Who does what for night feeds in your house?

[mamalicious3030]

Just that really. I feel like we just wing it and it's unfair. DH works shifts. Baby is premature but due date is next week so very much at newborn stage. I'm breast feeding but baby is not taking it well so I'm on the verge of jacking it in. At present though during nights we are giving expressed bottles. So During the night I get up and change baby's nappy which DH prepares a bottle. He gives the bottle and while he does I express. Then he goes off to sleep and I wash up the bottle and breast pump. But I'm finding he's only doing this once and then he loses his shit saying he's had no sleep so I end up doing the whole lot which is very time consuming. I also have a 3 year old to look after. I feel very resentful that I do it all myself and he will only help once. Is this unreasonable? I can't help it I just feel really angry. Tonight he just went to bed and when baby woke he didn't even get up just sleep on so I did it all on my own. I'm literally hating him for it. We are shattered so had an early night tonight but I feel as though my tiredness is not significant. Plus he's doing really stinky farts so I'm hating him so much more tonight. How do you all do the night feeds? Please help.

Dd was breastfed for about 3 months then bottle fed.
For first few weeks as I recovered from my section, DH would lift her to me to be fed & do any nappies and resettling.
Once I was recovered and he was back at work I did 99% of night feeds as it seemed daft to me to wake him when he had work the next day & I was on maternity leave.
But I regularly took daytime naps or went to bed early or had lie ins while he had her.

Ds has been ebf and he turned 1 today. I’ve done all night feeds, though he usually co-slept with us so DH would sometimes just give him a cuddle to get him back to sleep. Again, after my section, DH would pass ds to me and do nappy and resettle.
He’s been in his own room and sleeping through for 3 weeks.... fingers crossed!

Dd who is 4 has been massively struggling with sleep the last few weeks. Our general rule is that if ds wakes then I get up as I’ll feed him but if Dd wakes then DH gets up and gets her back to sleep.

It’s a tough balance to strike I think, especially if breastfeeding. On the one hand I think both people getting up in the night seems a bit daft as then everyone is tired but then I also think that partners need to pull their weight too. I guess it’ll work differently in every family.

I am exclusively expressing and have done since about week 3. I completely understand how you feel as I went through and felt how you did. DH would moan and get annoyed that he would have to get up to do one of the night feeds to the point where I just did it myself as DS was getting stressed out and crying because DH was also stressed (and apparently tired). I ended up getting DS up, changed, fed, put down and then would express. I would have around an hour rest and start the whole thing again. It was so exhausted and I completely resented DH for this. In the end I was so tired and emotional I told him I needed a break. Just one night of sleep. I think having done the night feeds himself, he realised how difficult it was for me (not that he had to pump so was still done quicker than I would have been) he was more willing to help out. Now we take different ‘shifts’ so we each get a chunk of sleep time. I express 5 times a day, and we give one extra bottle of formula. It’s exhausting so figure out a schedule that works for you, baby and DH. It doesn’t have to be set in stone. Sometimes we swap shifts, and sometimes one of us will do all night if the other is really tired. Good luck!

7 week old baby here. We are doing shifts. Bottle fed from birth. So I go to bed with baby around 9.30pm baby asleep in next to me. I am on duty until 4.30am. DH sleeps in other bed to get decent sleep. At 4.30am he comes into this bed where baby is and I go into other bed and sleep until 10.30am. It’s working well for us so far. DH currently at home due to covid. Will have to look at it again when he goes back to work properly but he will do his fair share.

When our twins (now 4) where tiny we both got up and did everything. DH would change bums whilst I made bottles and then we would feed and settle one each. We were lucky that we could always just plonk them back in their Moses basket and they'd always settle straight away because they had each other and soothed one another.

DC3 it's been all me at night, I BF him though until 9 months and DH sleeps in another room because of his awful snoring!
I would soothe and feed and settle DC3, DH would put DC1&2 to bed and then I'd do the night feeds/changes but when they all woke up at 5/6 (they're all very early risers ) he would take all 3 downstairs and leave me to sleep until 8ish.

As @AnneLovesGilbert said, it sounds like could be reflux if you need to hold upright after feeding. Might be worth phoning health visitor or doctor? There are ways to make breastfeeding work with reflux if it’s what you feel is right for you.

Also I did have a fast flow out of one breast and ds would always choke and spit out on that breast so I used to kind of pinch round the nipple to restrict it (looked up tips on la leche) and he eventually got big enough to handle it on his own. Danger boob, i affectionately refererred to the fast flowing boob as.

I feel like if it were possible to get to the point where you were breastfeeding at night, life would be a bit easier. I can see why having you both be up at night isn't optimal, but then pumping and feeding expressed milk creates a ton of work which is currently all falling on you.

