Advice please on how to deal with dh, and whether or not IABU. (Sorry this is long.)

[Mossie]

I didn't want to post this under AIBU because I genuinely don't know whether or not IABU!

Ds is six weeks old tomorrow, I'm on maternity leave looking after him.

He is breastfed, and I am still very unsure of myself as to whether I'm getting it right. I've only had him weighed twice since he was born so I'm not sure how well he's gaining. In fact it was only last week I managed to get his chart swapped to one for a bf baby rather than a ff baby, so I'm not sure yet.

Dh thinks I'm obsessing about it, and to some extent I think I am, but until I'm sure I'm doing it right, I can't seem to stop obsessing.

While this is happening I find it hard to get out of the house by myself, because I only get about half an hour on average between feeds before he kicks off screaming.

Mil helps by taking him for an hour or two so I can get the dogs walked and get some housework done. And then I get him back... and he needs feeding again.

Feeding seems to take hours. Dh thinks that I am probably feeding him when he isn't hungry.

Dh cooks the evening meal. Then he takes ds from me for two hours so I can catch up on some sleep.

This means dh comes in from work and does not get any time to himself. He has pointed out that he thinks I should be doing more. However he has been slightly reticent in telling me exactly what more he thinks I should be doing.

I take ds at night - a night feed typically takes over two hours (over an hour to feed him and then the rest of the time to settle him) but to be fair, he only wakes twice in the night, so I do get some sleep.

I wish dh would take my concerns re: ds's feeding a little more seriously. But at the same time, I could just be being paranoid and I won't know until ds has been weighed a few times.

Dh walks around the house with a proper mardy face on him and I feel low enough without this feeling that he is constantly peed off with me. But to be fair, I am not exactly joy and sweetness and light.

I'm not phrasing this very well, and I'm chunnering. But basically I want to know, what should I do? Am I being unreasonable to expect dh to do what he's doing in terms of helping me?

Better go crying baby... you get the gist!

he thinks YOU need to be doing more?

sorry but I suspect this is new dad syndrome - he's not the centre of attention, has to do more around the house and its a bit much. We forget that Dads don't get the hormonal cocktail that allows us to be focused on the baby in the way we do. His life has changed less than yours - he's going to work, seeing other people, able to pee without worrying that the baby needs him....

two suggestions

1. speak to your HV or call NCT/La Leche and discuss your concerns. It could be that theres a problem or more likely it could just be newborns being newborns

2)accept that its going to be difficult for a while and you will be looping on things/obsessing because its all new, you're tired and you don't get a proper break

Good luck, it will get easier.

it gets easier. 6 week old babies feed all the time it is a growth spurt. His tummy is barely bigger than a walnut of course he needs to eat a lot.

Only waking twice in the night is amazing at this age so he will be making up for it during the day too.

Cosleeping worked for us to make the night feeds easier. I only changed mine if they were pooey not if wet to get them back to sleep quicker too.

You are not being unreasonable it is a huge huge culture shock having a new baby.

i thikn you are both struggling with being Parents of a Tiny Baby

it is harder than you can ever imagine

you have a long labour, which was quite traumatic, baby in SCBU IIRC, and then wham.. home and in at the deep end....with no breathing space

babies can take a really long time to feed....and to settle . tis the nature of the beast

not quite sure what more DH expects you to do

do you have a sling?

do you fancy co sleeping?

can you afford a cleaner?

Mossie, for 2 days now Ronnie has not slept during the day. All he wants to do is suck. Now if he doesn't actually want the milk he gags, if he swallows it he wants it. This has been true of all my babies, and it will be true of yours too.

2 hours is too long to be feeding at night. Ronnie also wakes 2-3 x nightly. He is in bed next to me. When I hear him starting to stir for food I do the following.

1. I do not turn on a light

2. I bring him up to my boob, I feel for where his mouth is, when I do that he opens his mouth and at the same time he put the nipple in.

3. he feeds, I go back to sleep and so does he!!

In your position I would not involve my dp at all in my baby's feeding. You will both feel a lot less stressed.

I would also advise sleeping on your own with Bertie until he starts sleeping through.

Gotta go!

Mossy, it's all normal and fine. When you are in it you think it will always be like this but it changes loads in a short time.

As time goes on the baby will get more sociable and your dh will be fully hooked on fatherhood!
From what I can tell, your relationship was a jolly one before and so it will be again.

This stage is just really stressfull for you all. Hang on in there.

