Breastfeeding isn’t always easy. For nursing moms, there are plenty of potential roadblocks along the way, including poor latch, supply issues, pumping problems, returning to work, and more. But recently a stay-at-home dad vented about asking his wife not to breastfeed their baby outside his feeding schedule — and social media users issued a direct response.
In mid-February 2025, a Reddit user took to the AITA subreddit to share his dilemma. The new dad is their child’s primary caregiver during the day while the mom works three days of the week in person and two days from home. However, the mother breastfeeding their baby outside his “schedule” is seemingly causing major problems.
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In his AITA thread, the SAHD explained the situation.
The original poster has a 4-month-old breastfed son and he is the primary caretaker during the daytime hours. At night, his wife mostly gets up with the baby to breastfeed. But if their infant son wakes up more than twice, the OP will help and feed him a bottle of breast milk.
The OP said he has the baby’s schedule ‘perfectly calculated.’
“During the day I have our son’s eating and nap schedule perfectly calculated, and this results in him sleeping really well and completely through the night,” he explained. “Counter to what you may think, an over tired baby doesn’t sleep great, so I am very precise on feeding schedules (bottles with breastmilk) and nap times.”
However, his wife does not agree to follow the schedule.
“When my wife work from home she does not agree to follow my schedule saying ‘babies aren’t clocks, it’s fine if I feed him (breastfeed) now’ even when he’s not crying/fussing/or ready for a bottle,” the SAHD shared. “The problem with this is he doesn’t eat as much from her versus a bottle so he gets hungry more frequently and doesn’t have enough before a nap to last longer than 30 minutes.”
Because of this, the baby does not get enough sleep during the day, resulting in “really bad nights, son not down for sleep until 11pm, up at 2am to 3am, up again at 4-5am and then wakes up at 7:45-8:15am.”
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Basically, both parents are tired, and the situation recently came to a head.
“Two days ago she was working from home and she asked me to bring her our son so she could feed him. I asked if we could stick to a bottle and stay on his schedule please. He does better at night when we stick to the schedule,” the OP further detailed.
“This apparently was the dumbest thing I’ve ever suggested… so I explained how he sleeps better at night when we follow the schedule and can eat enough in one sitting from a bottle,” he continued. “I alluded to her not breastfeeding anymore and she lost it, telling me that I won’t tell her how to take care of our son and that she has as much right as a parent to do whatever she wants with our son as I do.”
In the comments, Reddit users agreed: The dad is TA.
One Reddit user commented: “Your wife should breastfeed whenever she has the opportunity to. Otherwise it is very likely that her milk supply will diminish and pumping won’t be as effective … Not to mention improving the bond between mother and child.”
Another person declared: “YTA. I know you feel like you need to control the schedule because you’re a SAHD but mom needs to lead on this. Cluster feeding is really important and no 4 month old has perfect sleep. You need to let her be mom. You don’t know better than her body and baby on this one even if you think you do.”
“Why is no one mentioning 4 month sleep regression. It isn’t the breastfeeding that’s an issue,” someone else commented.
Meanwhile, yet another Reddit user wrote: “You’re overfeeding baby. Babies always take more from the bottle because the flow is faster and easier. Doesn’t mean they need that much. A 4 month old sleeping through the night isn’t an accomplishment. It’s not necessarily bad but that’s quite young to expect it. You spend all day with the baby, she doesn’t. She wants to bond and feel close and that’s how she does it. Let her feed her child ffs.”
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