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

I was also shocked by how having a baby changed the “equal” dynamic of our relationship. But bf is just a continuation of pregnancy. Your DH couldn’t share that with you either. We are designed to do it and there are so many benefits.

I also think the benefits of ff are overstated here. The dynamic of the mother being primary carer and the fact of maternity leave means that nearly everyone I know who Ff also did all the night feeds because their DH was working and so needed to sleep and/or because the mother would have woken anyway and/or because feeding the baby is the mother’s job.

Anyway, it doesn’t feel like it in the early days but time passes really quickly. As soon as the baby doesn’t need night feeds anymore you can start to share the load more. And/or as others have said we shared it in other ways - I did all the night feeds but DH did absolutely everything else around the house. He also took DS every morning for a couple of hours (from about 6-8) which was amazing. Other people I know had their DH give the baby a bottle (formula or expressed milk) in the early evening so they could go to bed early (say 8pm) and DH would bring the baby up at 11ish.

Ultimately if women want to have children as part of a genuinely equal partnership where the man picks up his share of the hard work from day one...well I wonder if breastfeeding can really be compatible with that.

There is more to parenting than feeding, I agree that partners should share the work equally but that doesn't mean doing half of each task. The breastfeeding mother can continue to breastfeed while the other parent picks up other parts of their shared responsibilities.

'Oh but the baby needs to be formula fed because their dad needs to bond' is the same kind of harmful rubbish that is thrown about. New mothers need to be supported to breastfeed where that is their wish and not told they must give a bottle or they won't get any sleep, they can't leave the baby etc. It's simply not the case.

I agree it is not acceptable when a partner has shirked all responsibility or does contribute to parenting but that is because it's been allowed to happen. You so often see 'oh I can't ask dh to do that he's useless/can't cope' and I makes me so angry, why can't a man- a grown ass adult man- can't cope with his own children, or do a shop or any other task? Why has that not been discussed and nipped in the bud? It's nothing to do with breastfeeding.

See the anti bottle brigade is out.

I bottle fed my daughter, she’s a perfectly healthy 23 year old now who is very close to both of us. I bottle fed because I wished to. The benefits for breast feeding past the first couple of weeks are being questioned by scientists for developed countries, undeveloped clearly its for as long as possible, ideally two years, many studies have shown its subjective at best.

Some breast fed kids go for years with a night feed. Pretending it’s not hard work for the mother is a joke. Pretending they bond better is a joke. My daughter and plenty of other formula fed babies would laugh in your face, as would plenty of bottle fed babies. Bonding with your child is about much more than Breast feeding.

What’s important is the mother and baby are happy. Not a shattered mother struggling through years of night feeding or feeding to sleep.

People should have a choice, and there are pros and cons to both. Let’s not pretend otherwise.

Ultimately if women want to have children as part of a genuinely equal partnership where the man picks up his share of the hard work from day one...well I wonder if breastfeeding can really be compatible with that.

It can be compatible provided the only thing the mum is allowed to do in the early days is eat, sleep, and breastfeed. In cultures where men and women have unequal relationships the woman and baby usually spends the first 40-60 days with her parents and basically does exactly that. Western cultures are so anti-woman that even the health services want women up and running more or less immediately - and in places like the US often as quickly as 2-4 weeks after birth

It can be compatible provided the only thing the mum is allowed to do in the early days is eat, sleep, and breastfeed

How does that work then with full time employment,,,

My dh drives all over the place for work, often working away. So with our dd I did the majority of night time feeds (she was bottle fed, so was by choice) my husband offered, but I've always favoured him pulling his weight during waking hours when he's home, rather than staying up through the night to feed, then being tired and falling asleep at the wheel or slower reactions should he be in a crash or anything.

The issue with breastfeeding, the only way for it to be fair would be to wake your dh up every time you're awake to feed. Other options would be expressing your milk, or formula feeding. Usually for an exclusive breastfeeding mum I've found those last two aren't options for them.

