Didn’t think through logistics of Breast feeding vs bottle

[JKDcot]

Hi

FTM here and with a 2.5 week old so it’s all very new to me

I decided to try and exclusively breast feed my son. So far it’s ok, but sore and we are both learning, but he is putting weight on so good result.

I always thought my husband and I would agree the care load. Loads of my male friends joke how little sleep they had with a newborn and how much they did.

But if I have to be awake to feed, why should my husband be up in the night? Ive just basically moved onto the spare room and I do the feed, nappy and settle back to bed. He is back at work now after paternity leave (WFH due to COVID) so he is around. But I just let him sleep 10/11pm - 7am without asking for his help.

Is this common? Do other people just assume mum does nights as we feed? I don’t resent him and he will take the baby when he can in the day so I can nap. Just feels funny he wakes up every morning refreshed and I’m shattered

Thanks

Yes exactly how it was. Except DH went into spare room so baby and I could co-sleep in the double.

We have 3 kids. As others have said dh can get up early at weekends and let you rest. Your baby is tiny and needs you most for now. As time goes on then tasks will be more equal.

This is a large reason why I would never bf again. DC1 was ff. we split all nights and neither one of us ever felt exhausted beyond the first couple of weeks. We were a team. Second DC bf and turned rapidly into a bottle refuser. All night feeds on me, DH helpless. It was hell. Never again, it was awful for all of us. But everyone is different.

I ff DC1 and EBF for 3 months then ff DC2 and both times I generally did the night feeds (DH did dream feed and got up at 6am and I then slept solidly til 8). This worked until recently when instead of 1/2 wake ups DC2 has started waking almost hourly. We changed tactic now and take a night each so have a solid 8 hours then a hideous broken night. It’s whatever works for you BOTH. As pp have said I don’t really get waking DH to pass you a baby or settle them unless it takes hours but equally I love being able to share the night load especially as we have an older DC so I can’t potter around all day And nap with just a small baby. That’s the benefit of ff I suppose though!

I breastfed and did all the night feeds for the first six months. It was very tiring and actually DH slept well for those 6 months!

I did express and my husband would do a late feed at around 11pm and I would often go to bed at around 7ish so I got a few solid hours sleep then.

My DS wouldn’t take a bottle in the night, if he had I would have let my DH do the weekend night feeds with expressed milk. My DH sent me to the spare room several times with a bottle ready for DS but he just would not take it!

Be really clear about what he must do, since you’re doing this. You get both lie-ins on the weekend. He takes the baby out in the pram when he’s back from work for an hour so you have your head to yourself. He makes dinner. Whatever seems equal to you. Honestly, this is an important time in terms of the ongoing equality in your marriage. Congratulations on your lovely baby!

Was feeding constantly at the beginning so DH would do the nappy changes so I could nap during them.

In my experience most children don't sleep through consistently for the first two years or so. My OH didn't do any wake ups for the first six months or so, then I night weaned and he took over. He's had his fair share of broken nights!

There's other tasks to do that DH can help with though.

Cooking, cleaning.

Having baby for a few hours while you nap.

Try to be equal but not the same.

When they’re feeding lots that is how it was for me but once they can go a little longer I used to pass baby to my DH at about 6/7 so I could get more sleep and the same in the evenings so I could get a bit of sleep. He did get up a few times to help with nappies but we found that then the next day we were both tired whereas it made more sense for him to be able to look after baby in the day so I could get a bit extra sleep

Also my DH did all the cooking and pretty much all the cleaning in the early weeks

I exclusively breastfed my son too and my fiancé did most of the nighttime nappies. It worked for us.

You're only a couple of weeks in so you may find your current arrangement might change.

I decided to ebf my dd (many years ago). I wanted her to sleep in our room for the first few months so dp decided to move into the spare room. He couldn't do anything to help and had to be up early for work so he thought that he might as well get a decent night's sleep.

It was a bit irritating that he was always rested while I always seemed knackered but it made sense. I ended up cosleeping which helped because I could feed dd without having to get out of bed and while I was still half asleep. I never did nappy changes in the night.

I’ve breastfed 4 to a year old. We didn’t share nights, what is the point of both being awake?! Especially once we had toddlers and preschoolers, he got up with them in the morning and did breakfast while I had another 30 minutes sleep.

