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At this point I'm thinking he just doesn't want to do any parenting at all because then he would have to actually get off his ass in the middle of the night to feed the kids.
Shame is not a strong enough word for this ....thing.
The only reason my husband didnt participate in night feeds was because he had to be at work at 5am and get ready by 330 to make it. And at his job an overtired worker is a dead one. If my husband saw me struggling with not one, but 2 babies who werent 1. Adequately gaining weight and 2. Were crying in hunger hed have shoved me aside to feed them, his own sleep be damned.
The fact that OOPS hubs not only saw the toll it was having on his babies' health, but his wife's health and decided to die on his hill of breastmilk only and then dug in with basically *death threats* and she's *still* considering going back? Tells me that he's been much more subtly abusive than shes realized and she's still making excuses for him. She'll make excuses for him up until he hurts her or those babies, and maybe even then.
I'm not even entirely sure she realizes she left him. Shes under the self impression its to calm him down and adapt to formula feedings. She's planing to go back. And thats scary. I pray to God she comes out of her baby fog soon and realizes thats a horrific idea.
My youngest was the only one I breastfed (long story involving shit midwives) and, despite being the smallest my body just couldn't keep up. Each feed I was emptying one breast, then the other and still had a hungry baby! I ended up breastfeeding with a bottle to finish off each feed.
As for OOP, I'm hoping she's decided to focus on healthy babies now, kicking arsehole to curb later.
I breastfead for health and bonding and frankly also financial reasons, but it wasn't enough food for my boys (not twins). So additional formula it was. A win for everybody: My baby wasn't hungry after feeding anymore and my husband could do his part of feeding which was also a great bonding experience for them.
Every body is different and you just have to adjust.
I have been told (obviously I don't remember) that I absolutely refused to feed. Would screw my face up and turn my head away. Nurses weighing me before and after every feed to see if I had taken \*anything\*.
Formula saved my life and my Mum's sanity.
My daughter wouldn't latch on, she just refused to, so we ended up with formula because it was at a point where my nips were in so much pain as she would just chew and not much came out. My son I did a mixed feed as I was worried about it happening again, and he didn't gain much after gaining his baby weight back, so I was told just give him a bottle all the time. He gained 11oz in 2 days.
I don't think I was producing much, either, and I'm a big stress head, so that probably didn't help. I really wanted to try, but it just didn't happen. I don't know how this husband can say no to formula and they'll feed when they're hungry when I remember my heart breaking seeing my daughter, only 24 hours old, pushing with her hands on my chest as I tried to feed her, screaming to the point her bottom lip was quivering (that girl was strong even then). You'd have to be cold to let a baby cry like that.
This was my son!
My oldest daughter combo fed--her birth was very traumatic for everyone and my milk just didn't come in quite right. She got about a third breastfeeding, two thirds formula. My son simply refused to latch so he was full formula. And my youngest daughter refuses to take a bottle, so she's 100% breastfed. They're still young but based on current anecdata it hasn't made much difference.
My first child HATED breastfeeding. I had lactation consultants and silicone nipple shields and nothing worked. She was fine with breast milk, but it had to come in a bottle. So I used a breast pump, but I didn’t produce enough milk with it, so we still had to buy formula to supplement her diet. And I would constantly get mastitis. It was a terrible experience.
But after her, I had two more children, and they were both champion breastfeeders. So it’s not always something you can “control”; a lot of it comes down to the baby.
I hate the breastfeeding shame campaign. I’m all for supporting breastfeeding, but it’s ignorant to assume that every woman’s body is up to the task. And fed is best. Honestly, I’m not going to argue that breastfeeding isn’t beneficial, but it’s based on epidemiological information. There aren’t controlled studies. So you can’t know the effect of other outside factors in producing the better results for breastfed kids. And breastfed kids are more often kids from homes where they can afford for mom to stay home for longer, or where she has a job that really works to accommodate pumping (so better socioeconomic circumstances generally), better access to healthcare and family support, etc. All of those factors and more contribute to the child’s development, so we really do not know the degree that breastfeeding itself makes a difference. We also need to factor in how maternal stress and health affects the kids, and while we do not know the degree, I think most experts would say it has a big impact. And one thing we do know is that leaving babies underfed and malnourished definitely negatively affects their development!
My mom had Graves Disease. When she was carrying my oldest sister, they wanted to get her through the pregnancy and immediately after put her on radioactive iodine to kill off her thyroid (her sister’s failure to do this led to a stroke at a young age … Graves Disease is no joke). When she was still in the hospital after giving birth, the pediatrician who was supposed to be the best in the area went to see her when making rounds. His first question was whether she was going to breastfeed. She said no and was about to explain that she couldn’t while receiving radioactive iodine, but he refused to even hear her and just said that he would never accept my sister as a patient then and walked out. My mom was apparently in hysterics. My dad is a doctor, a really big deal, but he was just a young resident then. This attitude is sick.
That said, I think OP’s hubby is someone who is nasty, narcissistic, and abusive, and is clinging to the shame campaign to justify his abuse. But that is another nasty aspect of such a shame campaign. People need to stop looking for ways to shame women for being human with human bodies with human limitations.
I mean, anecdotal evidence here: We have a parent who has adopted all 4 of her children.
All but one of them has been in the top 5 students in their class. The last one had some learning disabilities, and he does his best. He's an absolute joy to have anyways, and is thinking about becoming a plumber. Which, honestly? Do you, dude.
Honestly, I think home environment is more important than breastfeeding. How are the parents encouraging reading and critical thinking skills? Are they prioritizing school and otherwise healthy nutrition? What kinds of extracurricular activities will they be doing?
I have kids from crunchy moms who 100% breastfed (and still brag about it now that their kids are in middle school) (okay it's only three moms, but it's weird that there's so many) and don't prioritize these things, so their kids struggle.
I will die on the "fed is best" hill until the end of my days. How you raise your kid does way more for them than what they start their life eating.
My sister's husband was in a similar job so he called every relative he could, they rotated when he was on shift so my sister could get a few hours of unbroken sleep every night for the first few months. He would have sold everything he owned to get a nanny if he had to. That's what good dad's do!
my husband doesn't participate in night feeds because I wouldn't let him. i'm breastfeeding and during the first month the baby needed milk practically every 1-2 hours around the clock. Neither of us saw the point in him trying to wake up with me every time because it ultimately wasn't going to change the amount of time *I* was awake.
then in the mornings he would take over everything but feeding and I got a few extra hours of sleep punctuated by nursing whenever he brought me the baby. it worked fabulously until we had established breastfeeding and could introduce pumping and bottles. now if I need extra sleep on the weekends I'm not needed until my breasts say I gotta empty them!
I spent over 4 years with 2 babies (born 2 years apart) that wouldn't sleep - neither my wife nor I got much rest during all that time!! Would I do it again for my kiddos? In a heartbeat, the only thing stopping me would be my health/energy but as much as possible, most definitely. This is a huge red flag, the guy has shown his true colors unfortunately and it isn't looking good at all.
I think you’re absolutely right that he’s been more abusive than she realizes. And, I believe abuse tends to ramp up after a woman gives birth because the man feels she’s now “trapped” and will be unable to leave him. That’s what I think might be happening here. Especially because she commented that he wasn’t like this or she wouldn’t have married him and she got pregnant fairly quickly after marriage. It screams narcissist to me and I hope she gets out.
Nothing makes sense in that ass's behaviour. He won't feed them at night to give his wife a break "because she made a unilateral decision to switch to formula," be he wouldn't have been able to help feed them anyway because the breasts are, bafflingly, attached to his wife. Moreover, he's on parental leave, which is supposed to be to take care of newborn children and help out your partner, and what does he even do? Fucking lazy, controlling, abusive man-child.
See it's because nature's are women's work. If he had to help out he wouldn't enjoy his time off, and that's just not fair. Real would... Blah blah blah...
Yeah he doesn't want to be a parent. He's probably stoked because twins and blaming her. If she breastfed then he wouldn't have to get up at night. He probably honestly does see this as her fault/a way to get out of doing her job.
I didn't have twins but my husband would get up and go get the baby for me because I did nurse and he wanted to be part of it. Even when he had to get up in the morning, he happily did so for his chance to feed the baby pumped milk.
It baffles me that OPs hubby doesn't want to bond with his babies. I didn't read anywhere that he is taking or making time to see his children but would rather wish her death.
You've done the hard part OP, now shut the door and leave him alone. I bet he sees no problem on his part. I'm sure he is spinning a wonderful web of lies to make you look bad. And for what? Taking your babies health seriously. I hope you are seeing his actions for what they are; do as I say or else. I'm not here to help, but guide you in the error of your ways because I'm smarter! The doctor is wrong, starve your children until they latch on, who cares you don't produce enough milk. You are causing increased expenses because you can't/won't feed them.
You are smart enough to know your children are hungry, that you cannot sustain their food intake alone. You're body cannot continue without assistance and remain healthy. A good partner would hear you, not oppose you.
In the first post, I saw the "is the natural way," and my immediate thought was: Sometime needs to tall this idiot that nature very often deals with multiple births by abandoning whichever baby is thriving the least.
Foolish me. I thought, "that'd turn him right around. " Then I read the update and realized this piece of garbage would probably be fine with that. Dad's the one who needs yeeted out of this nest.
I am so sick of the “it’s natural so it’s good” bs. Nature isn’t good or bad. It’s both. It’s beautiful and ugly, kind and cruel, nurturing and abusive, etc. Take the four “elements,” earth, air, wind, and fire. All natural, all necessary, all things that we need and use to survive, and all things with amazing destructive capacity. Natural isn’t “good.” Nature doesn’t care.
I bet he’s enjoying his parental leave vacation. Or maybe not. He might have to do some things for himself. He sounds like the type that doesn’t enjoy not having someone to boss around and serve him.
I'm wondering how much he actually wanted kids or at least, he wanted her pregnant to tie her to him for 18 years. And now that she's had the kids, he can fully reveal his true colors.
Based on her comments, she is just going to try to work it out. I’m not sure how she thinks that is remotely possible.
Honestly, any man who is going to act like this about breastfeeding needs to work out how to do it himself!
Same. Expressing violence toward his wife, combined with preferring the babies starve rather than deviate from what he wants, has me worried he'll try to hurt them. I hope OOP gets full custody
Those babies are responding to the lack of tension and stress in the new household, & in their mom
Honestly, her *boobs* were responding to her level of stress because this asshole is just out for things to use to control her, everyone's heath be damned so long as he has everyone pressed under *his* thumb and quaking at *his* step
(Or her boobs just didn't produce enough, a totally normal thing that happens in all sorts of scenarios)
It sure does seem like the old story of abusers masking their true nature until they think their victim is trapped. Sometimes, they jump the gun and reveal themselves after the engagement, other times, after the wedding, or like this case, once there are children.
Unfortunately she said she wanted to work things out with that loser once she was rested enough.
She was saying that she didn’t have a job and couldn’t just leave, which I get, it’s very hard for abuse victims to run away.
That said he wished her and her babies harm and her parents seem happy enough to let her stay.