You could point out that you also do not get any time to yourself at the moment. Though having a competition to see who is the most miserable and hard done by might not be a good trap to slip into that's what my dh and I do and it's not helpful really Hey you could turn it into a game...a moaning competition! Do you still email each other? Maybe he is in need of some abusive and witty emails from you???

i)I think until you've actually done it, you can't ever understand why looking after a baby takes so much time and energy. DH probably doesn't fully understand. and wonders why all the housework isn't done and his tea on the table...
ii) hormones drive you to be "paranoid" & "obsessive" about all sorts of stuff.DH doesn't have these raging around and possibly (don't shout at me!) is able to take a more objective view. I remember similar situations with my DH after DS1 was born. Actually, sometimes he was right, but because I wanted to be the perfect mother, felt he was criticising me. He wasn't of course, but that's how I felt.
iii) are you feeding yourself well enough? It's easy for the day just to disappear and before you know it you've had nothing to eat. That will affect your milk and your energy levels. If you don't do this already, make lunch and snacks when you have a minute (or get DH to do it the night before while
he's making tea) so that you just have to get a sandwich or whatever out of the fridge.
iv) are you sure DH isn't feeling a bit left out and a bit like a dogsbody when he gets home? Actually, that's part of his job, to help you through all of this, but you know what men are like, he's probably feelign a bit neglected.
iv) I reckon you'll get loads of support and advice on this thread. Why not show it to you DH ?

I am thinking about showing it to dh, but I don't know how he'd feel about me airing my dirty linen in public!!

Kitty I sleep in the same room as ds, he is in the moses basket next to the bed. I tried co-sleeping but I just couldn't get the positioning right feeding lying down at all. He just doesn't seem to latch on right anyway, but it's even more shallow when we're lying down. But dh doesn't have to get up with him of a night.

Shrinky I tried to do this with dh the other night, he just doesn't believe that I have it hard at all, because he thinks I'm sitting there with him on my boob when he doesn't actually need feeding, and it's time spent when I could be doing something around the house.

Better go he's starting to wail...

Mossie - you are definitely not being unreasonable. What you are going through is the difficult adjustment that we all have to through when we have a new baby.

As well as the fatigue, it's the relentlessness of it, and the realisation that you can no longer put your needs first.

If you're not sure you're doing it properly go to the clinic/talk to your health visitor. That's exactly what they're there for - to help and support you.

The constant feeding/suckling thing happened to me with ds2, and it drove me absolutely mad because I felt I had taken root on the sofa and couldn't do anything else! One evening I 'fed' him constantly until 5.00am in the morning!

My parents came to stay when he was very tiny, and my mum - who also breastfed me and was very supportive of my desire to breastfeed - suggested that I give him a bottle in the early evening. This would do two things, firstly it would give me a break from him and second it would reassure me that he was actually taking in a decent quantity of food.

I was very dubious about this - and believe me I hesitated about suggesting it here! - but I bought some ready made up formula and did this on only a few occasions. It really made a difference (also let DH feed him as well, which helped with the bonding) but very importantly did not affect my milk supply.

I would have preferred to use expressed milk, but I just couldn't get the hang of expressing no matter how hard I tried, and no matter which type of pump I used.

Can you express some milk and then use this to bottle feed?

I'm so sorry that you're feeling like this, but believe me it really does pass and one day - like me! - you'll look at women with their babies and wonder if you ever had one!

Take care

Get your dh to take a day off work so he can experience what your days are like. It might help him understand how draining looking after a newborn can be, even if you spend a lot of time sitting on the sofa feeding!

It is tiring to come home from work and have to deal with a newborn, but absolutely necessary for you to have a break and get some much-needed rest. Dh never balked once. I used to go to bed by 10pm at the latest and dh would stay up with ds and put him down when he came to bed at around midnight so I could always get a few hours of sleep in before the night feeds started... But he had already had two children, so had a better idea of what it was like.

Mossy - sorry you're still getting it in the neck from your dh... you're still going through those early few weeks with Bertie and it's such drudgery a lot of the time... it will get better...

If you feel up to it perhaps it's worth practising feeding lying down... could you try with assistance from your LLL person? I know that i struggled to do it with my dd but really tried with ds1 and now find it so much easier with ds2. It could make a real difference to your night feeds.

I second what Kitty says... my dh is also not in with us some nights... it may sound wrong but looking back on past babies it's for such a short time. They DO start sleeping more at night... before you know it you've got a baby who's crawling and exhausting itself in the day... makes for tireder babies at night.

When Bertie feeds is he mucking about for some of the time or is he really going for it throughout? I know when Samuel is just having a feed cos he thinks there's nothing better to do becos he starts biting me or pulling back and flailing about. Then he usually throws it back up! Does Bertie do this or is everything staying down?

WOuld you consider co-sleeping? Much easier if you are bfing. If DH doesn't like it let him sleep in the spare room. The most important thing is that you get some more sleep - everything is better if you can.

I don't think you are feeding him too much. IME newborns need the closeness if not the nutrition as much as poss in the first few weeks. Could you get a sling? That would provide the closeness without stopping you doing the things you want/need to do. It would also mean you could take the baby with you when you walk the dogs - fresh air will halp the baby sleep.

Be patient with each other. Your life has suffered an earthquake and no matter how wanted and expected this baby is it will still seem like everything is all over the place.

Dh does sleep in the spare room, ds is in the Moses basket next to the bed, have tried co-sleeping but I really couldn't get the latch right at all and it just ended up with really sore nipples for me.

