Don’t want to exclusively breastfeed 10 week old anymore

[sannax]

My nearly 11 week old was a good sleeper as a newborn but since 6 weeks has been a bit more difficult at night. For context I have a 3 year old son who wakes a 6am every morning.

For the last few nights my baby boy has been doing a 3 hour stretch in the first part of the night, waking at 1, then waking at 4am. At the 4am wake up he is wants to stay latched until 6 and then sleep till 8.30 am.

Theoretically if I wasn’t woken by my son at 6am I would nap till 8.30 and be fine for the day, however, my husband (who has all night in a spare room to himself) cannot seem to get up when the toddler and take him downstairs/ give him breakfast until I literally have to leave the bed several times at 8am and beg him to. Also…although I really wanted to breastfeed this time round, my husband insisted on it as he is anti-formula.

I’m knackered. I want to give up breastfeeding so I can get a bit more sleep. I’ve had 3 bouts of mastitis, manage the whole house, do bedtime with both children and feel I could spend more time with my toddler if I combi fed. My husband hasn’t even changed a single nappy. Baby feeds every hour or so in the daytime. I don’t think he is getting full feeds and just snacks all day

The issue is the baby won’t take a bottle - I’ve tried Mam and NUK and he refuses. He has refused pumped milk and formula even when hungry. I want to combi feed but don’t know how

Thanks all for your responses.
I’m well aware of the situation with H and following a chat this afternoon he has acknowledged he is falling short. It doesn’t change how I feel though…I have been getting my ducks in a row for some time now…

I will persevere with the bottle and ask my family to try and give him feeds. At least this will allow me leave baby for the afternoon to spend time with toddler. Also plan to stay over at family house for a couple days next week to get some proper rest.

I used to give DD a bottle of formula around midnight. She quickly got used to the wake up and it didnt take long. Then she would sleep a few hours. This gave DW opportunity to sleep from a bf around 9pm til the morning feed.

I sat up watching motorbikes on tv with a beer til feeding time. It wasn’t exactly taxing!

So glad to hear you can spend a few nights with family. I hope you can get some good rest. Take all the chances for naps you can. The early days are brutal.

And don't cover up for how useless he's being when ppl ask.

Good for you OP.

Going to family is a good plan. They can try bottle feeding whilst you are with your toddler or getting rest.

For reference as above at first LO would only take the bottle from anyone other than me and the further (and longer - but only a few hours max) I was away the better. For example if I walked into the room after they were trying for 10 mins it was game over.

So best idea ime is to give a feed then leave for a few hours x

' my husband insisted on it '

that just says it all.

what a shame you married this wonderful kind caring man...

is he getting a father of the year award on Father's Day ?

Continue bf but co sleep ? readall the guidelines on doing it safely it is possible. You will get more rest as the baby just finds your boob by themselves.

I am actually posting to say that I cannot believe people put up with husbands like this. Honestly love, you are already doing it alone. He would be one less person to mother....

Yeah I'd stick to BF, you're just making more work for yourself. As they get to 12 weeks they should be having longer breaks in between feeds

Your baby could wake up for a feed anyway whether you BF or not and then you would need to get up and get bottles ready etc. so it wouldn’t solve the problem. currently you can grab baby and feed.

husband is a dick head and you have three children.

formula is expensive which is why I had to persevere with bf as I wanted to quit.

I haven't read all of the responses but your problem is your husband. I can't see him getting up in the night to make a bottle so it may not help sleep that much, at least with BF you can stay in bed. Obviously do what you need to do but he needs to drag his lazy bum out of bed and care for your 3 year old.
If you do continue to breastfeed I'd recommend having someone look at his latch as the mastitis could indicate a problem there and it could be fixable.

Oh I've caught up a bit more now. Medela calma is a good bottle for breastfed babies. It more closely mimics how babies breastfeed.

Your husband needs to get up!!
if you give your baby a formula bottle they will probably still be up those times.

You have a husband issue not a breastfeeding issue 🙄🤨

My bet is your husband insisted on breast feeding because it got him off the hook for feeds and keeping the baby for any length of time. Speak to him about the 6am wake up in the cold light of day. Tell him as he can go to bed when he likes and can sleep right through he should be sorting himself so he is ready to get up at 6am, or suggest you get the baby onto formula and you will see to the toddler and he can manage the night feeds with the baby

Controversial...... but it worked for me... I breastfed all 3 of our newborn babies in bed at night and we all got enough sleep, hubby stayed with us in the bed. If I was awake after feeding I'd put our baby back in the bassinette by our bed, if not then we all slept where we were. They're now teens and 20s. An exhausted mum is no good for anyone.

And definitely get your hubby to help out. You are in this together. He can hardly dictate since he's not lifting a finger.

Try the tommee tippee closer to nature bottles, when the bottle is in his mouth and he's probably crying, just gently squeeze the teet of the bottle to show him it has milk in, always worked with mine. They used to refuse a bottle thinking it was just another dummy, whereas when they tasted the milk they took the bottle no bother.
It is a myth that FF babies sleep longer, but it is 100% true that it's faster to feed on a bottle and stops the snacking feeds during the day, so they go longer between feeds which can be ridiculously helpful when you have an older DC. I have a 2YO DS and an 9 week old baby who is EBF. I combi feed with expressed breastmilk because I was literally feeding for 20hrs of the day and its not sustainable when I'm alone the majority of the time.
Combi feed mama, and also try a dummy if you haven't already 🫶

Stop allowing him to be a lazy gobshite, was he like this with the first?
Also it's your nippes not his so it doesn't matter if he's anti formula given he's not the one feeding them

Just a little update - since posting, and after having a serious chat with husband, and husband seeing everyone responses, he has stepped up! Now is awake in the mornings at 6.30 dealing with toddler.

Baby still refuses bottle despite mine, my husbands and family efforts, however has started sleeping 5/6 hour stretches for the last 3 days which is frankly amazing. I don’t want to speak too soon but feel like we are coming out of the other side. Will continue EBF for now.

So pleased to hear this! Thank you for the update and keep going, you're doing amazingly.

That's great news.