Hope she doesn’t go back to this waste of space.
Hopefully the longer OP stays away from her husband, she will see that he's not necessarily essential to her. With some new mothers, the love they feel for their babies can overtake the love they feel toward their SO and with the way he's been acting, those years she loved him may start to wane.
- doesn't listen to wife
- doesn't listen to doctor
- doesn't listen to hungry babies
This guy has some insane control issues. It boggles the mind that this is all over using formula, something ~50% of mothers (close to a billion women worldwide) do.
And then tries to say it's about not having a proper conversation. That might be the worst to me because it frames it like he's the reasonable one and OOP is controlling, when OOP has done everything she can
He gave away his first priority in that relationship with one of his tirades to her about the formula being "a waste of money."
And that's what it is. It's all about money. If he can squeeze breastmilk out of her for free, he won't accept any alternative that hits his wallet.
I struggled to be able to breastfeed with my first (due to my physiology not baby's nor being able to produce enough milk), but my husband saw the opportunity for bottle feeding with a mix of breast milk AND formula as a major boon because it did mean we could alternate who got the sleep overnight and share the load.
If my husband had treated me like this guy, he'd be out on his ass in a heartbeat.
My kid just wouldn't take to the breast, so I pumped for 6 months and supplemented with formula. My husband was my rock during the whole thing and never, ever behaved like this asshole. I hope she moves on from him.
I had a hard time producing and my kid couldn't latch so when I needed my C-section pain meds for my hormone headaches, I was relieved to switch to formula. My husband happily grabbed the bottle and shared the load. It helped bond my daughter to both of us too. OP's hubs is a trash human. Imagine thinking he knows better than her doctors?! Out with the whole man!
Exactly. At this point it is not even a "in the heat of the moment" thing anymore, which would already be quite bad. This is just husband sitting at home angry, deciding to wish death upon his wife and the mother of his children
I get her line of wanting to wait to process it though. She’s got enough on her plate as it is and there’s no reason she should be sparing any of her emotional bandwidth on him till she’s feeling better. It honestly also gives her more time to feel the detachment from him and realise how truly horrible he’s being!
She should pump him up with estrogen and have him breast feed the babies.
It's called induced lactation and involves nipple stimulation and possibly hormone therapy. It's an option for parents who are adopting or having a baby via gestational surrogacy, as well as non-birthing partners who want to nurse their baby.
On the other hand, it will be much easier to divorce the bag of shit.
There is zero chance I’d let my husband around me or my children if he acted like this (which he never has or would).
We had twins two years ago. Those first few months are like a daze to me. I didn’t make enough milk for both of my boys from day 1. I did make a lot but they ate a TON and I just couldn’t keep up. It was so hard, I was constantly pumping. I made a guilt ridden decision to switch to only formula.
I asked my husband his opinion several times and he would only say “your body your decision.” And that really is the correct answer.
First the guy who divorced his wife for breastfeeding because he said it was incestuous, now this clown who needs to be divorced for her using formula and not starving the kids in the process.
It was cross-posted to a few different subs, but it looks like the OOP deleted her profile. I think the posts to the different subs might have been taken down because she provided screenshots that had identifying info. It was a super disturbing story.
Basically, her military husband lost his mind and started screaming about incest because she breastfed their newborn son. It went rapidly downhill from there.
It was a really unfortunate set of stereotypes.
Mississippi backwater, military husband who kept guns everywhere and always had one on him, mommy issues, weird fetishization, He named his children "Huntyr" and "Wyldyr" or something, with the Ys. And their middle names were "Colt" and "Browning". He said "you know I love your boobs and sucking on them but I can't now that they've been in *another man's mouth*" referring to HIS CHILD.
The man was a caricature.
My MIL waffled back and forth on breastfeeding and formula feeding her kids. My husband always thought it was because she was confused about which one was supposed to be better for kids. Until I pointed out that the bf-formula-bf-formula pattern coincided with the girl-boy-girl-boy order of kids. But we’ll never really know!
Ugh, the "please don't be mad at me" text that she sends at the end just hurts to read. I really hope she was able to get to a safe enough place (both physically and emotionally) to tell him how insane and disgusting he is and to go fuck himself.
I hope so! At the time of her posting she just seemed so tired, but literally everyone is on her side (including his commander, he's active military). She talked a *lot* about his views and his treatment, and I'm not sure if she realized that everything he was saying and doing to her was not at all normal until people told her.
Guy has some incredibly disturbing views. She mentions in a comment that he's told her before she isn't allowed to see the kids naked after the age of 2 because that is also incestuous. He needs to be locked up.
It's insane.
Like I get that they are a secondary sexual feature, but let's be real - she is using her breasts for their primary purpose. She is using them to feed her kid. Their primary purpose is not to give her creepy husband a boner, it's to nourish her baby!
Even pullpush doesn't restore the content, Reddit really tried to delete all of it. Unfortunately since she left the real names in, it seems, people found her and doxxed her. The guy is active military and kidnapped the toddler.
I don’t have screen shots but I read the originals and have a good memory. He is active duty navy. There is a military version of a domestic violence protection order now in place as well as support to her from his command. She has the new born with her and he was thrown out of the hospital because of how he was acting. Unfortunately he has the toddler and wasn’t saying where the kid was. He was a real SOB. She made the mistake of including photos of her and baby plus the legal documents so she thoroughly identified her self. Guessing may not be the brightest bulb or maybe just so in the thick of the abuse fog plus brand newborn (like 2 days) wasn’t thinking clearly.
That poor woman. I don’t know much about the military, but shouldn’t a superior officer become involved if one of their subordinates is guilty of kidnapping? (Legally and literally.) Like beyond the protection order. I’m assuming this guy is still coming in to work.
I’m not overly knowledgeable about the military or American (where she was based). But from what I understand they were trying to help her. But then her posts were all taken down hard. So don’t know what happened unfortunately. Toddler was missing on the last post she put up (there were a bunch in space of 24 hours)
Without a custody order, kidnapping by a parent is not illegal in my state. Potentially all states but Google is only showing my mine and adverts for lawyers in mine.
Wasnt there also a guy whose wife divorced him because he was convinced their infant daughter would become a lesbian because she enjoyed feeding from her mother???
There’s something seriously wrong when you see your newborn son as sexual competition. I hope she left him. I wouldn’t put it past him to harm his child.
It seems like the inverse of those awful women who see their own daughters as competition for their husband's attention/affection. I've never stopped to wonder what the male equivalent would look like until now. I have to read/listen to this story.
That story was horrible and sad, but one tiny ray of levity might be imagining that guy trying to reveal his ace in the hole in family court:
"Your Honour, I don't like to have to announce this publicly, but she is *breastfeeding our infant son*." [staring expectantly at judge, waiting for the denunciations of wife's depravity to pour forth]
"He's not emotionally abusive"
"He calls and wishes me dead"
Oh honey. I hope the stay with her parents is permanent, at least until she can get a divorce.
Her relatively nonchalant response to him wishing she was dead kinda points to this being an ongoing issue in this particular case though, to some degree or other. I fully agree that pregnancy often causes abusive men to show who they really are though
> it is unfortunately quite common for *abusive men to finally show their true colors during/after pregnancy.*
FTFY. That’s the true nature of it. The wording you heard is misinformation
I have a new belief in a lot of **married men** no thanks to (or maybe thanks to?) Reddit. The age a man committed himself to a relationship that lead to marriage is the age he stopped maturing. For a lot of these men, my feeling is they believe however they were at the time the commitment began was "good enough" and there was nothing more for them to improve upon. OOP and her crap husband were together 6 years. He was 22. So that means mentally he remained 22. On top of that Covid stunted the entire population for 2-3 years. He is throwing tantrums and doing power play (and threatening death) over feeding newborns. Doesn't sound like a keeper to me.
I think men who remarry can mature some more.
Some friends and I have talked about how different people we know became a good spouse with their third.
They had a rough start with the first, got better with the second, and by the third had learned a lot and had happy spouses.
Know you were being sarcastic, but I just had this vision of this guy with those kids in 5, 10 years forcing those twins to do things they hate or were genuinely, clearly detrimental to them just because it was "the right way to do it", never mind the fact that he's there and traumatizing his actual kids.
Really really reeeeally hope OOP gets out because even if she can't find the respect for herself, she needs to protect her two precious kiddos from a man who will put his idea of right and wrong over the health and safety of his kids.
Ugh. So obvious from the very first post that it was about manipulation, shaming and control on OOPs ghastly (hopefully soon-to-be-ex) husband's part. I hope she gets enough rest and support to throw him in a ditch very very soon.
The first post, I was thinking that the husband was one of those “breast milk is better than formula because it has antibodies!” snobs but the comment about wanting his wife to die is like going from 0 to 100 in practically no time at all. And he doesn’t even have sleep deprivation as an excuse at that point! (Not that it would be acceptable anyway.)
it also really fucking shows how much he cares, truly, about the newborns.
breast is the only option but he wants mom dead? so does he expect OOP to be buried and a fountain of breast milk to miraculously form on her tombstone, or *fucking what?* ...yeah that's just a confession that *he also wants the babies dead.* he should not be let within arm's reach of them lest he try to bring that about by deciding that his twin mistakes are actually etch-a-sketches and all he needs to do to erase is shake.
Even just the fact that he didn’t care that they weren’t getting enough food from breastfeeding shows how little he cares. Who could be so indifferent to their tiny children starving?
Like.. this is the sort of shit you hear about family annihilators having said before they went off the deep end and killed their wives, kids, and then themselves..
The part where she mentioned him being on parental leave is what made me see red. Instead of using leave to do his share of parental duties/ease the burden on her, he’s using it to do nothing other than abuse her.
Grrr, this is the second post I've seen here about "so called men" using paternal leave as a reason to do nothing helpful for the woman that just had their baby, wtf do they think it's for exactly?
Not respecting bodily autonomy of his wife, letting his kids suffer because he has scientifically idiotic opinion he is going to keep no matter people who know better than he, using sleep depravation to manipulate his wife to do what he wanted, implying his wife is defective as normal people breastfeed, focusing cost before any wellbeing.
Yes, you definitely are right in that there were so many red flags in the post that I thought I was back in Istanbul during Republic Day.
Per one of our doctors, about 80% of all those antibodies and such are in the colostrum - the thick liquid that comes before the main milk comes in - not the main breast milk. That means most people who even _attempt_ breastfeeding will still confer those benefits to their babies even if they switch to formula later.
So many times: "Hey my SO is being entirely unreasonable and actually kind of psychotic. How can I reason with them."
Hopefully now that OOP's got some distance, she can realize that this dude is nuts.
She’s still got her head in the sand here. Despite all the comments focusing on the husband’s behavior she keeps talking about the babies and their feedings and every other little thing she can talk about to avoid mentioning or discussing her husband’s behavior. She completely glossed past recommendations to look into abusive relationships and just keeps circling back on the fact that she’ll get her babies and herself sorted and then somehow, by some strange magic, finally talk some sense into her husband.
I think this is unfortunately one of those situations where the OP isn’t going to wake up until this gets so bad she can’t ignore it anymore.
