should I stay?

[hanna007]

I had a baby last year (now 4 months). Baby was a great sleeper until the past week, when he hit the fourth month sleep regression. I would like to know IABU.
I am EBF, on maternity leave, DH is working various shift patterns.

Essentially, I feel that DH is not pulling his weight with DC. He has not once woken up in the night to help, ever - ok until there was only feeding to be done, now DC needs putting back to sleep as he started to wake up every hour or two.
I am exhausted. This morning he came home from work at 2am and went to sleep, leaving me to wake up at 2.30, 3.30, 5, 5.30 and 7am, while he slept in until 9. I got about 3 hrs sleep in total.

He is also not helping with DC during the day - he will take him for a walk every other day for 30min/hour and play with him for 10min a day. We do split house chores equally. He spends most of the days that are free (which is about half of the month, quite often starts work midday or 2pm) either on the internet or doing other unimportant stuff. When he gets back from work, he most likely watches TV until quite late, meaning he is tired in the morning.

As of today, I have been away from DC twice for two hours each and twice for one hour each ( baby wont take bottle). My family lives abroad, his parents are too old to help, cant get babysitter as DC wont take bottle.
He has been away twice for a whole weekend, 3 times for a messy night out (sleeping at friends - my suggestion as first time he went out, he woke up myself and the child), goes to gym at least twice a week and quite often helps out at his parents.

I have always been very independent and it is making me unhappy. I have started to think I would be better off as a single parent as then I would at least have the control of the situation.
I am on fully paid maternity leave and have savings, so money is not huge issue.

Another thing - we have agreed before having DC that I will take 6 month maternity leave and he takes 6 months paternity leave. Nothing agaist SAHM, but I love my job and miss it. This has now changed. DH who previously had no interest in his job ( he actively hates working) has announced he wants to try for two different positions, effectively pushing me out of my plan.

What do you recommend i do?

[QueenStromba]

Have you talked to your DH about how you feel?

[hanna007]

yes. It helps for a day or two and then we are back to square one. I should add that he has suggested that I ask him if i need anything. To me that's just impractical / silly to ask the same thing over and over again.

[eddielizzard]

a few things here:

firstly you agreed a 6 month / 6 month split and now he's going back on that. you need to discuss that a lot more fully.

secondly, you do need to take time for yourself. carve some time for yourself. don't play the martyr.

thirdly, you should each get a lie in each week and whoever gets the lie in does the night wakings. or at least organise something every two weeks. but every now and again you need to get a chunk of sleep if the night wakings are no longer for food.

but i have to say that out of 8 years of bad nights i did 99% because dh just had to get a good night's sleep for work. sad reality of being a sahm in my view.

finally, i think that having a baby puts enormous stress on a relationship. if you can get through this you can get through a hell of a lot. hang in there, work on it. i nearly divorced dh because he had regular 20 minute showers.

[hanna007]

20 min showers?? Who has the time?
Thanks for the advice.

[eddielizzard]

not me, that's for sure!!!

[SmokeyEyes]

Hi, I know how you feel. My DH is amazing and we never had any problems before we had DD (now 10 months). Even though DH thought he was pulling his weight, I was really resentful the first few months, especially as DD was/is a terrible sleeper and he never got up with her. He would sat 'just ask' but I didn't because I knew I'd ask, be wide awake, he wouldn't be able to settle DD and I'd still have to get up then listen to him say how tired he was. Similar situation with the nappys etc. I'd just change her, get her milk ready when needed etc. If he did go to help he'd ask questions constantly as though I should know and he shouldn't.

But just to let you know things have just naturally got better. I still do all the wakings etc but DH does more and more, especially as DD has more of a personality now. I don't think he ever did it purposely, I just don't think they understand. Like a previous post said, having a baby puts a massive strain and before you have them you think it's going to be 50/50 but the reality is, in our situations, we've got the majority of the work.