I have a baby who goes to nursery 4 days a week. This week, I returned to work and as agreed DH will look after her one day a week until the end of this year or until an extra day becomes available.
for context: when I was on maternity leave I did all the nights and obviously the days. We normally split bedtimes, but of course there were weeks where my DH had work commitments or travel. I was quite frustrated as he would only do the odd night as I was on maternity leave. And we often had major arguments because I was exhausted (I also was doing the majority of the household chores with the expection of home repairs such as building ikea furniture). His attitude to my requests for help or the fact I don’t want to host a social gathering because I want a nap always on the back of 5+ sleepless nights in a row was horrible and he has seldom expressed empathy- normally remarking “oh you are always tired”. or I will be taking on more responsibility when you are back at work.
Fast forward to now, my first week back at work. We sat down an split up nighttime, bedtime, pick up and drop off at daycare and it looks fairly equal. However, I did warn him with our child still waking multiple times at night he will find it difficult doing two nighttime’s in a row alas, he persisted to say this is how he wanted to split it. So I didn’t fight him on it. Today he is on his second nighttime duty and tomorrow he will have his day off work looking after our daughter, he asked me to get up early before I go to work so I can look after our daughter and he can get a few hours sleep- I am refusing because when I was in the same situation he would refuse and fight me on it. Also a relevant note- he has never woken up early to do mornings so I would go full weeks were I had every night and day with no break until he got home from work and could hold the baby.
AIBU? Should instant my ground a refuse to give him one or two hours rest bite between night and day?
I have been there so I know how exhausting it is but he never showed me any empathy or understanding when I needed a break, words haven’t work so far so i figure maybe he will finally how it feels.