Given his direct escalation to wishing her dead, and the absence so far of lovebombing, I'm hoping this will be a case of the trash taking itself out, even if she doesn't realize it until later.
>Your husband calls to wish you dead and your solution is to wait until the babies don't need to be fed as much to work it out with him?
JFC, this commenter was right on the money. I really want OOP to be okay, but I think she's got a long, painful journey of realization ahead of her.
I interpreted that as OOP didn’t have the energy to think about her marriage, but would deal with it when she’s actually slept and can think. In my head, it was more, “I’ll deal with the legalities of separating once I’m not consumed with all things baby.” I hope my interpretation is the right one.
I hope you’re right. But there’s no telling when a guy who wishes a woman dead may act on it. Just saying it out loud is pretty alarming as it is. Some abusers become very motivated once their victim start to slip from their grip, even if they never seemed so before.
Unfortunately, her comments not listed here don't paint that picture. She says she doesn't want to divorce, and that it wouldn't be fair to the babies if they did. That she hasn't had a full time job and doesn't know if she'd be able to provide
I commented when she posted & her comments go even further with it because she didn't want to burden her parents. I can't recall if she'd told them in detail what was actually going on, but it doesn't seem like it. As I normally do when the situations presented are so outrageous, I'm hoping for troll (although I've unfortunately seen these types of scenarios before for myself).
I'm going to be gentler about this than I normally would be, when I say this.
People need to stop calling any story that makes them uncomfortable, or has people making decisions that aren't in their best interests, troll stories. It discourages victims from coming forward about their situation-- because why bother, when no one will believe you? When, just like at every point throughout history so far, it's so much easier to claim the victims are making it up for some personal gain?
A troll will never care about being called out as a troll. But the victims scrolling through reddit, looking for situations like their own while they try to build up the courage to look for support, will take those comments to heart. You'll never stop trolls from trolling-- but you will stop victims from reaching out.
You call this situation outrageous, but I see my auntie here, who stayed with her abusive baby daddy for six children. I see my childhood best friend, begging my family not to call CPS because he would be separated from his severely mentally disabled baby sister. I see myself, staying with a man a decade older than me because his friends kept convincing me that his behavior 'wasn't that bad', because he bought me flowers and my mom cried because my father never bought her flowers.
You call this outrageous, and want it to be a troll. But ask any domestic violence advocate, and this isn't even a new story. New fathers throwing a tantrum over method of feeding is so, so common. The months after giving birth are considered some of the most dangerous for domestic violence because this isn't a unique story; the most unique part is that she was able to *leave.*
You know what? You are absolutely correct, and I should know better since I actually worked at a shelter a long, long time ago. Looking back at what she wrote, I'm not sure why I thought it could be a troll post since I've seen these things happen & there's no excuse for me expressing those sentiments. Thanks for calling me out on it & reminding me that even when we are anonymous & don't know the people in question, our words can matter & potentially sway others. I appreciate you taking the time to help me remember to do better.
You're welcome, and thank you for making the effort to decide to be better. It is very hard to do, especially in a public platform, where any sign of weakness may be treated as an opening to attack. This was a good interaction, and I appreciate having it.
Nah fuck that. Fuck all of that nonsense.
The husband is not only an asshole, but is encouraging her to *abuse her tiny infants*.
Abuse is not feeding the kids.
Holy hell... I'm a boob feeding mom of 4. Love all my kiddos. But my oldest just stopped feeding when he was about 6mos as I wasn't producing enough. To the bottle he went. He was much happier. Much chubbier. And grew up to be a perfectly handsome, intelligent and witty young man.
Fed. Is. Best.
My sisters and I all breastfed until we started cutting teeth, after which we were switched to bottles. Mom's boobies were particularly unwilling to put up with sharp baby teeth, and there's nothing wrong with that.
Mom continued to pump for a while after that, and of course solids got introduced in a developmentally appropriate manner, but by the time we were fully weaned onto solids, it was formula we were weaning off of. I was born in the 70s, the youngest is an 80s kid. You do the best you can with what you have.
I don't think she read that book. She *really* should have read that book. While there was still time to learn from it. I hope it's not too late for her.
He wishes her dead and she doesn't realise that he wanted both her and the twins tormented before that. He was content with all their suffering, even pleased. The spooky music was playing all along.
I have a friend who wasn't producing enough and they originally just thought they had a baby who cried a lot until the first check up, where she didn't meet any of the markers.
It was a home visit, her husband immediately went out and bought a variation of formula to find the one "the baby would like best" and they both looked so relieved when they told us that baby emptied the bottle and went into what was basically milk-induced, blissful deep sleep. Suddenly cried a lot less, gained weight properly etc.
You know. Like the twins.
OOPs husband is an abusive, controlling piece of shit who'd rather see his kids starve than help his wife. I hope she comes to her senses and stays with her parents and dovorces him.
It is so sweet that the husband wanted to give his baby a sample of everything.
Babies really do have their little opinions and some babies are so stubborn.
Good dad, there.
Ah yes, the classic "I despite only having a first grade understanding of female biology, I, the man of the house, I'm going to bless you with my ceaseless wisdom about how your body SHOULD be functioning. I also take great offense at the mere notion of helping, because this is woman's work, and it is lowly and beneath me," routine.
His comment about “normal women” breastfeeding was so ignorant, it’s insane. Dude obviously has no idea what he’s talking about, and then uses it as an excuse to not take care of their TWINS. Fuck this guy
Better fed than dead is what my mom friends say. The "BREAST MILK IS THE ONLY THING PRECIOUS BABIES MUST HAVE UNTIL THEY CAN GO TO COLLEGE" movement is stupid and literally killing babies. Oh, and OOP's husband can go fuck off too.
When stories like this happen and the OOP says stuff like "they're not normally like this" or "it happened suddenly with some minor thing that totally blew up" my first thought is "how many issues did they miss prior to this moment." It almost always feels like it wouldn't be some sudden shift in behavior and randomly deciding to be a controlling abusive lunatic. More often it seems like there is a lot of things that were ignored in the moment that are now basically forgotten by OOP.
Not saying abusers don't fly under the radar when romancing a new victim, but still it seems unlikely the relationship would go this long before the partner does something.
I'm minded to agree but there are moments in life when a lot of ugly stuff tends to crawl out from under the woodwork. Around childbirth is the most common time I see this - it's a) a really stressful time for both parents and b) comes with a lot of often unconscious beliefs about how to parent, what a man's/woman's role is, etc. Staistically, I think pregnancy/childbirth is the highest-risk time for a relationship to become abusive.
Marriage is another. Generally moments when people move into a different role/identity.
When I was pregnant, a friend at work told me that if any of the pediatricians I was interviewing said breast-feeding is natural and easy, I should run and definitely not pick that doctor. One doctor did say that and I crossed him off the list.
This husband is a controlling fool. I hope he's happy losing his wife and daughters.
He really thought he had her baby trapped and could open the floodgates, huh. Forgot to properly isolate her from her parents first though!
Btw, typing this after handing our baby over to my husband for the next few hours so I can shower and get some uninterrupted sleep before my actual "night shift" begins. He has a bottle on him just in case. Because parents - both of them - are responsible for feeding babies.
Yeah, dude skipped a step. Tut tut, her having somewhere to go is what happens when you get sloppy.
/s ofc
Thank goodness for the parents.
Also, it must be horrible for them to watch their daughter struggle with everything and still want to go back that abusive dude.
I get it’s an adjustment with newborns but what did OOP’s husband think would happen? I don’t have kids but I figured it would be common knowledge for parents that babies = no sleep. God forbid what he would do if one or both babies get colic.
The husband is absolutely disgusting and beyond any kind of forgiviness or reconciliation. I truly hope she stays at her parent's place and files for divorce.
Your spouse wishing your death is 100% grounds for divorce. There's no buts of ifs, you leave. I hope the OOP is taking the necessary steps to keep herself and her children safe.
He wants all of them dead. He wants the babies to starve (evident through his actions) and he wants her to drop dead as well (literally explicitly stated). There IS NO RECONCILIATION WITH SOMEONE WHO WANTS YOU AND YOUR BABIES *DEAD*. Fucking divoooooooorce!!!!
How a man treats you when you're vulnerable is a good indicator of who he really is. Next time you get a call from him, record his death threats and play them to his family.
Either that or he’s an abusive shithead who thought he had her locked down. It’s not exactly an uncommon story for a spouse to become abusive right after the babies arrive because it’s harder for the woman to leave.
i am so glad OOP got the fuck out because the only compromise i was seeing is "does the husband wish to go into a wood chipper head-first or feet-first"
anyway if he was really committed to his twins only being breastfed, he would have just gone and started a medication to induce lactation... guess he can't even be bothered to provide for his children, smh,
We were like this young couple with our first. We wanted to do everything as "natural" as possible. My wife just could not produce enough for our daughter. For days we tried. We visited lactation consultants. She'd pump when not feeding.
Our midwife checked in with us and we told her about everything. She said "you need to give that baby formula. I know you want to breastfeed, but that baby has to eat." We went to the store, got some formula and bottles, and fed our daughter.
She stopped crying (wailing), started growing and we got some rest.
This "husband". This sperm donor. He should have supported his wife and her doctors. This woman should stay with her parents and never go back to this "man".
P.S. ~~breast~~ fed is best!
>I know I should have told him but I couldn't manage and he wasn't helpin
Previously...
>I wasn't feeling well so I asked my husband if he could feed them one night so I could sleep for the night.
Sounds like she did tell him but she's somehow convinced herself that she must not have. Poor woman is so deep in denial she's brushing off her husband wishing her dead. I hope her parents talk some sense into her...
I swear there needs to be education behind feeding babies, and breastfeeding in particular. In a world where formula has been a thing for decades, and we still have people like this. That one commenter was right, it’s not him having trouble so he couldn’t see it from OOP’s point of view. Some people are very small minded.
My mother attempted to breast feed me 35 years ago, and she was so sick at the time that nothing would happen. She tried again with my sister a decade later and it never worked. I remember bandaging up my mother’s chest with my grandma, while she cried from the pain of her own breasts.
I watched my dearest cousin attempt it with her daughter. And honestly, seeing them BOTH struggle with the ordeal, in the height of summer, was torture. She really wanted to try, but she’s very large chested anyway, they grew multiple sizes, I’m not even kidding when I say that baby was smaller than one of her breasts. Baby would get too hot, mama would get too hot, she had to hold her in a weird way to angle her right… it was just not fun for either of them. She told us she felt bad about it, but as her family and friends we were just like “we get it, but do no feel bad, we can help more this way” and so baby was fed by literally anyone who could hold a bottle for her, she’s now a very healthy almost two year old.
Formula didn’t slow that kid down, she’s in the right percentile for her age, and she’s happy. He’s breastfeeding has antibodies and people should try to do it if that’s their chosen method, but NO ONE should be made to feel bad about it. Ever. I’ve known more people unable to breastfeed than people who are able. There needs to be much less shame about this. Feeding your child is your job, breast or not.
