Let her grow up
My daughter is 5 months now and BF keeps asking me when I plan to stop breastfeeding (his 2 other kids were formula fed and he never wanted me to breastfeed, but too bad BF). She does take bottles (I have bottle fed her many times now) but it can be a struggle sometimes and he's just not always patient enough to try to give her the bottles, so I barely ask him to bottle feed her.
Now, my plan is to breastfeed until my daughter is 12 months, unless something happens that forces me to stop sooner, or I decide I'm ready to stop. So next time he asks me this I plan to say "BF, I'll stop breastfeeding when you stop letting your almost 5 year old daughter drink out of baby bottles." I don't understand it. This girl is almost 5 but is coddled and treated like she's still an infant. She doesn't even need help doing most things, but BF rushes to help her anyway. She even likes playing with my infant daughter's toys, despite having stacks of her own toys. This annoys me because I hate that she feels entitled to play with my daughter's things when she's super spoiled and has tons of her own things.
How do you guys deal with spouses that refuse to let their kids grow up? Is there something I can do to make him see that he's doing his daughter a disservice by coddling her?
It’s not his place to tell
It’s not his place to tell when you need to stop breastfeeding your child or breastfeed at all. It absolutely doesn’t matter what his other kids had. Pisses me off that that’s even an argument.
About the 5 year old I think there’s nothing you can do really. I would just let it go and completely ignore it, not my kid - not my problem. I know it’s ennoying and now he will make an example of it to your little one and try to do the same to her when she’s older. It’s your job and duty not to let that happen and learn from his and bm mistakes.
When it comes to his kids i think it’s not your responsibility nor decisions so don’t make a mistake of taking any of these points on yourself. You’re better off!
Exactly! It's like he tries
Exactly! It's like he tries to pressure me into stopping sooner than I want for his own convenience because he believes that bottle feeding is the only way to bond with a baby, and because his other 2 were brought up a certain way, so our daughter should be brought up the same exact way.
I'm going to do everything I can to make sure our daughter isn't raised the same way the other 2 were. I can already tell he's going to try to treat our daughter the exact same way and I'm going to do everything I can to prevent/put a stop to it. His kids are very young and I see the many issues they have, and no one cares enough to say or do anything about it. Like no one's worried about the kind of adults they'll become and I'm sure it's safe to assume they'll be the kind that never leaves home because of the spoiling and coddling all their life.
You're right, they're absolutely not my responsibility. I just need to keep reminding myself that and just not make the same mistakes.
Why does he want you to stop
Why does he want you to stop breastfeeding?
He wants to raise her the
He wants to raise her the same exact way he raised his other kids, and me breastfeeding is something he's not used to and he was kind of immature about it at first, thinking it's gross. He also believes that it's the only way to bond with a baby. It's pretty much what his entire family thinks because they were all surprised I was planning to breastfeed and I could tell they didn't want me to either.
My formerSO was the same way,
My formerSO was the same way, his family too (except his sister). Very very backward thinking, imho. The benefits of breastfeeding are astounding and simply do not compare to formula.
Keep breastfeeding as long as you want and ignore their backward thinking.
ExH and his family were the
ExH and his family were the same way. They expected me not to breastfeed but use "safe and sterile" boiled bottles. I rebelled and breastfed dd until she was 9 months. Each kid varied in durations but my youngest was 2 years when he was weaned. Do what feels right for you and baby. Your BF can bond with baby in so many other ways. He can wear her in a carrier, change, massage, fed, etc.
He just doesn't understand
He just doesn't understand that there's many different ways to bond.
I certainly would not tell
I certainly would not tell him I'd stop breastfeeding when he stops letting his 5 year old drink from baby bottles. He might, and then where would you be? Just tell him your plan is to breastfeed until 12 months unless something changes and that you feel that's what is best for the baby.
I don't get the coddling of children. It does the kids no favors. I would think that a good parent would want to see his children independent and able to do things on their own as soon as possible. I'm not sure what you do about your BF other than continue to tell him he's holding her back by treating her like a baby. You might want to praise the child when she does something for herself to encourage her to be more independent. My SO's kids prefer doing things for themselves and will tell him they can do it themselves if he tries to help (for instance when they're dressing, tying shoes, etc.) I suspect that's in large part because we've made a big deal of progress they make toward independence.
I thought about that. I don't
I thought about that. I don't think he'd be brave enough to take away her comfort, though, and possibly make her hate him. I also thought about telling BM as she has no idea this is going on (she's asked him to stop but he's been hiding it from her), but decided against it.
Thats how I feel! I can't wait until our daughter is old enough to start being more independent and do things on her own. It'll make life easier and I'm sure it'll feel equally as good for her because she won't need mommy and daddy for everything. She'll be able to be a big girl. I feel like coddling stunts their growth.
Praising her is a good idea. I wish his kids preferred doing things themselves.
