Out of curiosity - could you leave an 8 week old baby to go away for a few days with DH?

[helenelisabeth]

This is not for me by the way! My friend has just had a baby 8 weeks ago and I was gobsmacked that she has left the baby with her parents and gone away already. Is this normal and I am too over the top with my children to think that leaving them this young is not right? It's not her first child but even so, does anyone else think this is a bit young to be left?

£100 for a full night's sleep... yes, even nearly 23 years on from the first child I remember that desire. You could always check into a cheap hotel on your own once you've finished breastfeeding. When we first divorced very shortly after my ex husband said he'd just had more sleep per night than he'd got in 20 years.

..because we had a deal that I got up in the night for the first year of the twins and he thereafter (they'd stopped feeding by then). SO although by then I was woken I wasn't then dealing with them.

"Breastfeeding erm is hardly irrelevent!
One requires a mother to be there
Bottle feeding doesn't.... "

Well you can hire a hospital grade pump and still feed the baby breastmilk... Hard work, but not impossible. There are mothers who have fed their babys 100% expressed milk at 8 weeks although usually not by choice.

The point I was making was that the maternal bond is still important however you feed your baby. Feeding a baby is only a small part of parenting.

Bottlefeeding mums love their babies as much as breastfeeding mums.

I certainly don't think that bottlefeeding mums bond any less with their baby than breastfeeding mums. Think that the reason so many people mentioned it as a consideration was that often at 8 weeks breastfeeding not necessarily fully established and not many mums would have the time or inclination to bank enough milk for their trip at the same time as continuing supply by expressing while they're away.

bf is relevant mainly because being apart for that long would be (a) extremely uncomfortable/engorged (b) very bad for the supply, perhaps fatal for supply unless the woman is very good at expressing and very conscientious about it, even so likely to be v difficult to get supply back and (c) more distressing for the baby, the baby might refuse to take a bottle altogether in many cases.

I don't think that any 8 week old baby should be left for a week. The poor kid must think its been put up of adoption.

rt, dont turn this into a breast versus botle debate.
suffice to say that a breastfeeding mom is most likly to be physically incapable of leavin an 8 week old for a weeks time, and continue t breastfeed her on her return. whereas a bottlefeeding mom would be physically capable of doing so.

my good friends first cousin was in medical school in india when she had her first baby. this baby was born duirng the middle of her exams. she gave birth in themorning, and was then carreid on a stretcher in an ambulance to the exam hall to give her last paper. if she had not givenhat paper, she would have had to retake the entire year. she passed, became a doctor, and said baby is now in her twenties.
i would have been icapable of doing that. physically, mentally, emotionally.

First time I think i would have done it, maybe not a week but if I had my mum or MIL available and willing a week end, to rest, reflect, and have the chance to miss her. It would have done me (and DH) a lot of good and maybe saved us a few months of stress etc.

Second time around maybe I would not need it as much as more relaxed and prepared by the whole idea, but yes I think i would, again if I could.

It is so easire when they are small.

Everytime DH and I go away we miss DD immensely and cannot wait to see her but hey... what a weekend we had!!!!

I'll need to have a look at WWW's new thread, as I am very much on her wavelngth. As I have already said, even though I was breast feeding, I left ds at 6 months for a 9 day holiday (his aunt ie my SIL and my parents split the time looking after him) - and left enough EBM for the whole period for him. Yes, it has been hard work getting enough stored in advance, but that time with dh was also important to me. I also never epxeriened any discomfort while I was away, as I expressed and stored while I was away meant I had fantastic stores for the follwoing 6 months while I was at wrok... I had had to to go back towork f/t at 4.5 months)

If I had had the occasion and opportunity - and need - to go away for a few days when ds was 8 weeks old, then yes, I would have done. I was already used to expressing (had been building stores from when he was only 3 weeks old).

So no, for me personally it would not have been a problem - and I would have been really pissed off at other people judging me and how much they thought I loved ds. Who are they to judge my relationship with my my ds, let alone my relationship my dh - or even (and often this is forgotten) our, ie both dh and my, relationship with ds.

I am so pleased that my ds has such a good relationship with his aunt and with my parents, which I am sure is due in a large part to the time he spent wih them when he was 6 motnhs old (and other evenings even younger).

I personally never had any difficulty leaving ds - but that is not to say I didn't have a bond with him (although perhaps not to the extend that some descirbe here) - but I have always loved getting back to see him.

I recognise that others couldn't - but really object to those who judge me becasue I could and would have done.

Remember, we are all different.

No, wouldn't have occurred to me to want to. Had 10 years with DH before first child was born and hope to have many more years with him after they both leave home.

A baby is only a baby for such a heartbreakingly short time. They become toddlers and you forget what they were like as babies. They become little children and you forget what they were like as toddlers.

Am glad have never left my children to go away on holiday without them. They are our family, fgs, and the people we love most in the world. My DH and I simply wouldn't enjoy spending days and nights without them, even though they are now 6 and 3.

Of course they have now spent the odd night without us at Grandparents' house etc. But this is more for children's and Grandparent's sake, than ours.

We still have a brilliant social life and plenty of childfree hours and adult conversation and interests other than our children. Life hasn't suddenly ground to a halt because we didn't decide to leave our babies with other people when they were tiny.

