How to do anything without baby?! Help!

[caif90]

Hi All,

I'm almost 4 months pp, EBFing and hoping to try and get my haircut at some point!! My hairdresser is based in London but I live outside in Surrey.

Trying to work out how it's possible to do this?! I'm expressing milk so could conceivably leave baby with husband but got to be honest, I haven't left him for more than an hour or so with baby and although I trust he'd look after her, I worry because at the moment I look after her 24-7 while he's working and he never feeds her himself - even with an expressed bottle. I can read her hunger signs but not sure he'd be able to?! Maybe this is unfair of me to say! And possibly first mum anxiety!!

Second option is travelling with baby and taking her with me - although a step free journey takes close to 2hrs and I'm not sure how much I'd be able to hold / feed her while getting my hair washed and cut etc

Third option is asking my parents if they're around to look after her if we drive to theirs. Then I can pop into town without her but the round trip would be lengthy and I'd still need to express milk for them to feed her. In all honesty, they should come secondary to my husband actually parenting - as opposed to my parents "babysitting".

Please let me know how you managed this?! I feel like I can't leave the house without her for more than an hour or so at the moment and that's kind of absurd!

@Cobblersorchard what you said! When you're EBFing and can't express (or can only express a little like me), it's not that easy to just get up and leave baby for hours at a time. Equal def doesn't have to mean the same. My husband is doing all the bottles washing / sanitising, food shopping, dishwasher, cooking, makes me breakfast every morning while I'm in bed feeding. Yes sometimes I'd like to do some of these things myself (in which case I tell my husband and he takes baby) but he already gives me an hour or so every morning to go to the gym alone while he takes her and in the evening so I can have a bath. Crazy how people can jump to conclusions so quickly. I just don't think it's as simple as "give baby to dad and go get your haircut and let him parent". Whatever I express is either being frozen for when I go back to work or given in a bottle before bed (and then she goes onto the boob after as what I express is never enough!). Just wanted to say thanks for pointing this out.

I think that’s where I found a difference - DC’s were bottle fed so happy to be comforted by DH or I. I think DH was naturally better at the baby stage - I’d rarely held a baby before DC’s let alone made up a bottle or changed a nappy. DH is a GP and much better at handling babies and working out what’s up. He was much better at the sleep training than me.

In fairness OP you made out that leaving baby with your parents was preferable to leaving her with your Husband, her other parent, so forgive us if that's been translated as a DH problem in replies.

@caif90 that sounds very much like my husband. He always used to say he couldn't wait for her to get a bit bigger so he could do more 'fun' things with her like read and taking her out for the day. He now reads to her every single night and given the choice I'm almost certain she would choose to go on a day out with her Daddy over me because they just have so much fun together now. Every morning she's so sad if he's already left for work and she's stuck with me 😂. But at 4 months old she would never ever have wanted to be with her Dad over me. So in my experience it definitely eases up and gets less intense 🙂

Honestly, your not even 4m PP, you're finding time to regularly go to the gym, have relaxing baths to chill and are even contemplating getting your hair done. You're winning in the battle for self care, even if it doesn't feel like it.

Personally I'd go for a local hairdresser, or maybe one that comes to your house.