Supporting your partner when your baby is bottle-fed and baby sleep is a challenge

If your baby is bottle-fed, you will be able to share bottle feeds with your baby's other parent, or even take them over completely if she agrees. You might find that this becomes time that you look forward to with your little one, as you fill feed-times with cuddles, eye-contact, back and forth interaction, smiles and laughter.

Here are things to know.

Substituting breastfeeds with bottle feeds can accidentally make life (and sleep) harder than it needs to be for breastfeeding women and their families - even though on the surface of it, you might have thought it would help make things easier. You can find out more here and here.

• You can find out about paced bottle-feeding here and here.

• Feeding to sleep is biologically normal and helps make sleep easy. You can find out about this here.

• You don't need to burp or offer 'rest and digest' time or hold your bottle fed baby upright after feeds, despite what you might have heard. You can find out about this here

• If you're baby is waking excessively at night, it's typically due to disruptions of his body clock settings, not due to feeds or hunger. You can find out more here.

Sharing bottle feeds, or taking over bottle feeds can be a wonderful contribution to your family's wellbeing when breastfeeding hasn't worked or your baby is bottle feeding for any reason. How wonderful that you're so hands on and committed to being of support, and to growing your relationship with your precious little baby!

Only you and your partner know what's right in your own unique family circumstance.

Selected research

Antonious E, Stamoulou P, Tzanoulinou M-D. Perinatal mental health, the role and the effect of the partner: a systematic review. Healthcare. 2021;9:1572.

Antoniou E, Tzanoulinou M-D, Stmoulou P. The important role of partner support in women's mental disorders during the perinatal period. A literature review. Meaedica a Journal of Clinical Medicine. 2022;17(1):194-200.