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As a mum, sometimes you gotta do what you gotta do. But what about breastfeeding your friend’s baby, on the suggestion of your husband?

When one mum was stuck without milk for her friend’s baby, she asked her husband to retrieve her friend’s breastmilk from her house. But what he asked her to do instead caused all hell to break loose.

The 31-year-old husband and father-of-two says the sticky situation arose after he and his wife agreed to babysit their friend’s three-month-old baby when she returned to work.

“My wife is much better friends with this lady than I am but we have known her for several years, and she is a single mum so we are trying to help her out, thus we don’t charge her for the babysitting,” he explained on reddit. “We only babysit a few days per week because the friend’s work is hybrid, so she only goes in a couple of days per week.

“I work from home and my wife doesn’t work because she wants to be a full time mum to our kids. We have two children of our own, a three-year-old and a five-month-old. Today Sally dropped her kid off a bit on the early side, normally she includes several bags of breast milk for feeding times. Today however she must have forgot about the breast milk, because none was in the bag.

“My wife called Sally to tell her that no milk was in the diaper bag. Sally said she really couldn’t turn around because she would be late and asked if I could go retrieve the milk from the refrigerator at her house. My wife agreed to this without asking me if I could fit this in to my morning schedule. So my wife gets off the phone and goes when her morning activities with the three small children.”

‘She threatened to call the cops’

After a couple of hours, the man’s wife popped into his home office and asked if he would pick up the milk. But, he explained he had a conference call to jump on in a few minutes. Things got a bit tense, and words were said.

“She got upset and some of her motherly instinct kicked in and a few sharp words soon followed. I am a problem solver by nature and I may have said something like, ‘You have two boobs so what is the problem?’ With that she left my office and went back to the kids.

“Once I got off my call I went down to the kitchen and asked my wife if she still needed the breastmilk from Sally’s house. She said no and indicated that it was easier to just breastfeed both of the babies, rather then breastfeed one while trying to bottle feed the other.”

But what happened next caused not only a rift between friends, but raised tensions in the couple’s marriage.

“Fast forward to about 20 minutes ago, Sally showed up to get her kid and my wife told her that we didn’t go to her house after all and she just breastfed Sally’s baby. Sally flipped out completely and accused us of hurting her child, threatened to call the cops and said my wife was a terrible person. I missed most of the fireworks because I was working in my office, but I caught the tail end of the conversation. My wife is now kinda blaming me because I couldn’t leave when the baby needed fed.”

The husband is now wondering whether he’s in the wrong for not going and getting the milk, and instead suggesting his wife breastfeed her friend’s baby.

What do you think? Should he just have gone and retrieved the milk? Is he at fault for suggesting his wife breastfeed the baby? Let us know in the comments below.

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  • It’s very much a catch 22. The mum should have turned around and grabbed the breastmilk. I personally wouldn’t want someone else to feed my baby. It makes a very uncomfortable situation for all. If I was the couple I would apologise and maybe suggest she looks for alternatives for her child’s care.

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  • Ahhh this is a tricky one!
    I do understand they were trying to help, but I also understand the mum and how she reacted

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  • Harsh as it is the mother forgot the milk. The friends are already doing her a favour so she should have turned around. Also , the babysitting mother shouldn’t have said the husband could go get it. And they also shouldn’t have breastfeed the baby without asking the mother. A whole lot of things there that went wrong. However at least the child was fed which I think is the main thing

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  • I think they need to rethink they respond and how they handled that whole situation.

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  • There is probably a few things that could have been done differently with hindsight in this scenario. Mum could have remembered milk, or went back and got it, babysitting Mum could have told her husband after the phone conversation that they needed to go and pick up the breast milk and the babysitting Mum could have called her friend before she decided to breastfeed the child to talk about it first.

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  • It sure was the mum’s responsibility to provide the milk.
    The baby sitting mum shouldn’t have approved that her husband would pick up the milk without his consent.
    The babysitting mum shouldn’t have breastfed the baby without the consent of the mum.
    The mum could have had more compassion in this situation and has her expectation too high for friends who do this for her for free and with good intentions.

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  • The woman who was babysitting does it for free so it was the other Mother’s responsibility to supply the milk. I think it was better to breastfeed the baby than to have it cry and go without a feed until the baby’s mother came back from work. I think she had a nerve to ask them to stop what they were doing to go and get something she forgot. I hope they can sort things out or that Mum will have to start paying someone to look after her baby or give up work altogether

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  • This is a very tricky personally I think they did best they could and no one was harmed so ……

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  • Some 40+ years ago while in hospital after having my first child I had excess milk that in those days was pooled for other newborns that needed breast milk & it wasn’t frowned upon. In today’s world I think it has to be screened more carefully. I still think the single Mum should have been more appreciative of her friend’s offer to feed her child as no breast feeding mother would intentionally have contaminated milk.

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  • Look, breastfeeding someone else’s child is a sensitive area but the friend was definitely in the wrong. She is getting free child care and she screwed up in the first place. She should have just turned around and got the milk instead of putting out her good hearted friends even more. She could have called her work and said she’d be late. The dad is not in the wrong- they both have busy lives. Friend should be thankful for help She receives.

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  • Seriously, this is a definite no no. Instead, the husband should have went and got the breastmilk as his wife suggested.

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  • He should have just gone and got the milk before it became a problem.

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  • The husband had a conference call that he couldn’t get out of, he couldn’t go at that particular time, that’s not his fault for not being able to go. He said an flippant remark as he was in a hurry to get on with his call. The wife is the one who ultimately decided to do it, I’m not sure how I would feel having my child breastfeed by someone else but it’s something that happens in other cultures around the world and has happend for centuries too hence the name “wet nurse”.

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  • She should have run it past the mum first to prevent such a rift. However the mum that forgot the milk isn’t innocent either.
    She should have gone back to get the milk not asked her friend to go get it.
    A lot of missed communication with this rift unfortunately

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  • Doing such a thing is something I would have raised with the mum first, definitely. And to be honest, if someone asked me I would have said yes. If you trust someone to care for your babe I’m pretty sure a couple of breastfeeds shouldn’t be an outrage. I’d feel blessed because I’d forgotten to provide food in the first place so I’d feel incredibly lucky my friend could do that for me and my babe. But just give mum a heads up first.

    Reply

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