For those with LO on the outside, How does your H/SO bond with LO?
LovesMM
member
We are having a really hard time with Mr.MM and Paige bonding. What kills me is that it seems as though EBFing is reason why.
During the day Paige will nurse and sleep and isn't too fussy anymore. But once Mr.MM gets home she just wants to nurse. She will nurse for 10 minutes and fall asleep on me. I usually pass her off to Mr.MM so they can bond but she instantly wakes up fussy and wants to pacify on my boobs again. We've tried giving her a pacifier but she refuses and will throw herself backwards if we put it near her mouth.
So even when Mr.MM is home, I'm stuck taking care of Paige. The only thing she will let him do is change her diaper, which he does without too much complaint. I can tell he's getting irritated and a little jealous. Half of me says to throw in the towel with BFing just so he can feed her and get that time. Or start introducing the BM bottle but I don't want to do that this early. AHH. So frustrating.
So for those EBFing, How does daddy get that bonding time and how does LO react to it?
Re: For those with LO on the outside, How does your H/SO bond with LO?
To be quite frank, I SUCK at all of the Happiest Baby on the Block strategies, but DH is awesome at them. Its really hard for me to settle Charlie down unless I'm nursing him (my pedi thinks Charlie associates me with BF so much he'll force himself awake to eat), but DH can put him to sleep within minutes. Its nice though, this way they get lots of bonding time and DH feels like he's contributing (because he totally is).
Ginny DX 21-Hydroxylase Deficiency Congenital Adrenal Hyperplasia
Charlie DX Specific Antibody Deficiency & ASD
I just swaddled Paige and put her in the swing and she passed out cold. Too bad Mr.MM is at the gym!
I'm going to show him some of the clips on YouTube so he can start helping me with those. I just don't want to monopolize all her time.
I was going to suggest this too. We watched it today and it was awesome. I think if MrMM can soothe her he will feel really good and be able to bond with Paige.
This. Since I had a c-section, I have been mostly in bed recovering while DH has become a baby pro. He also has a better singing voice than me, I started crying the first time he sang her to sleep.
DH is still home, so we have more time.
But he handles diaper changes, etc. When Ben is awake, they play, do tummy time, read, etc.
I think OSC mentioned this but Ben seems to associate me holding him with BF. Not enough that he'll wake himself up for it but enough that he doesn't like being soothed in other ways by me... I can do it, but I have to ignore him rooting around for a boob, which can be hard at 3am.... So DH handles a lot of the fussy times to give the girls a rest. In fact, he's upstairs right now reading Zen Stories to Ben to get him to sleep cause I was up all night nursing every hour and a half.
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Make him take his shirt off. Babies love skin to skin and that might help her nap on his chest. That and a blanket over both of their bodies should make LO nice and cozy.
We also do bottles usually once a day because she had to in the NICU and our pedi said to keep doing it since we had already started, but I don't think it's a huge bonding experience. Kind of stressful, actually, since the bottles give milk so much faster and it kind of overwhelms her. DH does almost all of the burping and diaper changing, though.