there's no way I would have left my baby for a non essential multiple day trip. (I did go away for a weekend to a close friends wedding when the baby was around 5 months old but I probably wouldn't have chosen to do it for anything else).

Good luck with everything! :)

Ah thank you Rubyboots that's really useful, I hadn't thought about needing to express whilst out, or about messing up my supply or giving it enough time to settle. Glad I asked now! Sooo much still to learn!

We would prob be out about 4-5 hours tops say we left at 6.30 earliest and got home at 11.30 latest.

I already feel quite attached to baby (only 14 weeks pregnant) and I imagine I probably wouldn't want to leave him or her so early on, but as you say I won't know how I feel until the time. Its all very exciting but planning is so overwhelming! Xx

It's doable but potentially very stressful. Are they tickets that you could sell or give away or you can't go?

Maybe. Its Russel Howard and tickets are about £40. I think if they were a bit less I'd be more tempted x

People do it and manage but I would say it’ll be a lot of hassle with preparing for it (expressing and getting baby used to bottle etc) and not a great idea to be expressing much that early on while your supply is settling. On an emotional level I wouldn’t have gone away from my babies at a few weeks old if you’d paid me, I just didn’t want to be parted from them at all. I would have hated every second. But not everyone feels this way and you won’t know until the time comes.

Is it possible? Yes

Will you want to? Probably not

For what it's worth most people I know who breastfed found roughly weeks 6- 10 the hardest. There's a couple of growth spurts in there and lots of cluster feeding. From personal experience that means the baby wants feeding every 20 mins or so all evening.

There a chance you might be superwoman and uber cool about leaving your baby but there's also a chance that at 6 weeks post partum you might not be up for it.

I went to a wedding at both 12 days post partum and 8 weeks post partum, both times I had the baby actually with me and both times it was still pretty stressful.

A few hours? I should think so, but it will depend on how you recover as well.

I think I would take the risk, but its the caveat that there is a chance things might not work out if you have a difficult time giving birth and are in a rough state. I had a planned cesarean and was completely fine by 2 weeks, for what it is worth.

Be flexible about feeding. If bottles are not working, you will need to have grandma offer EBM on a spoon, cup or dropper. Do a google search and pull up some videos to see how this works. My baby was a bottle refuser, but I did manage to have up to several hours away by doing the above.

The issue is, it is so individual.
Your baby could be 2 weeks early, or on time, or two weeks late. You could end up with a C-section. You might 'take' to breast feeding. You might decide it's not for you. You might not be a 'natural' but make the decision to persist even though you find it difficult. You might have a relatively calm baby or you might have a screamer, or just an 'unsettled' one. You might have a baby who is sick a lot. You might have a content little sole. You might have PND. You might be really fine and cracking on with life. You might have more resiliance than average, or you might collapse at the absurdity of how much this little one dominates your life.
Some people have to go back to work at 6 weeks or so. Others don't think they can leave their little one until they are about 8 yrs old.

Personally, unless you've got loads of money and your ticket money is the equivalent of me losing £1, then I wouldn't book tickets for then, as statistically, it will, at best, be 'difficult' or 'uncomfortable' for most new Mums.

Just buy the DVD

DH and I committed to going to a child free wedding whilst I was pregnant knowing LO would be circa 6 weeks old.

I was fine with this - no pressure from DH whatsoever, it was very close friends otherwise we'd have declined. The plan was to go to the ceremony and wedding breakfast but leave before the evening event.

I was EBF and have lovely parents who were happy to baby sit and I had full confidence in their ability to look after LO. I expressed to make sure they had a plentiful supply for the six hours we were supposed to be away.

I was quite relaxed about it all.

It was hell.

I spent the whole time fretting about LO (who was incidentally perfectly fine with his grandparents) and ringing them every hour.

I had major separation anxiety - which I'd not at all anticipated.

I didn't take a pump with me and ended up painful breasts, to the point I spent 30 mins in the ladies, manually expressing milk into the toilet. Despite that and pads I still leaked milk onto my nice outfit.

Obviously deciding to call it a day and go home an hour early we got caught in a major traffic jam on the way home and spent an unanticipated 2 extra hours on our way back.

By the time I got to my parents I was a jibbering wreck and couldn't even wait to say hello to my parents before I took my baby and fed him. Honestly I've never felt relief like it - both physically and emotionally.

Upshot is I thought I'd be fine but wasn't, so I'd be wary about making "fixed" plans.

Mine both cluster fed in the evenings at that age and would not have been happy with a bottle but it totally depends on the baby and their needs at the time which you can't really anticipate. It might be fine it might not - could you afford to risk not being able to go or is it a lot for your budget?

I would. I did. But also understand that you may not be able to and have someone else in mind so the tixket(s) don't go to waste if you don't use them.

At 8 weeks I had to go for an all day job interview (jobs that rarely come up in my field). My breasts were in agony. My mind was a mess. Baby was fine!
I would make sure that whoever looked after the baby on that evening had plenty of time with the baby beforehand to be able to read their cues etc.