The coughing/spluttering thing does sound like maybe baby is struggling with fast let-down - along with expressing a little milk before you start to feed (which you can do into a haakaa or similar, and just plonk the milk into a bottle and dump it later so you don't need to worry about cleaning or sterilising anything overnight), experimenting with different feeding positions might help. Have you had a go at feeding in a reclining position? That can really help as baby's head is higher and they aren't getting quite such a whack of milk all at once.

Got 18 month old and 2 week old I do all night feeds and always have with our first he was so scared as he thought she was small and didn't want really know what to do he did try a night feed and he was so gentle with winding he couldn't get her to wind so I have always just took over now number 2 is even smaller than our first haha. But he has been getting up with out toddler most morning so I don't mind doing night feeds also he's going back to work tomorrow so I'd rather do it all from the start anyway and get use to it had a rough night last night with dd2 but I still got up this morning with them both as tomorrow al have to do it anyway weather it's a rough night or not! X

I breastfed directly so DH couldn't do much. I second the advise about managing your let down, I had to express a bit and lean back for night feeds when mine was tiny. It was like trying to feed a kitten with a hose. It may settle down and get easier as baby gets bigger.

I did all the night feeds for my two.

There are resources here they might help you figure out if fast let-down is part of the difficulty, and provide some strategies if it is: kellymom.com/bf/got-milk/supply-worries/fast-letdown/

My son is 3 now but when he was a newborn, my husband and I both got up for the first 2 weeks. I was attempting to learn how to breastfeed so he was supporting me with that. Once he went back to work I did all the night feeds during the week and we took turns at the weekend (we'd moved onto bottles by then) . My husband has a 100 mile commute each day and operates machinery when at work so it's important he isn't too tired. We plan to do the same this time around.

I've always done all the night feeds whether my DH was working at the time or not. When #2 arrives he will have to start chipping in but I'm happy with the arrangement (DS is 14mo).

We did shifts. Baby was ff. also premature.
The first two weeks we did everything together while we found our feet and caught up on sleep during the day.
When DH went back to work, I would go to bed at 7pm and get up at 11pm, and then DH would sleep 11.30pm until 4.30am and then I would have another hour or so 5am-6am before he went to work.
Once DS could be put down (!!) we started alternating nights.
Once baby dropped to 2 night feeds One Of us would do last feed at night (11) and first in the morning (6.30) and the other would do the middle of the night feed.
Once he dropped the 11pm feed we’d still alternate nights for the Middle of the night feed and we got our evenings back! That first night with no night feeds was utterly glorious.
We always did one night each at the weekend, from the start, so that each of us got a full nights sleep once a week.
The caveat with this is that one of us would never let the other struggle, if I could hear DH was struggling on ‘his’ night then I’d get up to help and vice versa.
Better to have two mildly tired parents than one on their knees with exhaustion and the other not having a clue what to do! DS is 14 months now and we still alternate bedtime and mornings so the other gets down time although thankfully he sleeps through.
It’s a partnership!

And yes DS as a prem baby had really awful silent reflux and he had to literally be held upright at all times until we managed to get him properly medicated. I cried with relief the first time he slept in his crib for the first time!

@mamalicious3030
am breastfeeding so my husband will do nappy change about midnight when he comes to bed and then i will breastfeed him then during night I let him sleep and I breastfeed every 2hrs and do nappy changes then when baby wakes in morning at about 7am I wake husband and he will take him downstairs so I can have a bit more sleep i have 4yr old as well and he will sort him out as well.

If you contact your HV or breastfeeding support they will be able to help you so baby takes breast better i had trouble getting vaby to feed properly this time but my latch was just ever so off but once they showed me how to adjust baby position it gas been a breeze even easier than my 1st.

Is there a reason you bottle of a night instead of breast? As surely this is making it harder?

Is there a reason you express ? Not judging just wondered if there was a reason, I don't express at all you see xx

I exclusively pumped for DD to start with, DH would feed her while I pumped, I was told I didn't need to wash the pump after every use, put in the fridge and wash once a day. When I was able to directly bf I did most of the stuff at night but if she had a bad night I would wake him up to settle her, she didn't nap well so I couldn't catch up on sleep then. When we changed to formula she was 8 months old so waking less, again most nights I did it but DH would do some on bad nights. when I went back to work we took it in turns.

DS is directly breastfed and doesn't wake as much but he has reflux. In the early days DH would hold him after a feed so we both got a similar amount of sleep, now I do it as he generally only wakes once, if he's sick DH will help clean up.

I echo what others have said about fast let down and/or reflux.

The let down may be helped if you express a bit first and maybe try lying down to feed. It's much more relaxing feeding in that position and may mean you're more rested even if you have been awake as much as usual.

Doctor can prescribe things for reflux even for bf babies. My youngest had to take omeprazole as he had quite bad reflux.