I find it odd that people do this, tbh.

I'm not making a love issue
I'm making a practical one
Although length of trip away is pertinent of course

Maybe there is someone on MN who is qualified in child psychology and attachment theory. From the little I know, it would seem that an infant is extremely preferentially attuned to its mother above ANYone else, even at one day old. People think babies don't notice when their mum isn't there, but if observed they immediately react when their mother's voice is heard, look instinctively for her, turn to her voice, and I know if my mum holds my littlest (12 weeks) he stares at me the whole time.
I think they know us and need us. It makes me very sad when people don't know this.
Although I might be wrong, I'm not qualified, just have a little grasp of it and obviously a lot of us share the instinct that would support that theory, so maybe there's something in it?
I don't know. Just makes me sad...don't want to offend anyone. Other relationships are important too and compromise might be necessary for all parties to be at their best.

Looking at the Wikepidiea defintion en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Attachment_theory, I don't think waht had been proposed is incompativle with "Monotrop", item 4 in the list of assumptions that form the theory. From what I remember of my reading of the anthroplogical background behind attachment parenting (anlysis of "primitive" trives, where children remained close at all times), the "closeness" was not alwys the mother, but was often someone else within the family unit.

In my case, when I left ds, it was in the care of close relatives, with whom ds was already comfortable. I am sure that contributed to his confidence and his lack of separation anxiety in later months. He knew that his loved one would come back.

Sorry - meant Monotropy, Item 5 in the Wikipedia article

i cold not leave a baby -no

I colleague from work left her DD from about 3 weeks overnight with grandparents, and over the weekend from about 9 weeks.

I felt quite jelous for a couple of seconds
until I thought it through.

She left her for a whole week recently (aged just about 1)

I palm my children off on grandparents regularly, but not that young for that long.

Each to their own

Hi Prettybird, that's really interesting, well having read that it looks like babies don't really mind much for the first few months...it does also say stuff about the caregivers being consistent though...anyway, I think I must have been thinking about something else, not this particular theory.

I had assumed it would cover what I was talking about too, but it doesn't...the thing about babies recognising you and preferring you. It seems to say they only do that after a few months - the age when they are afraid of strangers etc.

I wonder where I read that other thing?

Thankyou for the link...made interesting reading

Another one to have done it, not to much that young, but from about 7 months old every other month I would have a weekend away.

I oundmotherhood like most very stressful at time and likes the weekend away to re-charge batteries, I would leave stressed mum and come back happy mum, always left with either my parents or my sister.

My best friends has never left her children even for overnight, they are 6 & 5, but she openly admits that she has no-one trusted to have them, and she jokes that she wouldn't want to be left alone with her dh for that period of time as its her kids that keep her sane.

I pleased that my son has a bond with both my parents and sister, he is a happy confident 7 year old, who is polite, kind and the most important, happy, so I know it certainly did him no harm.

I am quite bemused by the people who think that leaving them at a young age is weird/strange, and wonder how many actually don't have anyone trustworthy they could leave them with.

The title says for a few days, which is less than a week.
As none of us know the mother the OP is referring to, we cannot know the particular circumstances surrounding this decision.

If the pregnancy was traumatic, perhaps for the mother's mental stability it would be good to get away for a few days to recuperate with her dh. The baby would most likely be looked after by grandparents who form their own bonds with the baby.

I don't think you can say that you wouldn't do it. I'm not sure I would under present circumstances, but if dh offered me a weekend in Paris and I knew the baby was in good hands, who knows, I'd probably go for it.

I appreciate what you're saying Rhubarb, really I do, but unless it was a real emergency, or I really wasn't coping that well - in other words if it would be damaging to try and struggle through, rather than take a needed break - then I would not do it.
And could not.
I need him near me because although my parents are absolutely trustworthy and I'd be certain he was safe and loved, I still feel an invisible connection which I would find it very very painful to try and ignore.

But other people are of course different, there is no harm in that - perhaps says more about my own insecurity or mental health than the kind of mother I am iyswim.

But I really do believe that babies that small are thoroughly aware of which person is their 'main' person. And I'd be afraid that the baby was worried if that person disappeared.

I think the trend in attachment theory has moved on from Bowlby's original idea that babies needed to form a single attachment with the mother ( a very handy theory for the times ) to the idea that babies need and form multiple attachments. ([ another very handy theory for the time )

a friend of mine does this all the time. Her baby was 10wks when she left her with the ILs. Regularly leaves her for a week whilst she swans off skiing.

ex-friend, I shiould say

I asked mum about Bowlby this morning as I was confused (she's a music therapist and has degrees in child psychology etc.)
She agreed that research had moved on and would now suggest that babies DO notice their primary attachment figure, the smell, sound, look of them, from day one...

She also said that there would be likely to be confusion for the baby in this situation, and possibly damage (well she said 'certainly' ) but it would be of a reversible nature, so nothing that couldn't be put right later if you see what I mean.

That's just Mum. She is a sentimental old bint as well

(even worse than me!)

I couldnt do this, i still couldnt now and ds is 17 months, but i do know some people who do this often.
I left ds when he was 2 weeks old withhis grandad for about 3 hours on my birthday so dp could take me out for dinner and i was desperate to get back.