Bugger better go again, wail wail wail from the corner!!!

sorry mossy... didn't pick up that dh was in spare room....

would you consider practising the lying down feeding with your LLL person? Even if you did it infront of her and it still hurt at least you'd know you'd exhausted that possibility?

mossy - did you see the link i did to the sheila kitzinger book on ebay on our postnatal thread?

i cant really add anything to the wonderful advice you've had already,other than how much i admire you for sticking at bf

i agree your dh is probably feeling left out,but i dont get why he thinks you would feed your baby if you thought he didnt need feeding.i think it would be a good idea to show him this thread,then he can see that almost constant feeding in the forst few weeks is normal,and that you're not using it as an excuse to skive off the housework.

you say he comes in from work and helps out-well ,good!you are working 24/7 now,why shouldnt he?!you cant possibly do more,from what i remember of bf it takes a hell of alot of energy.anyway,you carried the baby for 9 months,you deserve a rest now

I empathise 100 percent with you. I felt the same way with my first and also with my 2nd. Dh just didn't get how physically demanding it is feeding on demand. Yes, yo could be sitting down all day but you can't sleep when you want, eat when you want and you have a small baby sucking all the goodness out of you
On the settlign thing - have you thought about using a dummy just to see if he's comfort sucking rather than hungry? That was alife saver for me in the night too. We laso swaddled as soon as I'd fed to get the baby off to sleep.
The first 8 weeks are the wrst, then a routine will kick in around 12 weeks and you'll be feeling much better.
When MIl comes round to help don't do the housework, put your feet up an drink loads - however much fluid you're drinking you probably still need more. And loads of snacks.

Mossy - not sure what to suggest really except to reiterate that the first few weeks are bloody hard work - a kind of exhausting cocoon of feeding, sore nipples, crying and dirty bums.

I can't feed lying down either BTW, so can't advise on that.

I think you are doing really well actually, you are so much more observant than I was with DS1 and you are a great Mum to Bertie, which is why you are concerned about his feeding.

Your Dh is being a bit cheeky isn't he - if he realised what hard work it is, I don't think he's have the gall to suggest you should be doing more.

All you should be doing at this early stage is concentrating on you and the baby - making sure you get enough sleep and food to look after Bertie, and ensuring Bertie is clean, fed, cuddled etc. Its all basic needs stuff.

Believe me it will all suddenly chnage in a few weeks and get much easier. Bertie will start to entertain himself as he is able to do more (Monti spends up to an hour staring at his hands atm ) and the gaps between feeds will lengthen, giving you more respite. Then all of a sudden you'll realise he is sitting up and ready for weaning...!!!

oh, this is New Baby Syndrome

I remember dh ranting that all he did was cook and clean and that dd2 "was a life ruiner"

obviously he didn't really think that, but after weeks of relentess toil and lack of sleep, you are both bound to be feeling fed up

I think we had competitive parenting going at one point, over who had the worst deal and probably spent about 2 months hating each other. Which is NORMAL IMO.

Feeding - both mine seemed to feed constantly, they do when they are little. You need Tiktoc to come along with advice re weight etc

I would talk to dh - without finger pointing - and clear the air. Say that you both are finding it crap, but it is like that in the early days and things will improve.

xx

I vividly remember feeding dd1, rushing to the hairdressers - FOR A SODDING HOUR - and then rushing back to screeches coming up the path

I felt like a feeding machine for about 2 months but it did improve

have you tried a dummy? maybe a sucky baby. dd1 had one, dd2 refused one.

Will ask today at LLL meeting about feeding lying down, and once again get help with my crappy latch. I can do it when she is there watching me, but not at home on my own.

So how do I tell all this to dh and ask him to be a bit more supportive when he already thinks he is doing everything he can?

Maybe I am painting him in a bad light. He works hard, he also sorts out the finances and checks we have enough money for bills etc. as I am not great with money (neither's he, but he's slightly better than me!) also he drives, and I don't yet feel ready to start my lessons again (another thing that pees him off) so if we need to go anywhere it is him that takes us, as I'm not very confident taking ds on public transport while he is so screamy if he's not sucking. So he is not a horrible person, he just doesn't believe I'm not sat at home doing nothing.

Diva, "i dont get why he thinks you would feed your baby if you thought he didnt need feeding" because he thinks I am being lazy and using it to settle him when really I should try another method, I'm not explaining that well am I?

Muppet, I did see the link and bought the book, thank you !!

Oliveoil he will take his dummy sometimes, but sometimes not, if he is very hungry he won't settle for just a dummy, iyswim, but if he is just wanting a snack he will take the dummy.

I swaddle him to sleep at night...

Better go again...

ah yes hands!IME baby boys love staring at their hands in facination once they realise they are attached to them-probably thinking of all the things they can do with them in a few months

i know its hard to imagine it will ever get any better when you are in the thick of it,but have faith that in a few weeks,when dh is playing happily with ds,you will have forgotten how bad the first few weeks were(untill next time)

olive oil... i can remember something similar a few weeks back except all i'd done was drive 5 mins down the road to drop ds1 at drama club... stopped for brief chat with another mother... drove straight back...

... dh standing at front door with inconsolable ds2...

... and yes, the only thing that shut him up was the boob!

mossy-sorry,i knew what you meant,i meant i just dont get why your dh thinks you are feeding him when hes not hungry iyswim.