I’ve EBF my DD now 9 months.
I have done 100% of nights and have separate rooms but my DH has done everything at home, all cooking, cleaning, shopping etc. I have just looked after baby and not lifted a finger otherwise.
It’s worked very well for us

I didn’t get on with expressing so not used any bottles so no chance for DH to feed.

If I had EBF then we would have done similar. What can he do to help at night if he can’t feed DC?

@Bluntness100 don’t turn this into yet another tedious bf v ff thread...it’s really not about that. It’s specifically about how to manage the challenges of breastfeeding and how you cope with the burden of night feeds in the early days.

Great you’ve got a happy healthy daughter, but it’s not relevant to the OP.

I BF all of mine for a year each. I obviously did all the night feeds but we all slept in same room (me, DH and baby) so if baby was particular fussy and needed settling or did a big poo and needed changing DH would often get up and help.
During the day when he wasn’t at work he would do baths and nappies, settlingC house stuff, cooking etc.
When they got to a year old and were weaned off the breast DH did the nighttime’s as otherwise the child would want to feed. I think he had it worse as although only was a couple weeks until child started sleeping through it’s was a couple of weeks of constant up and down each time!

Oh I didn't feel got at @Rainycloudyday - I guess I was also just musing. If I'm honest I didn't much enjoy breastfeeding but I'm still glad I did it - and I plan to do it again if I have another baby. I just think that, as @HarrietM87 said, in practice the number of couples who manage equality is tiny so encouraging women not to breastfeed in pursuit of that seems unrealistic. I actually think quite a lot of women are done a disservice by being told that they must formula feed so that dad/granny/whoever can also share in it and bond with the baby, when a lot of the time that 'help' turns out to be quite token.

I will say that this:
It can be compatible provided the only thing the mum is allowed to do in the early days is eat, sleep, and breastfeed

Sounds ok in theory, but it doesn't work if dad isn't home all day, but also it just isn't what I wanted to do, so to me it didn't feel ideal. Tbh I found having a tiny baby, much as I loved him more than anything else on earth, felt like being in a very boring house arrest. But again I think breastfeeding, and that feeling of being trapped on the sofa, exacerbated it but it would have been there either way - I just don't think I'm a tiny baby person. I'm now absolutely loving toddlerhood, which none of the 'having a newborn is great because you sit around feeding and watching netflix' mums I know are! I'm also pregnant again, so those first few months weren't so terrible that I wouldn't repeat them...

I do think the key message for the OP is that this is a short and fleeting stage, and that the key thing is that the dynamic doesn't have to be set now and forever more. You can do all the nights now, if that works for you, without committing to still doing them all in a year. I have found that if equality really matters to you then you do have to actively think about how to achieve it because society isn't set up to encourage it.

@prolefeed

God no. We had three. Share the burden. Baby cries, dh fetches baby. I feed baby while dh goes back to sleep. Dh changes and settles baby. I’m no martyr. It worked well, he understood what hard work parenting is from the get go. I’ve never had any issues with him pulling his weight, despite working hard and long. Why would you take on all the work and give him a free ride? How on earth is he going to understand what you are doing if he doesn’t do his share?! What you do now is going to set the tone for your entire marriage. Parenting is a joint responsibility, not an opportunity for a woman to look after a baby and a grown man.

I really don’t see the point in this. My DH is a reasonable man and knows exactly what parenting entails, he picks up literally all the house work, brings me coffee in the morning, takes the baby in the morning so i sleep etc etc

He doesn’t need to get up in the night with me to see how hard that bit is, same as I’m not forced in to coming up a ladder with him every time he cleans out the gutters or stand next to him passing him bin bags whenever he empties the bin

I never moved into another room and when the dc woke in the night, if they needed anything other than a feed I would turn the light on and do nothing to avoid my DH also being woken. I wouldn't do anything to especially try and wake him but I had no concerns about disrupting his sleep.