Don’t worry if you can’t express. One evening of not feeding will not permanently alter your supply. Post job interview and the day from hell I fed DS1 for another year.
And yes you may not feel like it, you may not enjoy it. The worst part of that period is that if you go to bed at midnight feeling all happy, you may well be woken at 1 am. 3 am, 4:30 am and then you regret the night before. I would ask that whoever looks after the baby does so all night so you can go out, have a nice time and get some sleep (you can always breastfeed and hand the baby back). And be prepared to change your mind and want to stay in. That’s okay too!

I couldn't have done it. I had a forceps delivery and struggled to sit on my nice comfy sofa for a few hours let alone on a theatre seat. I feel a physical need to be with my baby (he was ff) and I would have been a wreck.

He's toured before, he'll tour again.

I wouldn't if breastfeeding. As a PP said, they are likely to be cluster feeding in the evenings.

I would say not really. Of course there’s some people who can do this but I didn’t want to leave baby at all. I also ebf and my nipples were soooo sore in the early days sorry if tmi that no way I wanted to go out I just had to persevere with establishing my supply which I wanted to and therefore no chance of going out in those early days.

Plus my baby just would not leave me alone for milk. All the time, I only needed to walk near them wahhhhh ha so don’t count on having a nice baby that’s let’s you out the door so easy. If you’d have said you were formula feeding I’d say maybe but ebf is tricky and I was told not to give baby a bottle until after 6 weeks? Things have changed maybe?

In all honesty you sound like you’re going to be a great mum and you’ll probably end up wanting to stay in regardless of any physical barriers. It’s better than going out anyway

Had a friend of a friend who thought she could go to a play 8 weeks after giving birth (we were l pretty sceptical) she sold the tickets pretty quick after she had her baby. I just don’t think you can imagine the exhaustion and your inability to concentrate in the early months even if an “easy” delivery etc.

Mine wouldn’t drink from a bottle and 4 hours is too long to leave a tiny bf baby.

4-6 weeks is very young.

I was up and about and raring go at that stage, but not yet leaving the baby behind.

I watched Guardians of the galaxy when DD was that age, and slated it for being dull and the plot too hard to follow. I watched it again recently, it's very funny with a nice simple plot. It turns out that I was so exhausted I couldn't focus on and enjoy a simple blockbuster. No way could I have followed a comedy show.

Personally it wouldn't be worth it for me. DD wouldn't take a bottle, often cluster fed lots in the evening and I was exhausted. I declined a wedding for when DD was 4/5 weeks old (overnight stay 2 hours away). That evening I was sad not to be there but also very relieved I didn't have to go! I think you would have to spend several weeks preparing for the evening if you are breastfeeding, and probably you would rather just go to bed anyway!

If you don't feel exhausted and your baby will take a bottle then you have issues of leaking then engorgement.

I went to a conference when my DD was 3.5 months old and missed some of the presentations because I had to keep going out to express. Some of my friends had gone out on long nights out when they babies were under 8 weeks or when they were older but were having growth spurts, and leaked even though they were expressing.

Saying that I did go out for 4 hours a couple of weeks later in the night, expressed before after breast feeding and was fine. This was because my daughter had started sleeping in 6-7 hour stretches without feeding so I was out when she was asleep.

In regards to getting your baby use to a bottle the trick is to get your partner, if male, to feed them with one. My DD started on mixed feeds at 3 weeks for a few reasons including the possibility I would have to go back on medication that would effect milk supply. My DD happily takes the bottle from her father but not from me. She wiggles expectantly into position depending who is feeding her. I've noticed with other babies and her that they initially root when all new people past puberty pick them up then progress to only rooting when females pick them up.

The website Kellymom is a good resource on breastfeeding.

To be fair, it sounds like it may not be worth it for all the uncertainty, even if I may be a total natural and have an amazing baby and great birth 40 quid isnt money I want to risk wasting if I probably won't feel up to leaving the baby nor be awake enough to enjoy a show. Maybe the DVD option is a safer bet!
Probably not worth the pressure.

It's got me thinking now about our friends wedding, it's 2 weeks after my due date 2 hours drive away and DH is the best man. We've said obviously we can't commit to going as depends when I pop, but I was thinking if I'd had the baby by then I may consider going (with baby - the bride and groom said that would be fine) just for part of the day with DH.

If not DH is gonna go for the whole day and it'll prob be the first time I'm alone with DC!

Maybe I'll reconsider that thought too haha. From the sounds of it, that may also be a nightmare! x

Crossfitgirl do your friends have a back up plan for the wedding in case your DH can't make it? A friend of mine recently had a full term baby wh totally unexpectedly ended up in NICU in a big childrens hospital hours away very poorly indeed for two weeks - all fine now, but being jolly full on best man at a wedding would be a superhuman bit of acting in that situation... Its unlikely but not that unusual for mother or baby to be very ill indeed and father also to be needed so close to your due date. 2 weeks after your due date is still the far end of how long they let you go over if no problems - your DH could miss the birth!

On the other hand you could have an easy birth and healthy 37 weeker and be fully sorted with placid 5 week old who sleeps all the time and totally up for both attending weddings and comedy shows and festivals, backpacking around Europe, starting your own multinational corporation from your kitchen etc etc :o ...

Its difficult to plan while still pregnant for anything you have to commit to within 6 months of giving birth imo as it's one of the most uncertain periods of life - so many variables, not least but not limited to how you feel.