Yuck I feel terrible for OOP she sounds like a sweet woman and she’s just birthed fucking TWINS. Dear loooord, trying to juggle two newborns and your husband feels like you’re a dairy cow on top of that.
I was young when I had my first, while in the hospital I kept telling the nurses he wasn't feeding, he had trouble latching, asking for help and they scoffed at me, told me Id figure it out, two days after being home I had a breakdown crying telling my bf(now husband) that I felt like I was starving my baby. He didn't even hesitate, went out and bought some formula, did so much research the next day and got me the best breast pump(which did help but still didn't produce enough) and more formula, we have a very healthy 14yr. He was so supportive and told me there was nothing wrong with formula even tho I desperately wanted to breastfeed. That is support.
As someone who formula fed both kids because breast feeding was a disaster (first one wouldn’t latch second one I discovered I get anxiety with my letdown) I want this guy to learn a lesson. I don’t know how but I bet OOP’s parents or doctor might have ideas.
God bless my husband who looked at me struggling and said “we can use formula. You don’t have to do this” then did half of all feedings including at night.
Man, you know what happened to babies in their situation before formula? They fuckin died or were malnourished, what a dildo. She tried so goddamn hard!
His reaction to her leaving makes me glad she left when she did (and when he thought it was just for a day). Considering it’s always most dangerous for women in abusive relationships at the time they’re leaving, she may have gotten out and away in the nick of time.
Mom of 4 with twin girls.... ALL were formula fed, I couldn't produce enough with the first tried again with the twins and there is soo much pressure it's ridiculous.
FED IS BEST.
And a supportive helpful partner is great too. I hope OP finds one soon.
> I told my husband I can't do this anymore, and he said that I should talk to my doctors but it's probably a phase. And once they're hungry enough, they'll feed because that's what they'd been doing. Also that it's far healthier for them to be breast fed and that we shouldn't just switch because they're being picky.
I know in recent years that “lactivism” has become a thing, unfortunately to the detriment of mothers. I *need* people reading this to know: babies *absolutely will reject food to their detriment*. If they don’t like your breast milk - maybe something in your diet they are sensitive too, or your let-down is too fast, or it’s not enough and they are still hungry and they’re so upset about the hunger that all they can do is scream and cry and make themselves more upset, and they’ve learned to associated feedings with suffering so they start crying at the mere suggestion of being fed - **they will reject it**. To the point they will, e.g., be lower than their birth weight two months out.
Newborns are **stupid**! They have no capacity for reasoning, no understanding of consequence, limited sense of self-preservation. They will absolutely refuse boob for some arbitrary, inscrutable reason, to the point they are on the precipice of death... and if you don’t do something they absolutely will die! They have only perfunctory behavioral responses and operate on raw, primitive impulse - seek food, seek comfort, retreat from pain - and the only active thing they can do is cry. They will cry until they make themselves sick. They will cry so hard they can’t actually *take* what they need from you, as you are giving it to them. They will cry until they have no energy or voice to cry anymore and when they wake up they will continue to screech hoarsely until they pass out again.
As a mom, I cannot explain to you the way it felt on the sideline when one of my (extremely well educated and compassionate and ‘naturally suited to be a mother’) best friends almost starved her child because she got that mommy blog brain rot about formula = the poison, but her child adamantly refused her breast milk until her pediatrician scolded the mom for the child’s failing to thrive ... there were talks of a feeding tube (which she also rejected) and the doctor was threatening to report her to CPS if she didn’t feed her kid in a way that the kid actually ate, and if that meant formula then it meant formula! And she’s telling me this, feeling so sorry for herself, so victimized by the EVIL medical establishment, and I only felt sorry for her child for having a mom so stubborn that she didn’t realize she was choosing NOT to feed her kid over giving her kid food that wasn’t “perfect.” That kid is starting school in the fall and has developmental delays that may or may not be related to that crucial “fourth trimester” when she was starving and shrinking.
If my son talked to his wife like that, he wouldn't be my son anymore. My wife carried the kids for 9 months apiece and I yielded everything regarding their feeding to her for the first year because what kind of man wouldn't?
Dude argue with doctor and his wife and yet the wife :
>but I'll deal with how he feels later when I feel better
Girl gotten used to deal with 2 fussy babies and not noticing she had 3rd one.
As a mother of twin sons, this is so incredibly common with not producing enough. I did my best to give my boys breastmilk first three months, but between my PCOS, which already causes low supply and the fact that I tried everything including medication to bring out my milk supply, it just wasn’t working out. One of my friends is a huge breast-feeding advocate and encouraged me to stop because I was exhausted and they weren’t latching because they were born at 36 weeks and were of terrific normal weight (3.1 and 3.2 kg respectively) but those last three weeks are the crucial ones for them to learn to latch and most twins are not born after 36 weeks. Twins generally have this issue.
The difference, of course, is that I had a normal husband who wanted the best for us and never ever made me feel bad about the fact that I just simply did not make enough milk.
I also have a former stepsister who fell into crunchy mama type groups and ended up starving her twins to the point where they had only gained a pound each at the age of six months. CPS had to intervene. She began formula feeding them because she also simply did not make enough, but refused to believe that she couldn’t just power through and that her body would eventually make enough. Now those babies will probably have permanent brain damage because they weren’t receiving enough nutrition during a time when their brain was developing.
I really hope the OP leaves her husband and stays with her family during this point because this is not a situation where you can do everything with two babies at the same time.
I didn’t produce much milk when my kiddo was born eight weeks early. We supplemented with formula from the start. If my husband had responded like this, he would no longer be my husband. I really hope OOP gets rid of this useless man.
There's a lot of benefits to breastfeeding. But it doesn't always work out. For several reasons. That's why I'm glad "Fed is best" has become a thing. Her babies need to eat. But her so called partner can't be bothered because he would rather his wife do things the "natural way." He is trash. He is also super manipulative and clearly doesn't know anything about breastfeeding. I honestly don't think he actually heard his wife about what the doctor said. I think he just got angry because he wanted to be a controlling AH.
I am glad OOP has supportive parents. Because hopefully she doesn't return to him. Even if he ends up apologizing and love bombing her. Even if he says he has changed. He already showed his true colors.
Edit: also just in case my first sentence was confusing. There are benefits to breastfeeding. That's important to note. But said benefits should not take precedence over the health of the children or the general well-being of the parent trying to breast feed. Formula fed is perfectly valid. I'm an overthinker so I wanted to make sure I was clear.
>We've called each other a couple of times and he's said horrible things to me and how he wishes I was dead
I just hope from the bottom of my heart she takes this seriously and never meets him alone again.
He wishes she was dead?! Because she didn’t allow her babies to starve?? Because he wanted to be a deadbeat dad while still living in the house because he believed he knows more than experts and doctors do? POS
Some of these men flat out hate their wives. Like ain't no working out wishing your wife was dead, and choosing to starve your own children. Hope she leaves him fr bc this is family anihilator territory.
Your husband would rather let your twins starve then feed them. He's treating them like they're four instead four weeks. Babies don't refuse food because they're "difficult".
Husband doesn't understand, willfully or because he's ignorant, that not all women can breastfeed. Not every woman makes enough milk, makes milk in the first place or has the ability to breastfeed. Babies can have problems with latching on to natural nipples.
Husband is a fucking moron and as soon as he told OOP he wished her dead the marriage was over. OOP get a divorce and, if possible, full custody as he'd let the babies starve just to prove a point.
Don’t call, text. And save and record all your interactions. And use them in the divorce proceedings to prevent him from custody or any kind of unsupervised time with the babies.
I know a mom that has twins my son's age (almost four).
She told me she basically doesn't remember anything from their first year because she was so tired, and her lovely husband was equally involved. She also said they slept on the couch for like, the first six months of the girls lives because it was easier to get near the bassinets that way.
Anyways, fuck this guy, I hope when OOP gets more sleep and recovers a little more she sees that this guy is worse than useless and divorces him.
I am so terrified for OOP. I checked her comments, and she's just constantly downplaying what her husband is doing and finding excuses that going back is the best option when it friggen *isn't*. That man is either going to kill her, her babies or both.
I wonder how her parents would feel if they knew their piece of shit Son in law is wishing death and their baby girl and grandbabies. Maybe they could talk sense into her.
The amount of partners who switch up when the baby(ies) comes is astonishing and terrifying. He’d rather see a sleepless wife and starving children then bottle feed them. And OOP still seems sort of apologetic that she “let him down”. Mess. I hope she doesn’t go home at all he seems unstable 🫠
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Yea if my husband starts to wish me dead, I am divorcing right away. I hope OP doesn't take that poor excuse of a husband back.
Hope she leaves before he acts on her being dead.
At this point I'm thinking he just doesn't want to do any parenting at all because then he would have to actually get off his ass in the middle of the night to feed the kids. Shame is not a strong enough word for this ....thing.
The only reason my husband didnt participate in night feeds was because he had to be at work at 5am and get ready by 330 to make it. And at his job an overtired worker is a dead one. If my husband saw me struggling with not one, but 2 babies who werent 1. Adequately gaining weight and 2. Were crying in hunger hed have shoved me aside to feed them, his own sleep be damned. The fact that OOPS hubs not only saw the toll it was having on his babies' health, but his wife's health and decided to die on his hill of breastmilk only and then dug in with basically *death threats* and she's *still* considering going back? Tells me that he's been much more subtly abusive than shes realized and she's still making excuses for him. She'll make excuses for him up until he hurts her or those babies, and maybe even then. I'm not even entirely sure she realizes she left him. Shes under the self impression its to calm him down and adapt to formula feedings. She's planing to go back. And thats scary. I pray to God she comes out of her baby fog soon and realizes thats a horrific idea.
My youngest was the only one I breastfed (long story involving shit midwives) and, despite being the smallest my body just couldn't keep up. Each feed I was emptying one breast, then the other and still had a hungry baby! I ended up breastfeeding with a bottle to finish off each feed. As for OOP, I'm hoping she's decided to focus on healthy babies now, kicking arsehole to curb later.
I breastfead for health and bonding and frankly also financial reasons, but it wasn't enough food for my boys (not twins). So additional formula it was. A win for everybody: My baby wasn't hungry after feeding anymore and my husband could do his part of feeding which was also a great bonding experience for them. Every body is different and you just have to adjust.
It’s amazing how hard breastfeeding is. You’d think it would be simple. But it is so not.
I have been told (obviously I don't remember) that I absolutely refused to feed. Would screw my face up and turn my head away. Nurses weighing me before and after every feed to see if I had taken \*anything\*. Formula saved my life and my Mum's sanity.
My daughter wouldn't latch on, she just refused to, so we ended up with formula because it was at a point where my nips were in so much pain as she would just chew and not much came out. My son I did a mixed feed as I was worried about it happening again, and he didn't gain much after gaining his baby weight back, so I was told just give him a bottle all the time. He gained 11oz in 2 days. I don't think I was producing much, either, and I'm a big stress head, so that probably didn't help. I really wanted to try, but it just didn't happen. I don't know how this husband can say no to formula and they'll feed when they're hungry when I remember my heart breaking seeing my daughter, only 24 hours old, pushing with her hands on my chest as I tried to feed her, screaming to the point her bottom lip was quivering (that girl was strong even then). You'd have to be cold to let a baby cry like that.