You can't share pregnancy and you can't share breastfeeding (well I suppose two women could share breastfeeding if the one who didn't give birth induced lactation, but that doesn't apply to most) and it's not worth getting bogged down in a 'we must share all care tasks equally' mindset: it needs to be equal overall but as you have the breasts and make the milk, you will be doing the feeding and your DH will need to pick up the slack elsewhere.

I EBF till 13mo. For the first few months DH would wake up for every night feed - he did the nappy change. Then slowly he started sleeping through some of DS' wake ups. But EBF definitely doesn't mean DH can't be helping with the night feeds. He could also do the night feeds with expressed milk

@Bluntness100

It can be compatible provided the only thing the mum is allowed to do in the early days is eat, sleep, and breastfeed

How does that work then with full time employment,,,

Who goes back to work that early? You can't legally return for 2 weeks after the birth and the number of women returning before 6 weeks in the UK is likely to be very small indeed.

I went back to full time employment when each of mine were about 9 months, was still breastfeeding although obviously not exclusively by then, and it was perfectly fine.

I extended breastfed both mine without ever having a bottle and it did not mean we didnt have an equal partnership

I did 12-6 and he did around that. If it involved waking up needing changing and feeding then straight to sleep it was fine. Nights that were more complicated and they didnt sleep or woke up and wouldnt settle and didnt need feeding he would step in

OP if he is refreshed and you are shattered talk to him and work it out but it doesnt mean changing how you feed

I also personally found expressing to be one of the biggest cons I was sold - so much more hassle than just feeding, and physically unpleasant, which I never found breastfeeding - which is why I didn't express when I went back to work, as I'd always planned to do when pregnant. Again, everyone is different and some people have very positive experiences of expressing but I see women on the pregnancy boards saying that they'll 'breastfeed, but I'll also express so that DP can also bond with the baby and so that I'm not tied to the baby all the time' and I do think they've been sold an unrealistic ideal. In the early days if you expressed to avoid night feeds you'd still need to express in the night, so what have you really gained?

I BF so did all night feeds (didn't need to change nappy often after a few weeks) and it worked for us.

You're really tired now because you have birth and probably missed a whole nights sleep. It does get better eventually (but maybe worse first, sorry)

I personally think the benefits of BF outweigh the benefits of not having to wake up for feeds.

Use a dimmer light next to the bed so you can feed in almost darkness, only change nappy if it's dirty, and be prepared to start the day early, then put baby back down for a nap. You shouldn't have to be on the spare room.

@Bluntness100

It can be compatible provided the only thing the mum is allowed to do in the early days is eat, sleep, and breastfeed

How does that work then with full time employment,,,

Early DAYS Bluntness is the key word. No one has a baby and is back to work within days.

I was back at work full time when my four were aged 10-12 weeks. I had 12 was off with each starting on my due date. Yes I worked full time until my due date). Some were late, one was on time.

But I breastfed ALL of them exclusively. There is this contraption called a breast pump and miraculously, it pumps breast milk which anyone can then feed to your baby via a handy thing called a bottle.

It works. Myself and many many other mothers are proof of it. Full time work is not a barrier to breastfeeding.

I guess the sleeping arrangement is something to consider aswell.. whether that be cosleeping, if baby is in your room or in their own room, whether your OH will sleep elsewhere etc..

I don't know why everyone is jumping on @Bluntness100 for saying that 'mum does nothing but sleep, eat and feed baby' isn't compatible with full-time work - I thought it was fairly clear that she's saying that it won't work if dad is back at work, not that she was saying that women normally go back to work immediately post-partum. How can the father do everything except feed if he's out of the house for 12 hours a day?

This was how I did it. My partner was at work and my oldest was in school and as I was breastfeeding I did night feeds as could nap in the day. On the weekends he would do the childcare so I could catch up on sleep. I found it easier though as the bottle seemed too much faff and work when we could all be back to sleep within 30 mins.