would you leave your 12 week old to go out for 3 hours?

[Ellax]

12 week old is ebf and we haven’t been separated since they’ve been born.

it would be to go out 10 mins away for 3 hours and I’ll give dh a bottle of breast milk.

Would you do it??

TIA ! X

Please explain the risks.

Absolutely, as long as you feel comfortable.

Posters going on about daddies, with all due respect it's ebf. Mother breastfeeds. Plenty of ways that fathers can support that have nothing to do with feeding.

No, EBF includes expressed breast milk. And even if it didn't, who cares? Women don't get medals for never using a bottle.

It's usually recommended to introduce bottles before this age if there is any plan to give them at all. Waiting longer than 12 weeks means there is a high risk they won't accept it.

Yes

We slowly introduced bottles at 6 months. No issues.

So because you and your H didn't ensure your baby would take a bottle before you went out and then had to deal with the consequences of a distraught baby, no one else should ever go out. Can you please point to any professional source which says that EBF is instantly negated by an occasional bottle? That is not the deal. That is just mum shaming and putting people under unrealistic and unnecessary pressure.

I would and I did but it felt a lot harder to do than I expected. Didn't help that she was a wailing banshee at that stage of her life.

It may surprise you but not everyone experiences a newborn in the same way. You may have been back at work for weeks but I was at home with a child who screamed for hours on end and had turned me into an anxious mess. This was pre Covid

Sure, some babies do accept them later. The risk of refusal is a lot higher, though.

My eldest refused bottles altogether, so we did EBM on a spoon, then introduced a cup at about 6mo. It's generally recommended to start moving away from bottles towards 1yo anyway, so we just skipped bottles altogether.

Yes. Totally ok.

Yes, of course. I was working the odd day then and also obviously needed to get my hair done 😀

Erm. Yes

I've met lots of women with BF babies through work who have introduced bottles early and then the baby decides they hate bottles all of a sudden. They are fickle little things. Introduce one when it's good for you - there is some guidance on paced bottle feeding for very new babies if you need to protect BF but really, introduce them when it works for your family.

Sharing my experience is not shaming mothers. It's sharing MY experience. I had been deep in post partum depression so I was encouraged to have a 'break' by well meaning relatives who had pressured me from the start to use bottles. It was horrendous. It's a cautionary tale. That's all. I never left them again until they were about a year old. Didn't damage my life. Or theirs. My mother in law tho, she didn't like it. Tough crap.

I did, it wasn't hugely successful but mainly because xh was a useless idiot, if you have a confident and capable dh then it'll be absolutely fine. FWIW dd2 never took a bottle, just went straight to a cup and straw at about 8mo, but if I'd fed her before she was fine for a few hours. Do what feels right for you, I've no idea what's risky about it as per PP

Yes I would, though you / DH might need to work on getting baby to accept a bottle. With my first DH gave bottles of expressed breast milk from 4 weeks, and I was away for a full day once a week from 6 weeks (KIT days).

With second I was a SAHM so didn't need to introduce bottles early on, but when we tried at around 3 months, baby wasn't having it.

Of course, give yourself a break.
Current parenting style puts so much pressure on mums, it's unhelpful.

I did with both ebf babies and think it's absolutely fine as long as you feel OK with it. Worst case scenario, it's only 10 mins away and you could hop back for a feed. I'd make sure you try the bottle first though.

Leave the child alone with it's Father? Never.

I did and my husband sent me a text saying he needed to grow boobs 🤣 she decided she was not having the bottle which we had practised with before.
He managed to rock her until I got back.
I didn’t try again for a few months. Some babies will be fine though.

Yes! At 2 months old I was out doing a bottomless brunch and left my husband with baby. I just pumped and gave him some bottles.

Yes, baby will be fine (assuming they already happily take a bottle). Mine didn't get the memo about EBF and we switched to formula because he was starving (and in hospital with failure to thrive) so was on formula from 11 days old.

I first left him for 4-5 hours at four months old because I wanted to go to an art exhibition I'd booked before I was even pregnant. He was absolutely fine.

I think you know your child OP and ultimately this is about how you and your DH feel about what you are considering. Have you tried expressing or giving a bottle of expressed milk yet? If not, I'd defo give that a go in advance.

I had to unexpectedly go into hospital for 4 nights when my second, who was EBF at that stage, was 6 weeks old. So I had to leave him, and 3 year old DD at home with DH. They all coped, probs better than I did, but we didn't have a choice, I was very ill.

Of course. I wouldn't (and didn't) think twice tbh