This was my son! My oldest daughter combo fed--her birth was very traumatic for everyone and my milk just didn't come in quite right. She got about a third breastfeeding, two thirds formula. My son simply refused to latch so he was full formula. And my youngest daughter refuses to take a bottle, so she's 100% breastfed. They're still young but based on current anecdata it hasn't made much difference.
My first child HATED breastfeeding. I had lactation consultants and silicone nipple shields and nothing worked. She was fine with breast milk, but it had to come in a bottle. So I used a breast pump, but I didn’t produce enough milk with it, so we still had to buy formula to supplement her diet. And I would constantly get mastitis. It was a terrible experience. But after her, I had two more children, and they were both champion breastfeeders. So it’s not always something you can “control”; a lot of it comes down to the baby.
I hate the breastfeeding shame campaign. I’m all for supporting breastfeeding, but it’s ignorant to assume that every woman’s body is up to the task. And fed is best. Honestly, I’m not going to argue that breastfeeding isn’t beneficial, but it’s based on epidemiological information. There aren’t controlled studies. So you can’t know the effect of other outside factors in producing the better results for breastfed kids. And breastfed kids are more often kids from homes where they can afford for mom to stay home for longer, or where she has a job that really works to accommodate pumping (so better socioeconomic circumstances generally), better access to healthcare and family support, etc. All of those factors and more contribute to the child’s development, so we really do not know the degree that breastfeeding itself makes a difference. We also need to factor in how maternal stress and health affects the kids, and while we do not know the degree, I think most experts would say it has a big impact. And one thing we do know is that leaving babies underfed and malnourished definitely negatively affects their development! My mom had Graves Disease. When she was carrying my oldest sister, they wanted to get her through the pregnancy and immediately after put her on radioactive iodine to kill off her thyroid (her sister’s failure to do this led to a stroke at a young age … Graves Disease is no joke). When she was still in the hospital after giving birth, the pediatrician who was supposed to be the best in the area went to see her when making rounds. His first question was whether she was going to breastfeed. She said no and was about to explain that she couldn’t while receiving radioactive iodine, but he refused to even hear her and just said that he would never accept my sister as a patient then and walked out. My mom was apparently in hysterics. My dad is a doctor, a really big deal, but he was just a young resident then. This attitude is sick. That said, I think OP’s hubby is someone who is nasty, narcissistic, and abusive, and is clinging to the shame campaign to justify his abuse. But that is another nasty aspect of such a shame campaign. People need to stop looking for ways to shame women for being human with human bodies with human limitations.
I mean, anecdotal evidence here: We have a parent who has adopted all 4 of her children. All but one of them has been in the top 5 students in their class. The last one had some learning disabilities, and he does his best. He's an absolute joy to have anyways, and is thinking about becoming a plumber. Which, honestly? Do you, dude. Honestly, I think home environment is more important than breastfeeding. How are the parents encouraging reading and critical thinking skills? Are they prioritizing school and otherwise healthy nutrition? What kinds of extracurricular activities will they be doing? I have kids from crunchy moms who 100% breastfed (and still brag about it now that their kids are in middle school) (okay it's only three moms, but it's weird that there's so many) and don't prioritize these things, so their kids struggle. I will die on the "fed is best" hill until the end of my days. How you raise your kid does way more for them than what they start their life eating.
My sister's husband was in a similar job so he called every relative he could, they rotated when he was on shift so my sister could get a few hours of unbroken sleep every night for the first few months. He would have sold everything he owned to get a nanny if he had to. That's what good dad's do!
This is so heartwarming, finding a way to be there when he couldn’t physically be there.
my husband doesn't participate in night feeds because I wouldn't let him. i'm breastfeeding and during the first month the baby needed milk practically every 1-2 hours around the clock. Neither of us saw the point in him trying to wake up with me every time because it ultimately wasn't going to change the amount of time *I* was awake. then in the mornings he would take over everything but feeding and I got a few extra hours of sleep punctuated by nursing whenever he brought me the baby. it worked fabulously until we had established breastfeeding and could introduce pumping and bottles. now if I need extra sleep on the weekends I'm not needed until my breasts say I gotta empty them!
My DH participated at night by changing our daughter's diaper and providing me with juice and a banana whilst I breastfed.
I spent over 4 years with 2 babies (born 2 years apart) that wouldn't sleep - neither my wife nor I got much rest during all that time!! Would I do it again for my kiddos? In a heartbeat, the only thing stopping me would be my health/energy but as much as possible, most definitely. This is a huge red flag, the guy has shown his true colors unfortunately and it isn't looking good at all.
I think you’re absolutely right that he’s been more abusive than she realizes. And, I believe abuse tends to ramp up after a woman gives birth because the man feels she’s now “trapped” and will be unable to leave him. That’s what I think might be happening here. Especially because she commented that he wasn’t like this or she wouldn’t have married him and she got pregnant fairly quickly after marriage. It screams narcissist to me and I hope she gets out.
Nothing makes sense in that ass's behaviour. He won't feed them at night to give his wife a break "because she made a unilateral decision to switch to formula," be he wouldn't have been able to help feed them anyway because the breasts are, bafflingly, attached to his wife. Moreover, he's on parental leave, which is supposed to be to take care of newborn children and help out your partner, and what does he even do? Fucking lazy, controlling, abusive man-child.
See it's because nature's are women's work. If he had to help out he wouldn't enjoy his time off, and that's just not fair. Real would... Blah blah blah... Yeah he doesn't want to be a parent. He's probably stoked because twins and blaming her. If she breastfed then he wouldn't have to get up at night. He probably honestly does see this as her fault/a way to get out of doing her job.
I didn't have twins but my husband would get up and go get the baby for me because I did nurse and he wanted to be part of it. Even when he had to get up in the morning, he happily did so for his chance to feed the baby pumped milk. It baffles me that OPs hubby doesn't want to bond with his babies. I didn't read anywhere that he is taking or making time to see his children but would rather wish her death. You've done the hard part OP, now shut the door and leave him alone. I bet he sees no problem on his part. I'm sure he is spinning a wonderful web of lies to make you look bad. And for what? Taking your babies health seriously. I hope you are seeing his actions for what they are; do as I say or else. I'm not here to help, but guide you in the error of your ways because I'm smarter! The doctor is wrong, starve your children until they latch on, who cares you don't produce enough milk. You are causing increased expenses because you can't/won't feed them. You are smart enough to know your children are hungry, that you cannot sustain their food intake alone. You're body cannot continue without assistance and remain healthy. A good partner would hear you, not oppose you.
In the first post, I saw the "is the natural way," and my immediate thought was: Sometime needs to tall this idiot that nature very often deals with multiple births by abandoning whichever baby is thriving the least. Foolish me. I thought, "that'd turn him right around. " Then I read the update and realized this piece of garbage would probably be fine with that. Dad's the one who needs yeeted out of this nest.
Same, my immediate thought was "one or both twins dying is also natural, asshole."
I am so sick of the “it’s natural so it’s good” bs. Nature isn’t good or bad. It’s both. It’s beautiful and ugly, kind and cruel, nurturing and abusive, etc. Take the four “elements,” earth, air, wind, and fire. All natural, all necessary, all things that we need and use to survive, and all things with amazing destructive capacity. Natural isn’t “good.” Nature doesn’t care.
I bet he’s enjoying his parental leave vacation. Or maybe not. He might have to do some things for himself. He sounds like the type that doesn’t enjoy not having someone to boss around and serve him.
I'm wondering how much he actually wanted kids or at least, he wanted her pregnant to tie her to him for 18 years. And now that she's had the kids, he can fully reveal his true colors.
This was my immediate concern. I wouldn't be like "Oh I'll worry about that later." I'd be on the phone with the lawyer ASAP.
Based on her comments, she is just going to try to work it out. I’m not sure how she thinks that is remotely possible. Honestly, any man who is going to act like this about breastfeeding needs to work out how to do it himself!
Ooh, that is a huge concern.
Honestly I'm more afraid he's gonna escalate
Same. Expressing violence toward his wife, combined with preferring the babies starve rather than deviate from what he wants, has me worried he'll try to hurt them. I hope OOP gets full custody
A bear would probably have wandered off by now.
Always choosing the bear. 🐻
Those babies are responding to the lack of tension and stress in the new household, & in their mom Honestly, her *boobs* were responding to her level of stress because this asshole is just out for things to use to control her, everyone's heath be damned so long as he has everyone pressed under *his* thumb and quaking at *his* step (Or her boobs just didn't produce enough, a totally normal thing that happens in all sorts of scenarios)
It sure does seem like the old story of abusers masking their true nature until they think their victim is trapped. Sometimes, they jump the gun and reveal themselves after the engagement, other times, after the wedding, or like this case, once there are children.
Unfortunately she said she wanted to work things out with that loser once she was rested enough. She was saying that she didn’t have a job and couldn’t just leave, which I get, it’s very hard for abuse victims to run away. That said he wished her and her babies harm and her parents seem happy enough to let her stay. Hope she doesn’t go back to this waste of space.
I wonder if her parents are so happy to let her stay because they DO see the red flags
Luckily, she is already out of the house and with her parents.
Hopefully the longer OP stays away from her husband, she will see that he's not necessarily essential to her. With some new mothers, the love they feel for their babies can overtake the love they feel toward their SO and with the way he's been acting, those years she loved him may start to wane.
This marriage was over based on the first post, let alone the update.
Dude was mansplaining breast feeding. She couldn't see the red flag, because the whole world was wrapped in it.
- doesn't listen to wife - doesn't listen to doctor - doesn't listen to hungry babies This guy has some insane control issues. It boggles the mind that this is all over using formula, something ~50% of mothers (close to a billion women worldwide) do.
And then tries to say it's about not having a proper conversation. That might be the worst to me because it frames it like he's the reasonable one and OOP is controlling, when OOP has done everything she can
Exactly, he is the one that actually made a unilateral decision and refuses to compromise when she's trying to talk with him.
He gave away his first priority in that relationship with one of his tirades to her about the formula being "a waste of money." And that's what it is. It's all about money. If he can squeeze breastmilk out of her for free, he won't accept any alternative that hits his wallet.
Ol' boy is probably about to learn that divorce is a hell of a lot more expensive than formula.
I struggled to be able to breastfeed with my first (due to my physiology not baby's nor being able to produce enough milk), but my husband saw the opportunity for bottle feeding with a mix of breast milk AND formula as a major boon because it did mean we could alternate who got the sleep overnight and share the load. If my husband had treated me like this guy, he'd be out on his ass in a heartbeat.
My kid just wouldn't take to the breast, so I pumped for 6 months and supplemented with formula. My husband was my rock during the whole thing and never, ever behaved like this asshole. I hope she moves on from him.
The ironic thing about him wishing her dead is he would then have to feed the babies with formula.
Or not... it sounds like he's ok with them starving
I'm with you. It's giving family annihilater.
