Thanks for your comment. Excellent point about weekends as indeed, there isn’t a day off.
It’s often more than 8 in the early stages, it’s 8-12 feeds a day. For my son he was a slow eater (or perhaps I’m a slow producer, or both!), needing 45+ min feeds 9-11 times a day. Going down the middle at 10 feeds a day and conservatively saying all feeds were 45 mins, that was a 52.5 hour “work week” for me in the first 4 months. Realistically, it was probably closer to 60. (This doesn’t factor in cluster feeding, see my other comment in the thread for more info on this).
Thankfully, they start getting more efficient and drinking quicker as they grow, and ofc once they start solid food they have other sources of nutrition. So that would indeed bring the average down to around a 38 hour working week over 2 years with one child.
Thanks for your comment. Excellent point about weekends as indeed, there isn’t a day off.
It’s often more than 8 in the early stages, it’s 8-12 feeds a day. For my son he was a slow eater (or perhaps I’m a slow producer, or both!), needing 45+ min feeds 9-11 times a day. Going down the middle at 10 feeds a day and conservatively saying all feeds were 45 mins, that was a 52.5 hour “work week” for me in the first 4 months. Realistically, it was probably closer to 60. (This doesn’t factor in cluster feeding, see my other comment in the thread for more info on this).
Thankfully, they start getting more efficient and drinking quicker as they grow, and ofc once they start solid food they have other sources of nutrition. So that would indeed bring the average down to around a 38 hour working week over 2 years with one child.
No, thank you! I read your other comment as well, it’s absolutely shocking to me that these realities of motherhood are so infrequently discussed.
Not to mention that women are often expected to simply add these responsibilities on top of everything else
That’s part of the reason I started this community, not just for mothers but to help educate everyone and talk about it frankly. :)