I had a slow recovery from pregnancy and birth so DH was up in the night a lot in the early days changing nappies, passing me the baby etc. Also during the cluster feed all night stage he would make me something to eat if I needed it.

The question isn't really about what your DH does in the night as such, it's about whether overall you want help in the night, whether you feel supported and whether he does his fair share. If you are ok then it doesn't much matter if he does more in the day and less at night. If you aren't then you should talk to him about what you need him to do and when.

Everyone is still finding their feet in the early days so it's all about communication and trial and error to see what works.

Congratulations on your new baby!

We’ve always done this, it doesn’t make sense for one of us to be tired all the time I’d prefer to be left to it with the baby in the night and then DH be refreshed to either take over in the morning or help easily in other ways. He probably got an easier deal the first time around true but once we had our second he got up ever morning with the toddler at 6am and with both my children when they turned 1 and I wanted to night wean them he took over in the nights.

Just do what works for you, I think it’s only a problem if you suspect that he won’t pull his weight in other ways or when it comes to his turn to take over in the nights once you stop feeding

Also I should add it’s not too late to introduce a bottle of expressed milk (or formula). We did this with my first gave him a bottle at bedtime. It meant that he could do bedtime from a very young age which gave me some respite in the evening

Share the burden. Baby cries, dh fetches baby. I feed baby while dh goes back to sleep. Dh changes and settles baby.

See I just don't get this. You wake, DH wakes, gets up and gets the baby (a distance of 1-3m away depending on your room size), goes back to sleep for 10-20 minutes, then wakes again to pop baby back in its crib? If I'm going to be awake anyway bf, I wouldn't wake my DH to do a task that takes under 20 seconds. Seems more like revenge than sharing the load.

My DD was FF and I tended to to do most of the nights during the week, but if it was 5am or later he would be getting up for work and do that feed, and he would also do the weekend night feeds.

I tended to wake up anyway but it was nice to just be able to lay there and drift back off.

She was also in her own room from quite young so me and DH didn't disturb each other when she was being put back in her cot.

I did all the nights both times too, as, as you say, if you're bf you're up anyway so you might as well not both be tired. DH did a lot in the day tho, and did his fair share with early waking toddlers.

We tried the system where he gets the kid so I can BF. Both so cranky. Then we did I do all the nights but he does all our meals, and he got sleep so he needs to try to not be cranky. Worked much better ;-)
Congratulations!!

@ChaBishkoot Can your DH have a word with everyone else's DH's please. He sounds awesome.

Our ds is 6 months. Up until about 10 weeks we did shifts, dh would give bottles and settled him from 8pm till 1am, then we'd swap (I breastfed) Ds gradually started sleeping through the bulk of dhs 'shift' so we started to change how we did things. Baby is now ebf (although just starting food) and for a while now I've done all night feeds. However, dh takes him early in the mornings and we both do the bedtime routine (story, massage etc) If baby hasn't settled after a night feed and thinks it's party time, dh will help settle him back down, but if it's just wake, feed, back to sleep, he'll sleep through it, obviously.

We're thinking of changing things again soon as ds goes into his own room, but we'll see. Just do what works for you and be flexible if you can xxx

The first few weeks are relentless but 2 of mine (ebf) slept through (7-7) from 7 weeks.

@dancingonmycervix when you say slept through, do you mean they slept for 12 hours straight with no feeds?

I think what you are doing is common. But we did it differently from the start because I went back to work at 10-11wks post birth with all my children. My DH had two weeks paternity leave which he topped up with two weeks of holiday days. So we didn’t have a stay at home parent set up, we were essentially two working parents and decided to start as we meant to carry on.

So, I too breastfed exclusively. I’d wake up, do the night time feed and then I’d wake up DH and he’d do the nappy change and settling of the baby back to sleep. We had to do a nappy change because we used cloth nappies instead of landfill choking nasty disposable ones.

This way ensured we both got some sleep and once we were both back at work, we had our routine well established.

Thing is I would always wake up when baby cried, so even if DH had to sort the bottle I would have still been awake. So I breastfed both mine til about 2 and did all night feeds at first. When baby is older she can be settled by cuddles from either parent. DH helped in other ways such as taking baby in early evening or morning for me to sleep. Breastfeeding is so worth it in my opinion.