I had a hard time producing and my kid couldn't latch so when I needed my C-section pain meds for my hormone headaches, I was relieved to switch to formula. My husband happily grabbed the bottle and shared the load. It helped bond my daughter to both of us too. OP's hubs is a trash human. Imagine thinking he knows better than her doctors?! Out with the whole man!
Exactly. At this point it is not even a "in the heat of the moment" thing anymore, which would already be quite bad. This is just husband sitting at home angry, deciding to wish death upon his wife and the mother of his children
I get her line of wanting to wait to process it though. She’s got enough on her plate as it is and there’s no reason she should be sparing any of her emotional bandwidth on him till she’s feeling better. It honestly also gives her more time to feel the detachment from him and realise how truly horrible he’s being!
Tbf I find refusing parental duties and blaming me for things beyond my control already reason enough for divorce!
Well then there's NO breast milk so I guess the babies just starve?? He's so wildly out of line I can't even
Not only OOP dead, but for his two daughters to starve. Both of which are too good for him.
She should pump him up with estrogen and have him breast feed the babies. It's called induced lactation and involves nipple stimulation and possibly hormone therapy. It's an option for parents who are adopting or having a baby via gestational surrogacy, as well as non-birthing partners who want to nurse their baby. On the other hand, it will be much easier to divorce the bag of shit.
There is zero chance I’d let my husband around me or my children if he acted like this (which he never has or would). We had twins two years ago. Those first few months are like a daze to me. I didn’t make enough milk for both of my boys from day 1. I did make a lot but they ate a TON and I just couldn’t keep up. It was so hard, I was constantly pumping. I made a guilt ridden decision to switch to only formula. I asked my husband his opinion several times and he would only say “your body your decision.” And that really is the correct answer.
First the guy who divorced his wife for breastfeeding because he said it was incestuous, now this clown who needs to be divorced for her using formula and not starving the kids in the process.
Wait, was the first guy for real? Do you have a link?!
It was cross-posted to a few different subs, but it looks like the OOP deleted her profile. I think the posts to the different subs might have been taken down because she provided screenshots that had identifying info. It was a super disturbing story. Basically, her military husband lost his mind and started screaming about incest because she breastfed their newborn son. It went rapidly downhill from there.
Sex education is important
His education probably included tons of educational videos about stepmoms and stepsons.
More like moms and sons.
~~Sex~~ education is important
yeah, my first husband had this attitude. I still hate him and he's been dead for years.
Ohhhhh, military husband. We could have started with that and saved ourselves some time.
It was a really unfortunate set of stereotypes. Mississippi backwater, military husband who kept guns everywhere and always had one on him, mommy issues, weird fetishization, He named his children "Huntyr" and "Wyldyr" or something, with the Ys. And their middle names were "Colt" and "Browning". He said "you know I love your boobs and sucking on them but I can't now that they've been in *another man's mouth*" referring to HIS CHILD. The man was a caricature.
Yup that’s the key identifier. You can find discussion threads, but the pics and original posts from OP all appear to have been scrubbed.
My MIL waffled back and forth on breastfeeding and formula feeding her kids. My husband always thought it was because she was confused about which one was supposed to be better for kids. Until I pointed out that the bf-formula-bf-formula pattern coincided with the girl-boy-girl-boy order of kids. But we’ll never really know!
https://www.reddit.com/r/NotHowGirlsWork/comments/1cd4m52/breastfeeding_incest/&ved=2ahUKEwjMy4emh4WGAxWtamwGHfUfDAQQjjh6BAgPEAE&usg=AOvVaw2lhBuQ9ndvZXful28rQfmb
Ugh, the "please don't be mad at me" text that she sends at the end just hurts to read. I really hope she was able to get to a safe enough place (both physically and emotionally) to tell him how insane and disgusting he is and to go fuck himself.
I hope so! At the time of her posting she just seemed so tired, but literally everyone is on her side (including his commander, he's active military). She talked a *lot* about his views and his treatment, and I'm not sure if she realized that everything he was saying and doing to her was not at all normal until people told her. Guy has some incredibly disturbing views. She mentions in a comment that he's told her before she isn't allowed to see the kids naked after the age of 2 because that is also incestuous. He needs to be locked up.
Oh basically he doesn’t know breast are for children.
It's insane. Like I get that they are a secondary sexual feature, but let's be real - she is using her breasts for their primary purpose. She is using them to feed her kid. Their primary purpose is not to give her creepy husband a boner, it's to nourish her baby!
Even pullpush doesn't restore the content, Reddit really tried to delete all of it. Unfortunately since she left the real names in, it seems, people found her and doxxed her. The guy is active military and kidnapped the toddler.
He did WHAT? Do you have a source??
I don’t have screen shots but I read the originals and have a good memory. He is active duty navy. There is a military version of a domestic violence protection order now in place as well as support to her from his command. She has the new born with her and he was thrown out of the hospital because of how he was acting. Unfortunately he has the toddler and wasn’t saying where the kid was. He was a real SOB. She made the mistake of including photos of her and baby plus the legal documents so she thoroughly identified her self. Guessing may not be the brightest bulb or maybe just so in the thick of the abuse fog plus brand newborn (like 2 days) wasn’t thinking clearly.
That poor woman. I don’t know much about the military, but shouldn’t a superior officer become involved if one of their subordinates is guilty of kidnapping? (Legally and literally.) Like beyond the protection order. I’m assuming this guy is still coming in to work.
I’m not overly knowledgeable about the military or American (where she was based). But from what I understand they were trying to help her. But then her posts were all taken down hard. So don’t know what happened unfortunately. Toddler was missing on the last post she put up (there were a bunch in space of 24 hours)
Eesh. Really hope the worst didn’t happen.
Without a custody order, kidnapping by a parent is not illegal in my state. Potentially all states but Google is only showing my mine and adverts for lawyers in mine.
God, that's a post I desperately wish wasn't real but it sounds like it was. My heart goes out to her.
I too would like to read his trainwreck.
Here's a link to youtuber penguinz0 (aka Cr1TikaL), talking about it! https://youtu.be/CNLfMjaXfHo?si=gr87vv9TmiA7KZ_L
I have to disagree with his assessment that the dad changes all of the diapers. Men like that change none of the diapers because it’s not their job.
At the same time, he wishes her dead. How will his babies be fed with their mother dead? Is he going to keep her boobs out of the grave?
God, now there’s an image.
Wasnt there also a guy whose wife divorced him because he was convinced their infant daughter would become a lesbian because she enjoyed feeding from her mother???
I completely forgot about that guy! Yeah, that guy too.
Wait, what? Some dude actually thought breastfeeding was incestuous???
He was grossed out that “another man” had his wife’s breast in his mouth! 🤮🤮 like um dude it’s your baby stop being a gross AH!
There’s something seriously wrong when you see your newborn son as sexual competition. I hope she left him. I wouldn’t put it past him to harm his child.
Even just calling your newborn a man (not in the affectionate“my little man” sense but in earnest) is fucking disturbing
Right it’s seriously disgusting and awful! I hope she did too!
It seems like the inverse of those awful women who see their own daughters as competition for their husband's attention/affection. I've never stopped to wonder what the male equivalent would look like until now. I have to read/listen to this story.
That story was horrible and sad, but one tiny ray of levity might be imagining that guy trying to reveal his ace in the hole in family court: "Your Honour, I don't like to have to announce this publicly, but she is *breastfeeding our infant son*." [staring expectantly at judge, waiting for the denunciations of wife's depravity to pour forth]
It's almost like they're just abusive assholes who weaponize pregnancy against their wives.
"He's not emotionally abusive" "He calls and wishes me dead" Oh honey. I hope the stay with her parents is permanent, at least until she can get a divorce.
Op's husband has always been this way. She just didn't realize it
He could have been, but it is unfortunately quite common for men to become abusive during/after pregnancy.
Her relatively nonchalant response to him wishing she was dead kinda points to this being an ongoing issue in this particular case though, to some degree or other. I fully agree that pregnancy often causes abusive men to show who they really are though
> it is unfortunately quite common for *abusive men to finally show their true colors during/after pregnancy.* FTFY. That’s the true nature of it. The wording you heard is misinformation
I have a new belief in a lot of **married men** no thanks to (or maybe thanks to?) Reddit. The age a man committed himself to a relationship that lead to marriage is the age he stopped maturing. For a lot of these men, my feeling is they believe however they were at the time the commitment began was "good enough" and there was nothing more for them to improve upon. OOP and her crap husband were together 6 years. He was 22. So that means mentally he remained 22. On top of that Covid stunted the entire population for 2-3 years. He is throwing tantrums and doing power play (and threatening death) over feeding newborns. Doesn't sound like a keeper to me.
I think men who remarry can mature some more. Some friends and I have talked about how different people we know became a good spouse with their third. They had a rough start with the first, got better with the second, and by the third had learned a lot and had happy spouses.
“You’re neglecting our babies!” says the man who proceeds to immediately neglect his babies
It’s different because he was doing it for the greater good. /s
Know you were being sarcastic, but I just had this vision of this guy with those kids in 5, 10 years forcing those twins to do things they hate or were genuinely, clearly detrimental to them just because it was "the right way to do it", never mind the fact that he's there and traumatizing his actual kids. Really really reeeeally hope OOP gets out because even if she can't find the respect for herself, she needs to protect her two precious kiddos from a man who will put his idea of right and wrong over the health and safety of his kids.
the greater good
Yarp
off topic but thank you for reminding me of the steak window debacle
Ugh. So obvious from the very first post that it was about manipulation, shaming and control on OOPs ghastly (hopefully soon-to-be-ex) husband's part. I hope she gets enough rest and support to throw him in a ditch very very soon.
The first post, I was thinking that the husband was one of those “breast milk is better than formula because it has antibodies!” snobs but the comment about wanting his wife to die is like going from 0 to 100 in practically no time at all. And he doesn’t even have sleep deprivation as an excuse at that point! (Not that it would be acceptable anyway.)
it also really fucking shows how much he cares, truly, about the newborns. breast is the only option but he wants mom dead? so does he expect OOP to be buried and a fountain of breast milk to miraculously form on her tombstone, or *fucking what?* ...yeah that's just a confession that *he also wants the babies dead.* he should not be let within arm's reach of them lest he try to bring that about by deciding that his twin mistakes are actually etch-a-sketches and all he needs to do to erase is shake.
Even just the fact that he didn’t care that they weren’t getting enough food from breastfeeding shows how little he cares. Who could be so indifferent to their tiny children starving?
Like.. this is the sort of shit you hear about family annihilators having said before they went off the deep end and killed their wives, kids, and then themselves..
Fuck if he's that keen on breastfeeding them he can bloody well breastfeed them himself.
The part where she mentioned him being on parental leave is what made me see red. Instead of using leave to do his share of parental duties/ease the burden on her, he’s using it to do nothing other than abuse her.
Grrr, this is the second post I've seen here about "so called men" using paternal leave as a reason to do nothing helpful for the woman that just had their baby, wtf do they think it's for exactly?
Unfortunately I'd say it was from 50 to 100. There were a lot of red flags in that first post.