I really hope you are
I really hope you are prepared for all the problems you are going to have co-parenting with your DH. He is encouraging you to stop breastfeeding, which has been proven to be best for baby. And, he is making bad choices for his older children. He sounds like an irresponsible parent. Plus, he is lying and hiding things from BM. What will you do when he is hiding things from you about your own daughter?
I'm constantly thinking about
I'm constantly thinking about the difficulties we're going to have as she gets older. He's selfish, definitely irresponsible, and only wants to think about what he wants, or what they want, instead of what's best for the kids. I've tried to get him to see, in suttle ways, that he needs to stop this because he doesn't need to make his kids happy all the time, and it's more important to do what you know is right, even if it means the kids will be upset. Oh and I just found out that he still let's his 8 year old drink out of sippy cups.
Right now I hardly ever leave our daughter alone with him because I don't trust him and that's the only thing I can think of to do to prevent him from doing things he shouldn't behind my back with her. Stinks though because I hardly ever get a break, but I'm okay with it if it means she'll be raised the right way. why couldn't I have seen all the red flags that he wouldn't be the best dad long before getting pregnant. Such a frustrating situation.
So let me get this right op...
Your bf had his previous 2 kids with ex formula fed (it seems for convenience), he is telling you to not breastfeed for no logical reason other than his previous 2 were bottlefed, he wants consistency with baby #3 despite it being blatantly obvious he fuc#ed up the raising/upbringing and nurturing of the previous 2 so yeay he wants the same with bubs #3... “over my dead fuc#in body” i would say!!
late last yr we had 2 major arguments about hubby and his kids with ex, how everyone treated me etc. I told hubby he fuc#ed up the 1st 3 and now he is repeating the cycle of dysfunction with our 2 toddlers. I told him over my dead body. I’m divorcing your arse before your kids negative toxic behaviour and influence rubs on my kids. I told him it was my job to protect them from all of your toxic influence and toxic stupidity...
op maybe research online “benefits of breastfeeding” i’m sure there are summary charts of it and just bombard your boyfriend with this.
i pumped as best i could those first few months and my aim was pump enough for 1-2 feeds the first month but after that it was really difficult to pump enough for a full feed as my son was just glued to my boobs non stop feeding but hubby had to hold him whilst i had dinner etc...
hubbys exwife never wanted to be pregnant, did everything to sabotage a pregnancy including getting an abortion and claiming it was a miscarriage and hiding that until hubby got back from work, douching her vagina to wash out the semen, shouted at dr to cut the 3 kids out of her because she wasn’t gonna be inconvenienced by labor then formula fed and even then did the bare minimum and waited for hubby to come home from work to do majority like bathing kids, changing nappies and formula feeding. She’d only feed when they were starving... hubby was happy seeing me breastfeed our son and just seeing him addicted to boob.
i can say the 2 kids i’ve raised with hubby are a million times better than his 3 sd22, ss20 sd14 combined... my kids are advanced for their age, have more empathy and respect than sk... people notice the big difference in my kids and skids and it all comes down to bio mum as stay at home parent not nurturing them. Hubby was limited as worked crazy hours, left for work before kids woke up for school, back home when kids were about to go to bed, it’s different when you can rely on your wife
so for now annoy his shit and bombard pics of breastfeeding benefits and ask if he read it and have him tell you a few benefits... really give it to him...
your man should be supporting and encouraging the best for his kids, not dysfunction, laziness etc
Whoa! Your DH's ex sounds
Whoa! Your DH's ex sounds awful! I bet he's so glad he met you because you sound like a waaaay better mother to your kids with him.
I can tell my BF's BM doesn't care about those 2 kids. She just likes uses them to control BF. It's really sad.
My BF just never learns from his mistakes and in his eyes his kids are perfect and can do no wrong, which is why he wants to raise all of his kids the exact same way. It'll be a cold day in hell before I allow our daughter to be raised to be just like his kids. And it irks me everytime he compares her to them and makes it seem like his kids were so much more advanced when they were babies than she is now.
Hit him in the wallet.....
Figure out approx how many bottles of formula baby would be eating per day, how many bottles a can of formula makes then how many cans you would need per week and per month. Then give him the total that you are saving/earning for the family. I bet he will be shocked at the cost of a can of formula!! I'm betting over $250/month......
Honestly it amazed me that he
Honestly it amazed me that he was against me breast feeding because of the fact that I know we're saving so much money by not having to buy formula. I've seen the crazy high prices of formula and it's shocking. Also, there's been so many times when my pumped milk has gone to waste so it would kill me if we were wasting formula all the time. I could do that math but he wouldn't even care. He has no problem with wasting money because he wasn't taught how to be financially responsible, but had I formula fed her it would've been my money going towards paying for formula majority of the time.
Tell that man that the day
Tell that man that the day his nipples stop being useless zits and start squeezing out milk, he can have a say about breastfeeding.
If you are pumping and saving milk, he should have plenty of opportunities to feed and bond with his child.