DH going away, 9 month old baby

No one here can do what you want, which is get your dh to realise that his trip is a bad idea, and choose to cancel it without you asking him to.

You either have you ask him yourself, or work out ways of making that week easier. That could mean getting him to cook extra when he's making dinner in the lead up and freezing portions so you have dinners sorted. Or getting deliveroo most nights when he's away. Don't worry about cleaning, or get a cleaner. Outsource the laundry or leave it for him to do upon his return. Or taking the week off yourself and chill out at home or go visit your mum or a friend

Don’t be so dramatic. It’s going to be hard work for a few days. It’s hardly job quitting territory.

Nobody is saying you should reduce your hours, quit your job, reduce breastfeeding so your husband can have a holiday. They are saying it because these are the reasons you have stated that you can’t have the same.

It doesn’t necessarily follow that your baby will get another tooth in this time period, it’s not been mine or my friends’ experience. Babies rarely go by the book!

Nobody is saying it will be a walk in the park, but it’s for such a short amount of time, it seems a bit unfair to make him cancel.

No woman is superwoman, they have help. No one can manage a full time high level career without help, paid help, partner or family.

Nothing wrong with having nannies, but there's no "can do it all".

I don't think he should go - but honestly you need to sort the sleep. He really isn't sleep trained if he's waking that often. All babies teethe but it doesn't need to mean this or constant breast feeding. You poor thing you must be utterly shattered. But it really isn't the norm to be up that much with a 9 month old.

I can't tell if you're deliberately misinterpreting what I'm saying because you seem very bitter towards your husband, or whether you genuinely have misunderstood what I have said.

No you wouldn't be taking a career hit so your husband can have a hobby. Your husband has got 1 trip booked and had it booked for a year.

You'd be reducing your hours so then you also had time to do things out of work and being a mum, or time to plan in advance for meal prepping or caretaking when one of you would like to take a break. You'd be making the pace more sustainable.

Your husband going away is just a small part of the bigger picture but you're not willing to listen to any one who doesn't say wow your husband is so thoughtless of course he should cancel his trip.

If you want him to cancel his trip, talk to him. You're so focused on this trip that you're not open to any suggestions to make life more manageable.

This thread is wild.

So OP should stop feeding, cosleep, sleep train, think about single mothers and now quit her job?! Insane.

I would be feeling exactly the way you feel. Similar happened to me (years and years ago). I didn't consider myself entitled to tell another adult what to do, but I did speak my mind. I told DH that if he chose to go away that weekend, knowing what he knew about DD and me (I was exhausted and just out of hospital for something neither of us understood the gravity of at the time, but which was already bad enough), DD was teething and only in nursery 2 mornings a week (I was a SAHM, we also lived abroad and had only been there under a year by that point), that would tell me everything I needed to know about his priorities and his relationship with me, and that I would draw my own conclusions and act accordingly.

With hindsight - FYI as I have no idea whether it's relevant to your DH - he had zero connection with DD as a baby. He just didn't feel it at all. She was a drain on his physical and mental resources and while he felt duty towards her, he wasn't attached to her in the way I was having been pregnant with her and breastfeeding her. (That's all changed now, tables couldn't be more reversed).

As for me - he didn't go. He heard me, he thought about it, did a pros-cons debate and stayed at home. It was the right decision. Letting your partner down when they're asking for your help to keep their head above water but you'd rather go out and have fun, is a big deal that can't be ignored.

Yes it all seems a bit unfair but you should have objected when he bought the tickets. Make sure it is the last time he goes out to play with his friends. You will cope because you have no choice. I had a 5 year old a 3 year that didn't like sleep and a 3 week old when Husband went away with work. I had just had a traumatic pregnancy and all of the children had just had chicken pox. Great fun getting the children out of the house for the school bus and to playschool.

If the baby was 9 weeks old I would agree with you that he should cancel but at 9 months old you are really being unreasonable! Get ready meals in or cook and freeze meals before your partner leaves. Worst case, take annual leave or you can use parental carers leave I think it is 5 days a year. Drop the baby at nursery and relax so you aren’t tired for the evenings.