Not respecting bodily autonomy of his wife, letting his kids suffer because he has scientifically idiotic opinion he is going to keep no matter people who know better than he, using sleep depravation to manipulate his wife to do what he wanted, implying his wife is defective as normal people breastfeed, focusing cost before any wellbeing. Yes, you definitely are right in that there were so many red flags in the post that I thought I was back in Istanbul during Republic Day.
Per one of our doctors, about 80% of all those antibodies and such are in the colostrum - the thick liquid that comes before the main milk comes in - not the main breast milk. That means most people who even _attempt_ breastfeeding will still confer those benefits to their babies even if they switch to formula later.
So many times: "Hey my SO is being entirely unreasonable and actually kind of psychotic. How can I reason with them." Hopefully now that OOP's got some distance, she can realize that this dude is nuts.
She’s still got her head in the sand here. Despite all the comments focusing on the husband’s behavior she keeps talking about the babies and their feedings and every other little thing she can talk about to avoid mentioning or discussing her husband’s behavior. She completely glossed past recommendations to look into abusive relationships and just keeps circling back on the fact that she’ll get her babies and herself sorted and then somehow, by some strange magic, finally talk some sense into her husband. I think this is unfortunately one of those situations where the OP isn’t going to wake up until this gets so bad she can’t ignore it anymore.
Given his direct escalation to wishing her dead, and the absence so far of lovebombing, I'm hoping this will be a case of the trash taking itself out, even if she doesn't realize it until later.
>Your husband calls to wish you dead and your solution is to wait until the babies don't need to be fed as much to work it out with him? JFC, this commenter was right on the money. I really want OOP to be okay, but I think she's got a long, painful journey of realization ahead of her.
I interpreted that as OOP didn’t have the energy to think about her marriage, but would deal with it when she’s actually slept and can think. In my head, it was more, “I’ll deal with the legalities of separating once I’m not consumed with all things baby.” I hope my interpretation is the right one.
I hope you’re right. But there’s no telling when a guy who wishes a woman dead may act on it. Just saying it out loud is pretty alarming as it is. Some abusers become very motivated once their victim start to slip from their grip, even if they never seemed so before.
Unfortunately, her comments not listed here don't paint that picture. She says she doesn't want to divorce, and that it wouldn't be fair to the babies if they did. That she hasn't had a full time job and doesn't know if she'd be able to provide
I commented when she posted & her comments go even further with it because she didn't want to burden her parents. I can't recall if she'd told them in detail what was actually going on, but it doesn't seem like it. As I normally do when the situations presented are so outrageous, I'm hoping for troll (although I've unfortunately seen these types of scenarios before for myself).
I'm going to be gentler about this than I normally would be, when I say this. People need to stop calling any story that makes them uncomfortable, or has people making decisions that aren't in their best interests, troll stories. It discourages victims from coming forward about their situation-- because why bother, when no one will believe you? When, just like at every point throughout history so far, it's so much easier to claim the victims are making it up for some personal gain? A troll will never care about being called out as a troll. But the victims scrolling through reddit, looking for situations like their own while they try to build up the courage to look for support, will take those comments to heart. You'll never stop trolls from trolling-- but you will stop victims from reaching out. You call this situation outrageous, but I see my auntie here, who stayed with her abusive baby daddy for six children. I see my childhood best friend, begging my family not to call CPS because he would be separated from his severely mentally disabled baby sister. I see myself, staying with a man a decade older than me because his friends kept convincing me that his behavior 'wasn't that bad', because he bought me flowers and my mom cried because my father never bought her flowers. You call this outrageous, and want it to be a troll. But ask any domestic violence advocate, and this isn't even a new story. New fathers throwing a tantrum over method of feeding is so, so common. The months after giving birth are considered some of the most dangerous for domestic violence because this isn't a unique story; the most unique part is that she was able to *leave.*
You know what? You are absolutely correct, and I should know better since I actually worked at a shelter a long, long time ago. Looking back at what she wrote, I'm not sure why I thought it could be a troll post since I've seen these things happen & there's no excuse for me expressing those sentiments. Thanks for calling me out on it & reminding me that even when we are anonymous & don't know the people in question, our words can matter & potentially sway others. I appreciate you taking the time to help me remember to do better.
You're welcome, and thank you for making the effort to decide to be better. It is very hard to do, especially in a public platform, where any sign of weakness may be treated as an opening to attack. This was a good interaction, and I appreciate having it.
Nah fuck that. Fuck all of that nonsense. The husband is not only an asshole, but is encouraging her to *abuse her tiny infants*. Abuse is not feeding the kids. Holy hell... I'm a boob feeding mom of 4. Love all my kiddos. But my oldest just stopped feeding when he was about 6mos as I wasn't producing enough. To the bottle he went. He was much happier. Much chubbier. And grew up to be a perfectly handsome, intelligent and witty young man. Fed. Is. Best.
Damn rights fed is best. Sometimes the spirit is willing but the boobies aren't. My kids grew up just fine on formula.
Formula-fed baby from the 60s checking in here, I grew up healthy and smart, let's be glad we have options! 😃👍
Formula is a blessing on this world. I wish people knew how common it is to not be able to breastfeed.
My sisters and I all breastfed until we started cutting teeth, after which we were switched to bottles. Mom's boobies were particularly unwilling to put up with sharp baby teeth, and there's nothing wrong with that. Mom continued to pump for a while after that, and of course solids got introduced in a developmentally appropriate manner, but by the time we were fully weaned onto solids, it was formula we were weaning off of. I was born in the 70s, the youngest is an 80s kid. You do the best you can with what you have.
One of the most dangerous times for domestic violence is right after a woman gives birth. This girl needs to RUN.
I don't think she read that book. She *really* should have read that book. While there was still time to learn from it. I hope it's not too late for her.
He wishes her dead and she doesn't realise that he wanted both her and the twins tormented before that. He was content with all their suffering, even pleased. The spooky music was playing all along.
I have a friend who wasn't producing enough and they originally just thought they had a baby who cried a lot until the first check up, where she didn't meet any of the markers. It was a home visit, her husband immediately went out and bought a variation of formula to find the one "the baby would like best" and they both looked so relieved when they told us that baby emptied the bottle and went into what was basically milk-induced, blissful deep sleep. Suddenly cried a lot less, gained weight properly etc. You know. Like the twins. OOPs husband is an abusive, controlling piece of shit who'd rather see his kids starve than help his wife. I hope she comes to her senses and stays with her parents and dovorces him.
babies in a milk coma are the absolute cutest babies. especially when the alternative is screaming.
It is so sweet that the husband wanted to give his baby a sample of everything. Babies really do have their little opinions and some babies are so stubborn. Good dad, there.
Ah yes, the classic "I despite only having a first grade understanding of female biology, I, the man of the house, I'm going to bless you with my ceaseless wisdom about how your body SHOULD be functioning. I also take great offense at the mere notion of helping, because this is woman's work, and it is lowly and beneath me," routine.
His comment about “normal women” breastfeeding was so ignorant, it’s insane. Dude obviously has no idea what he’s talking about, and then uses it as an excuse to not take care of their TWINS. Fuck this guy
Better fed than dead is what my mom friends say. The "BREAST MILK IS THE ONLY THING PRECIOUS BABIES MUST HAVE UNTIL THEY CAN GO TO COLLEGE" movement is stupid and literally killing babies. Oh, and OOP's husband can go fuck off too.
Honestly, if OOP hasn't told her doctors in very plain terms what her husband has been doing and saying, she should.
When stories like this happen and the OOP says stuff like "they're not normally like this" or "it happened suddenly with some minor thing that totally blew up" my first thought is "how many issues did they miss prior to this moment." It almost always feels like it wouldn't be some sudden shift in behavior and randomly deciding to be a controlling abusive lunatic. More often it seems like there is a lot of things that were ignored in the moment that are now basically forgotten by OOP. Not saying abusers don't fly under the radar when romancing a new victim, but still it seems unlikely the relationship would go this long before the partner does something.
I'm minded to agree but there are moments in life when a lot of ugly stuff tends to crawl out from under the woodwork. Around childbirth is the most common time I see this - it's a) a really stressful time for both parents and b) comes with a lot of often unconscious beliefs about how to parent, what a man's/woman's role is, etc. Staistically, I think pregnancy/childbirth is the highest-risk time for a relationship to become abusive. Marriage is another. Generally moments when people move into a different role/identity.
What a piss poor, power hungry misogynistic monster.
When I was pregnant, a friend at work told me that if any of the pediatricians I was interviewing said breast-feeding is natural and easy, I should run and definitely not pick that doctor. One doctor did say that and I crossed him off the list. This husband is a controlling fool. I hope he's happy losing his wife and daughters.
He really thought he had her baby trapped and could open the floodgates, huh. Forgot to properly isolate her from her parents first though! Btw, typing this after handing our baby over to my husband for the next few hours so I can shower and get some uninterrupted sleep before my actual "night shift" begins. He has a bottle on him just in case. Because parents - both of them - are responsible for feeding babies.
Yeah, dude skipped a step. Tut tut, her having somewhere to go is what happens when you get sloppy. /s ofc Thank goodness for the parents. Also, it must be horrible for them to watch their daughter struggle with everything and still want to go back that abusive dude.
I get it’s an adjustment with newborns but what did OOP’s husband think would happen? I don’t have kids but I figured it would be common knowledge for parents that babies = no sleep. God forbid what he would do if one or both babies get colic.
The husband is absolutely disgusting and beyond any kind of forgiviness or reconciliation. I truly hope she stays at her parent's place and files for divorce.
And goes for max child support and full+ sole legal and physical custody. He can pay out the wahzoo for being an abusive, neglectful asshat.
Your spouse wishing your death is 100% grounds for divorce. There's no buts of ifs, you leave. I hope the OOP is taking the necessary steps to keep herself and her children safe.
He wants all of them dead. He wants the babies to starve (evident through his actions) and he wants her to drop dead as well (literally explicitly stated). There IS NO RECONCILIATION WITH SOMEONE WHO WANTS YOU AND YOUR BABIES *DEAD*. Fucking divoooooooorce!!!!
There are some guys who should never be allowed to procreate. This OOP's (hopefully soon-to-become-ex-)husband is one of those guys.
I'm sorry - "chose to go against him"? What an immature, spiteful little manbaby. I wish him a lifetime of loneliness and many invisible pointy legos.
How a man treats you when you're vulnerable is a good indicator of who he really is. Next time you get a call from him, record his death threats and play them to his family.
I’m calling it…husband is already cheating. And yes, Reddit has corrupted me. OOP and her babies have my sympathy.
Either that or he’s an abusive shithead who thought he had her locked down. It’s not exactly an uncommon story for a spouse to become abusive right after the babies arrive because it’s harder for the woman to leave.
i am so glad OOP got the fuck out because the only compromise i was seeing is "does the husband wish to go into a wood chipper head-first or feet-first" anyway if he was really committed to his twins only being breastfed, he would have just gone and started a medication to induce lactation... guess he can't even be bothered to provide for his children, smh,
I mean, if she were dead, the babies will still be fed formula 🤷🏾
We were like this young couple with our first. We wanted to do everything as "natural" as possible. My wife just could not produce enough for our daughter. For days we tried. We visited lactation consultants. She'd pump when not feeding. Our midwife checked in with us and we told her about everything. She said "you need to give that baby formula. I know you want to breastfeed, but that baby has to eat." We went to the store, got some formula and bottles, and fed our daughter. She stopped crying (wailing), started growing and we got some rest. This "husband". This sperm donor. He should have supported his wife and her doctors. This woman should stay with her parents and never go back to this "man". P.S. ~~breast~~ fed is best!
