My husband and I are separated. He demands that I pump milk and send with baby daily for his visits. I refused to and said he needs to use formula on his time with baby. He is guilt tripping me that I’m petty. What did you guys do or recommend legally?
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Your body your choice. No one can force you to give him your milk, and if you don’t want to, he is capable and has permission to feed the baby using other available resources
Pumping is a lot of work. He can bring the baby to you.
If you are breastfeeding when the baby is with you, and pumping is effective for you (ie you actually can get a decent amount, some women struggle with pumping), I would pump and send breastmilk with the baby. If you’re already nursing I don’t see why you wouldn’t want to have that continuity for your baby.
You don’t get to demand other people’s bodily fluids wtaf
The court should be involved in this.
What do you want for your child and you? If it’s important to you that your child is breastfed for longer, then you’ll need to pump when the child is away to keep up your supply. Then, you might as well give your ex the milk. If it’s not important to you, then don’t pump and tell him you’re switching to formula as well, so he should to buy his own supply.
First and foremost, it’s your choice. You don’t have to do anything you don’t want to and you’re ensuring your baby is fed. Done.
As a lactation consultant, I’d also advise that if you are nursing and want to continue exclusively nursing when your baby is with you, by not pumping to replace regularly skipped feeds, you are at pretty good risk of your supply dropping. Removal of milk is what signals your body to create more. Missing a feed here or there is not as big a deal, especially when your baby is older, but this sounds like a regularly scheduled thing. So if you want to continue fully breastfeeding, pumping is probably the right choice to keep your supply adequate.
Your body. Your choice.
If you want to pump and freeze while he has the baby that consistency may be useful for you.
But if you are uncomfortable with pumping, or if you don’t produce enough, then it’s perfectly fine to supplement with formula.
He can’t magically make you able to pump enough to feed the baby on his schedule. He certainly can’t make you able to pump while you have a baby to feed.
You may want to see about getting your lawyer to write a “shut up” letter; you don’t need this harassment.
I would never feed baby formula out of spite , breastmilk is best for baby 🙁
Edit : Fed is required y’all- the literal bare minimum 💜
Nah, he doesn’t get to decide that and I’m really glad for you that you’re separated from him.
Take his request to your family law lawyer immediately, and if you don’t have a lawyer, absolutely get one. Your ex sounds unhinged and dangerous.
Your lawyer may be able to help you by doing things like sending him a cease and desist so he is more likely to drop harassing you; and very importantly, by helping you file court documents to keep the baby with you 24/7 while the baby is breastfeeding, IF that is what you want. In that case the ex would only get occasional supervised visits, so you could endure the baby is safe with you at all times (if that was a worry), that the baby is getting fed the way YOU see as best, and you take away your ex’s power to attempt to control you by being the primary carer and removing him from the equation until the child is old enough to not need breast milk, AND hopefully until you have a solid court-ordered co-parenting agreement in place and can have all communication go through your lawyers instead of letting him continue to try to control you.
I’m sorry that you’re separated. The rule of thumb is that you should always do whatever is best for your baby. Best wishes!
I’m not sure where exactly you’re having a problem. I see a couple of possibilities, but not sure where you’re specific hangup is.
As others have alluded to, if you don’t pump while baby is away from you, then your supply will drop. If you don’t want to give him pumped milk, he certainly cannot force you to. But the alternative is obviously formula, and if you’re OK with combo feeding, so should he.
If you don’t want to send baby to him (or you’re trying to limit his time with baby) because you only want to directly chest/breastfeed, then that’s a different problem entirely that should probably involve the courts.
This is him trying to keep control of your body. You’re under no obligation to do this. Legally I recommend you get a lawyer, one who is experienced with high conflict divorces.
Are you pumping anyway when baby is with him? If not, you risk your supply. If so, why not just give him the milk? It’s the best nutritional option for your baby and would probably be best for the stomach not to be switching between food sources.
Legally – I support your pettiness. You pay to feed the baby when the baby is with you and he can pay to feed the baby when the baby is with him. Not your problem. You are not his milk cow.
That said, you should definitely pump over the weekends, just start building a freezer stash and you can wean knowing that you’ve got milk for a while.
I begin to understand why they’re separated.
Are we sure he wants the milk for the baby? Just reading how demanding this guy is, I got a weird feeling that he may want it for himself, or like he’s going to sell it or something. If I were OP, I’d see if there is a way to keep the baby with her until it’s old enough to not have to be exclusively breastfed.
Tell him your milk dried up. It was probably from the stress. Sorry. There’s nothing you can do. 🤷♀️
“He demands” Hard Stop. He can demand all he wants, doesn’t mean he’ll get anything.
Daily visits?? Honey, get a lawyer. This is not reddit advice territory, this is “get a legal agreement set up” territory.
OP is not a milk cow
You need to do what is best for your baby instead of trying to hurt your husband. It may be “your body your choice”, but it sounds like you are trying to play some kind of game. The baby drinks breast milk so send the milk. There is absolutely no reason to make your child go through this.
Grow up.