Co parent struggles / overnight stays

[WintersB]

Me and my ex partner are having issues with coming to an agreement on when he can have our newborn over night alone.
He will be breastfed, I do eventually want to pump so he can stay overnight with him, I think it’ll be a great way for dad and baby to bond. My midwife has said to probably not even consider the baby being away from mum over night for months yet or till baby starts weaning.. My ex has made it quite clear that he is not interested in me staying over with the baby and not wanting to stay at mine either if he wants over night stays with him. So it’s making it pretty difficult to come to an agreement and is always ending in arguments.
I‘ve been told it’s not ideal to start pumping straight away and to wait 6 weeks before properly trying and even then i can’t guarantee I’d be able to to provide enough milk to send over to dad which is pretty much my main worry, I don’t want to spend nights worrying that my baby will be away from me with not enough milk and then probably be expected to make the half an hour journey to his house to bring more if it’s in the middle of the night.
It goes without saying that I am grateful that he wants to be a dad and be involved but I’m due in 9 weeks and the thought and anxiety of being left to deal with caring for the baby alone and settling in and also the pressure of being expected to just pump milk so he can be overnight with his dad is becoming a bit overwhelming.
I definitely wouldn’t say me and my ex are on great terms, there’s still animosity on both sides but regardless I do want to be fair on both of us! I think he’s being a bit unreasonable with what he’s expecting and I’m just scared that there’s going to be so much pressure put on me straight away to be away from my baby and somehow mass produce milk like I’m a cow just because he doesn’t want me to be involved with any overnight stays in the beginning.
Has anyone been through similar? How easy would it even be to pump straight away and how much milk would even be enough to pump for stays like that?

My breastfed baby wouldn't take a bottle until she was a year. You will need to stabilise your supply. I can't express this in words but I just couldn't have physically been away for my baby overnight. Neither of us would have coped. You have to think about what is best for the baby and that's being with you!

Court were quite happy for overnights not to start untill DD was 4 years old.
Daytime contact was set as 2hours every other day until she was 2. Little and often is best for early years.
When she turned three it was 2 days a week for 4 hours slowly increasing to 8:30-6pm.
Until she started nursery then it was Wednesday nursery pick up - 6pm and Sundays 8:30am-6pm
Once overnights started it was every Wednesday school pick up - 7pm and EOW. However D actually didn't like sleeping overnight so he ended up dropping her back home then picking her up the next morning.

Other contact was
Mother/father's days and parents birthday spent with relevant parent
DDs birthday and Christmas alternated, Christmas was 12 noon Christmas eve - 12 noon boxing day meaning D could enjoy the whole experience wherever she was and we just did Christmas eve/day on 27th and 28th instead.

Once she reached 12 years she began organising her contact with him independently.

Contact is for the benefit of the child and not the parent nor does it have to be 'fair' if it doesn't suit the child.

Do not let him bully you into overnights too soon, newborn babies need their mums, like actually need them for their development. I would be putting it off for months if not years and if he doesn't like it you just don't put him on the birth certificate to buy yourself a little time and give you some clout if he refused to return baby. Also contact centres are great if you two are still having issues, it's just a supported play centre with age appropriate things for parents to do with their child adbe supported I baby care, you don't even have to see him the supervising staff can do the handovers if that was appropriate to your situation.

I would be shelving any more conversations and leave it until baby is actually here to reduce your stress. In an ideal world you will both come through birth happy and with no issues but that's not always the case and best to leave some breathing room before trying to set out arrangements in stone.

I think overnights are rare while babies are breastfed. It's not something to prioritise at all.

I think it's really nice of you to want to offer equal contact but practically speaking, it's unlikely that's going to work. The baby will be very codependant on you, after all he's been in there for 9 months and neither him nor you will want to be far away from one another. Your milk supply needs time to develop and that's done in conjunction with baby's needs. There will be times when all he wants to do is feed for days, just around a growth spurt and all you can do is sit there and find a book or a box set.

I also say this gently, your post birth hormones are going to kick in and you might just find that they absolutely will not want you to hand over your child. This is your body's way of protecting baby because being separated from you is just not in baby's best interests. It's not fair on the dad but there's a load of things he can do for baby like

1. washing and folding clothes
2. take baby our for a walk so you can sleep or have a shower
3. making some meals and bring them over
4. giving baby a bath
5. reading baby a bedtime story

all sounds a bit trite but they would be far more useful to you and baby than taking baby to his house.

Just now it's about you and baby's needs, not his misguided sense of fatherhood

Did the non resident parent agree to this or were they pushing for more earlier? At what age of child did it get to court?

Well her dad didn't move to my area until she was 9 months old and then we attempted to organise contact between us, I had absolutely no issue with him having contact but he had 0 baby experience and no support system so wanted him to get to know her first and develop some skills so contact was at my parents house to begin with without me there. He kicked off and was very verbally aggressive, smashed my parents front door we went through court from about 18 months old as had to stop contact. We went through a contact centre which was court ordered so he could build up that bond.

He was very angry, job hopping so I didn't get any of his money etc and that he was going to go for 50:50 and all sorts realistically he couldn't keep that up and needed a proper job and eventually he couldn't actually keep up with the short but regular contact the court originally suggested. I suggested the contact schedule above when she was about 2.5 years and they signed it off with the expectations that as she got older it would adapt to her needs. In actual fact he ended up with less, worked retail jobs that ate into 'his' weekends. DD is in mid teens has a nice relationship with him but is now in charge of the contact amount and she just goes on a Sunday now roughly 11 -8pm and doesn't like to stay overnight