Though honestly the fact that your child is at nursery all day makes it so much easier. It is much harder for SAHM who have to manage the kid all day with no respite. It isn’t going to be that difficult and I don’t see how different it would be if he was attending a stag do or a work event. This was obviously important to him and you had a years notice! You could also hire a night nanny absolute worst case, use care.com or childcare.co.uk.

It's more that you have to make a choice, either go for the career - but accept that you will be exhausted and possibly not showing your best self at work

or take a little bit of a step-back, because babies DO impact your life.

Unless you decide to employ take a nanny/ night-nanny.

It's all well and good to speak about equality, but when it's about pregnancy/ child birth/ and breast-feeding, it's obviously 100% on the mother. Dad taking paternity leave, even when it exists, is not always terribly helpful.

You want us to tell it like it is. Yes, it's unfair your husband will be away enjoying himself for a week. At the same time, it doesn't make sense to deny him a planned trip and you will get through this if he goes. You don't want him to go, so if you want him to cancel the trip - tell him. The consensus is you will be unreasonable but you can't win them all!

I don’t think you’re unreasonable to ask him not to go, I don’t know why you should have to suck it up and have a difficult week so he can go and do a non-essential hobby. He’ll have plenty of other years to go to his hobby conference, this year he needs to be at home with his wife and baby. I’m sure if you had to, you would find a way to cope, but you shouldn’t have to just so he can go on a jolly. In your shoes I’d be asking him to cancel the trip, and be really annoyed he hadn’t suggested it himself seeing how much I was struggling.

@ChunkyFTMMum YANBU OP. You wrote "He said he'll cancel if I ask him to ..." so ask him and don't feel bad about doing so because what you're having to manage now isn't what you thought you would be when your DH booked the trip. If you get any push-back ask him to sit down and imagine - I mean, really think about - how he would cope with your baby alone for six evenings, nights and mornings if you disappeared for that period of time. Too often women are made to feel like they should cope just because they're mothers, but that's simply unreasonable when you're also working 50hrs pw. I hope your DH gives the situation the thought it deserves and does the right thing by you and your DC. 🤗

You CAN’t do it all with every baby OP. Just because some women are superwomen / have easy babies , it doesn’t mean that everyone can manage a full time high level career with a baby.

YABU.

Hah yes op how unreasonable of you to have a job that gets in the way of your husbands hobby

Of course he should cancel. It sounds like OP is burnt out and exhausted. Things won’t be fixed in a week.
If this was work or something critical OP might cling on with her fingertips . I remember this stage OP. I crashed my car one morning driving to work.
This should make you take stock - can you reduce your work for a few months, can you work flexibly / part time ?? Can DO do more? Can you get DC more settled somehow??

The solution is not for DP for go away in a jaunt for 6 days leaving OP to sink!

OP has returned full time after 6 months and has been ill twice and is exhausted. DC is aged 9 months and poor sleeper. OP doing most of the night parenting. No family support nearby. He’s had a month away in total for work trips since DC born.

He’s U to take a week for himself for a hobby.

OP, people are being so rude to you and completely missing the point. I think you just need to be honest with him. That you don't want to tell him not to go but you're feeling really hurt he's choosing to go knowing he's leaving you with a mountain of hard work and effort..don't be angry, just say it calmly and neutrally and see what he responds.. maybe he thinks it's no different to going away for work in which case you can tell him it really is

Possibly - or not, OP hasn’t said. It certainly seems like the best way forward if she can though. 45 hours a week childcare is a lot and can surely be used to take some of the load off! It’s an opportunity to support her partner in resting and recuperating and then he will have the energy to return that favour. It sounds like it’s a hard time for both of them right now!

Sounds like you need to look at reducing your hours if you're doing 50 hours a week, not preventing your husband from going to a long anticipated hobby. That isn't going to help you in the long run is it.