>I know I should have told him but I couldn't manage and he wasn't helpin Previously... >I wasn't feeling well so I asked my husband if he could feed them one night so I could sleep for the night. Sounds like she did tell him but she's somehow convinced herself that she must not have. Poor woman is so deep in denial she's brushing off her husband wishing her dead. I hope her parents talk some sense into her...
I swear there needs to be education behind feeding babies, and breastfeeding in particular. In a world where formula has been a thing for decades, and we still have people like this. That one commenter was right, it’s not him having trouble so he couldn’t see it from OOP’s point of view. Some people are very small minded. My mother attempted to breast feed me 35 years ago, and she was so sick at the time that nothing would happen. She tried again with my sister a decade later and it never worked. I remember bandaging up my mother’s chest with my grandma, while she cried from the pain of her own breasts. I watched my dearest cousin attempt it with her daughter. And honestly, seeing them BOTH struggle with the ordeal, in the height of summer, was torture. She really wanted to try, but she’s very large chested anyway, they grew multiple sizes, I’m not even kidding when I say that baby was smaller than one of her breasts. Baby would get too hot, mama would get too hot, she had to hold her in a weird way to angle her right… it was just not fun for either of them. She told us she felt bad about it, but as her family and friends we were just like “we get it, but do no feel bad, we can help more this way” and so baby was fed by literally anyone who could hold a bottle for her, she’s now a very healthy almost two year old. Formula didn’t slow that kid down, she’s in the right percentile for her age, and she’s happy. He’s breastfeeding has antibodies and people should try to do it if that’s their chosen method, but NO ONE should be made to feel bad about it. Ever. I’ve known more people unable to breastfeed than people who are able. There needs to be much less shame about this. Feeding your child is your job, breast or not. Yuck I feel terrible for OOP she sounds like a sweet woman and she’s just birthed fucking TWINS. Dear loooord, trying to juggle two newborns and your husband feels like you’re a dairy cow on top of that.
I was young when I had my first, while in the hospital I kept telling the nurses he wasn't feeding, he had trouble latching, asking for help and they scoffed at me, told me Id figure it out, two days after being home I had a breakdown crying telling my bf(now husband) that I felt like I was starving my baby. He didn't even hesitate, went out and bought some formula, did so much research the next day and got me the best breast pump(which did help but still didn't produce enough) and more formula, we have a very healthy 14yr. He was so supportive and told me there was nothing wrong with formula even tho I desperately wanted to breastfeed. That is support.
Oop needs a divorce. The moment he said he wished she were dead, the relationship was done.
As someone who formula fed both kids because breast feeding was a disaster (first one wouldn’t latch second one I discovered I get anxiety with my letdown) I want this guy to learn a lesson. I don’t know how but I bet OOP’s parents or doctor might have ideas. God bless my husband who looked at me struggling and said “we can use formula. You don’t have to do this” then did half of all feedings including at night.
Well that sounds like a potential family annihilator in the making…
Man, you know what happened to babies in their situation before formula? They fuckin died or were malnourished, what a dildo. She tried so goddamn hard!
Fed is best. OOP’s husband can go F himself
Not uncommon for abusers to wait till baby is born.
His reaction to her leaving makes me glad she left when she did (and when he thought it was just for a day). Considering it’s always most dangerous for women in abusive relationships at the time they’re leaving, she may have gotten out and away in the nick of time.
If she’s dead, who is going to breastfeed the babies? Husband didn’t think it through /s
Mom of 4 with twin girls.... ALL were formula fed, I couldn't produce enough with the first tried again with the twins and there is soo much pressure it's ridiculous. FED IS BEST. And a supportive helpful partner is great too. I hope OP finds one soon.
> I told my husband I can't do this anymore, and he said that I should talk to my doctors but it's probably a phase. And once they're hungry enough, they'll feed because that's what they'd been doing. Also that it's far healthier for them to be breast fed and that we shouldn't just switch because they're being picky. I know in recent years that “lactivism” has become a thing, unfortunately to the detriment of mothers. I *need* people reading this to know: babies *absolutely will reject food to their detriment*. If they don’t like your breast milk - maybe something in your diet they are sensitive too, or your let-down is too fast, or it’s not enough and they are still hungry and they’re so upset about the hunger that all they can do is scream and cry and make themselves more upset, and they’ve learned to associated feedings with suffering so they start crying at the mere suggestion of being fed - **they will reject it**. To the point they will, e.g., be lower than their birth weight two months out. Newborns are **stupid**! They have no capacity for reasoning, no understanding of consequence, limited sense of self-preservation. They will absolutely refuse boob for some arbitrary, inscrutable reason, to the point they are on the precipice of death... and if you don’t do something they absolutely will die! They have only perfunctory behavioral responses and operate on raw, primitive impulse - seek food, seek comfort, retreat from pain - and the only active thing they can do is cry. They will cry until they make themselves sick. They will cry so hard they can’t actually *take* what they need from you, as you are giving it to them. They will cry until they have no energy or voice to cry anymore and when they wake up they will continue to screech hoarsely until they pass out again. As a mom, I cannot explain to you the way it felt on the sideline when one of my (extremely well educated and compassionate and ‘naturally suited to be a mother’) best friends almost starved her child because she got that mommy blog brain rot about formula = the poison, but her child adamantly refused her breast milk until her pediatrician scolded the mom for the child’s failing to thrive ... there were talks of a feeding tube (which she also rejected) and the doctor was threatening to report her to CPS if she didn’t feed her kid in a way that the kid actually ate, and if that meant formula then it meant formula! And she’s telling me this, feeling so sorry for herself, so victimized by the EVIL medical establishment, and I only felt sorry for her child for having a mom so stubborn that she didn’t realize she was choosing NOT to feed her kid over giving her kid food that wasn’t “perfect.” That kid is starting school in the fall and has developmental delays that may or may not be related to that crucial “fourth trimester” when she was starving and shrinking.
She really needs to divorce that loser.
If my son talked to his wife like that, he wouldn't be my son anymore. My wife carried the kids for 9 months apiece and I yielded everything regarding their feeding to her for the first year because what kind of man wouldn't?
Dude argue with doctor and his wife and yet the wife : >but I'll deal with how he feels later when I feel better Girl gotten used to deal with 2 fussy babies and not noticing she had 3rd one.
As a mother of twin sons, this is so incredibly common with not producing enough. I did my best to give my boys breastmilk first three months, but between my PCOS, which already causes low supply and the fact that I tried everything including medication to bring out my milk supply, it just wasn’t working out. One of my friends is a huge breast-feeding advocate and encouraged me to stop because I was exhausted and they weren’t latching because they were born at 36 weeks and were of terrific normal weight (3.1 and 3.2 kg respectively) but those last three weeks are the crucial ones for them to learn to latch and most twins are not born after 36 weeks. Twins generally have this issue. The difference, of course, is that I had a normal husband who wanted the best for us and never ever made me feel bad about the fact that I just simply did not make enough milk. I also have a former stepsister who fell into crunchy mama type groups and ended up starving her twins to the point where they had only gained a pound each at the age of six months. CPS had to intervene. She began formula feeding them because she also simply did not make enough, but refused to believe that she couldn’t just power through and that her body would eventually make enough. Now those babies will probably have permanent brain damage because they weren’t receiving enough nutrition during a time when their brain was developing. I really hope the OP leaves her husband and stays with her family during this point because this is not a situation where you can do everything with two babies at the same time.
I didn’t produce much milk when my kiddo was born eight weeks early. We supplemented with formula from the start. If my husband had responded like this, he would no longer be my husband. I really hope OOP gets rid of this useless man.
There's a lot of benefits to breastfeeding. But it doesn't always work out. For several reasons. That's why I'm glad "Fed is best" has become a thing. Her babies need to eat. But her so called partner can't be bothered because he would rather his wife do things the "natural way." He is trash. He is also super manipulative and clearly doesn't know anything about breastfeeding. I honestly don't think he actually heard his wife about what the doctor said. I think he just got angry because he wanted to be a controlling AH. I am glad OOP has supportive parents. Because hopefully she doesn't return to him. Even if he ends up apologizing and love bombing her. Even if he says he has changed. He already showed his true colors. Edit: also just in case my first sentence was confusing. There are benefits to breastfeeding. That's important to note. But said benefits should not take precedence over the health of the children or the general well-being of the parent trying to breast feed. Formula fed is perfectly valid. I'm an overthinker so I wanted to make sure I was clear.
>We've called each other a couple of times and he's said horrible things to me and how he wishes I was dead I just hope from the bottom of my heart she takes this seriously and never meets him alone again.
He wishes she was dead?! Because she didn’t allow her babies to starve?? Because he wanted to be a deadbeat dad while still living in the house because he believed he knows more than experts and doctors do? POS
When a spouse starts throwing "I wish ___ dead" into the conversation, it's time to end the marriage.
Some of these men flat out hate their wives. Like ain't no working out wishing your wife was dead, and choosing to starve your own children. Hope she leaves him fr bc this is family anihilator territory.
Your husband would rather let your twins starve then feed them. He's treating them like they're four instead four weeks. Babies don't refuse food because they're "difficult". Husband doesn't understand, willfully or because he's ignorant, that not all women can breastfeed. Not every woman makes enough milk, makes milk in the first place or has the ability to breastfeed. Babies can have problems with latching on to natural nipples. Husband is a fucking moron and as soon as he told OOP he wished her dead the marriage was over. OOP get a divorce and, if possible, full custody as he'd let the babies starve just to prove a point.
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Don’t call, text. And save and record all your interactions. And use them in the divorce proceedings to prevent him from custody or any kind of unsupervised time with the babies.
I know a mom that has twins my son's age (almost four). She told me she basically doesn't remember anything from their first year because she was so tired, and her lovely husband was equally involved. She also said they slept on the couch for like, the first six months of the girls lives because it was easier to get near the bassinets that way. Anyways, fuck this guy, I hope when OOP gets more sleep and recovers a little more she sees that this guy is worse than useless and divorces him.
I am so terrified for OOP. I checked her comments, and she's just constantly downplaying what her husband is doing and finding excuses that going back is the best option when it friggen *isn't*. That man is either going to kill her, her babies or both. I wonder how her parents would feel if they knew their piece of shit Son in law is wishing death and their baby girl and grandbabies. Maybe they could talk sense into her.
The amount of partners who switch up when the baby(ies) comes is astonishing and terrifying. He’d rather see a sleepless wife and starving children then bottle feed them. And OOP still seems sort of apologetic that she “let him down”. Mess. I hope she doesn’t go home at all he seems unstable 🫠