[JessieW]

Hi girls,

My lovely DH wants to take one of the feeds for our baby (due in March) probably the 4-5am one. I'll need to express I guess! Would love to hear about any other couples that do this, how you manage the practical side of expressing and bottle prep as well as how many nights a week it actually happens?!

Thanks in advance

Jess

[handsfull]

When we had our girls and I was solely expressing for them, DH would do the late night feed ie. 12 midnight one every night. I did the 7-8pm one and then went to bed. It allowed me to get sleep until the 4-5am feed. He was a bit of a night owl so the late night suited him and then he slept until 6.30-7am solidly.

As I said I was solely expressing and he was also in charge of the bottles, freezing, unfreezing and cleaning/sterilising them all.

He did an awesome job. GL and hope it works out well for you.

[feliz6]

Are you planning on doing this from the beginning? A lactation consultant suggested to me that initially I express only if necessary to relieve discomfort. She said if I was expressing in the early days it could send my breasts into overdrive thinking I needed all this extra milk. Also depending on.what kind of a sleeper / feeder ur baby is. Its possible that if someone else does a feed for you there will be too long between feeds and ur breasts will become very uncomfortable. I also found that when my breasts were extremely full my LO had trouble attaching and seemed to have difficulty with the flip.
As I had a little trouble getting feeding properly established I was also concerned that introducing a bottle too early would interfere with that. I'm not sure if nipple confusion is real or not but I wasnt willing to take the chance.
Just some things to think about. Good luck!

[lucky 2]

I'm not sure if nipple confusion is real or not but I wasnt willing to take the chance.

It is real for some, probably not most though.
It tends to be more of an issue for babies who have early introduction of bottles because of early bfing issues (ie non attachers, prems etc) rather than occasional use of a bottle once baby is a proficient breast feeder, but it can still happen (would be seen as bottle preference rather than confusion in these cases).
The link below has great information on alternative ways of feeding a breast fed baby and addresses bottle feeding as one of the options, it is evidence based information presented in a non-judgemental way.
http://kellymom.com/bf/pumpingmoms/feeding...native-feeding/
All the best.

[kwiggle]

I think it's a brilliant idea if you can make it work. I started expressing about week 2 with the intent of DH doing the 11pm feed. It didn't work as this was the most unreliable feed of the day & LO didn't wake up! 4-5 would be much better if your partner is keen to take on that ungodly hour
I really think you should do what works for your family rather than following "lactation rules" - it's such an individual thing. I second kellymom as an awesome resource. I've used it a lot to trouble shoot little issues. Good luck!

[Zephie Chugger]

Yes, We did a nightly bottle feed from birth (DP birth Mum) who went back to work at 6 month needed the sleep so from dote we did two bottle feeds per 24hrs. DP express in the day and before/after morning feed.

It worked for us, DP bfed DS1 until he was nearly a year, with no problems with bfing issues.

[kpingitquiet]

We did it practically from birth. Kiddo was a non-stop sucker and I knew I needed that short nighttime break if I was going to stick with BF. I expressed 1-2 feeds worth of EBM per day then bf on demand the rest of the time. We used 1 at night (dad fed) and 1 for any car trips as I'm not designed for bfing on the go. We didn't have the bf success many do but we got to 6.5 months before my supply dropped out.

[Miss Cookie]

My DH does any bottles between 9-1am and he wakes me for the next feed which is usually 2-3 am. We do this everyday so I get a block of sleep beforehand he gets a block of sleep after. This works for us as we can't get much sleep during the day due to also having a toddler.

Whoever isn't getting up sleeps in bed, the other sleeps on the lounge.

[Tesseract]

I never understood how this works. Don't most people sleep the baby in their room? So the baby wakes up and Mum usually wakes up before Dad because she's more attuned. So she wakes Dad up, then Dad goes and warms the bottle, feeds the baby, and then has to resettle without the boob, which usually results in crying - I don't see how this helps Mum get anymore sleep? Most mums can't sleep through a baby waking, feeding and crying...so it's not like you get more sleep and the whole thing take longer, and then there is the expressing...

Anyway that's how it was for us. But as shown in this thread it works great for some families.

Might be worth just waiting and seeing what your baby is like. I wouldn't introduce a bottle until breastfeeding was well established, but that's just my experience of a 'non-attacher' who took a lot of work to get breastfeeding.

[roses99]

That wouldn't have helped me. I found expressing/cleaning bottles etc such a drain when I had to do it with DS that I would never do it voluntarily. It might help you depending in your particular baby, but you might need to jut wait and see. What DID help me hugely was DH being on duty or all re-settling duties until midnight every night. It meant I could feed DS then go to bed early. DH would get him up when he woke, bring him to me to feed and the. I'd roll over and go straight back to sleep while DH resettled. I loved knowing that he was taking care of it and that I could sleep without listening out for little cries.