My husband refuses to see that him going to work is a "break".

Solidarity. I still remember how my eldest until he was 1 slept no more than 45 mins at a time and took 2 hours to get back to sleep each time. (He has a diagnosis of sleep initiation disorder caused by epilepsy now so I'm not exaggerating and it wasn't my terrible parenting) The fact I'm still alive is a constant source of astonishment 😂 I bloody love sleep too.

But your conference experiences are not universal. I told you about mine and you were very sceptical but they were definitely not particularly taxing if you weren't delivering any of the sessions. We don't know how tiring and pressured OP's DH's conference was but we do know that he has never ever helped with a single night waking since his child was born, so I don't have much sympathy for him.

Your husband is being completely unreasonable and I would tell him directly what you need. Working, including conferences, is no way as hard as looking after a baby. He's also being a dick about night feeds. So he expects you to be on duty looking after a baby literally 24 hours per day?

I have a baby too and my husband does every night feed until 3am, and then I take over. And then he goes to work in a demanding job the next day. I see it like he and I both work during work hours (him at work, me looking after the baby), and we split evening / night / weekend childcare equally. I'm not saying that to rub it in; we had many conversations (negotiations!) to get to that point

This ++++++++++++++++

Work is adult structured time for the most part and you can go to the loo when needed with no interruption ( not always easy when you have a baby /young children).
Caring for a baby is full on and exhausting.
I've done both and attended work conferences. In comparison, work is a 'break' from the overwhelming hard work of caring for babies and young children.
I feel for you OP and I would feel resentful in your situation.
Going out for meals, attending conferences with colleagues and being fully engaged is no comparison.
Please take care

My husband works full time and if he had to go away for a conference he'd be ON constantly and he's also shit his pants withe excitement at sleeping in a hotel room away from our non sleeping kids. And rightly so. I would too. I would say if your parenting isn't as relentless as a work conference I'm not convinced you're parenting as much as you think you are.

Op Dp is a consultant and worked night shifts. He still pulled his weight with childcare and spent pretty much all his free time with the baby so I could catch up on sleep. Your husband doesn’t want to parent it’s as simple as that.

Business travel ‘can’ be tiring but compared to be at home with a baby it’s a breeze

Yes it’s of course a break, night without broken sleep, evening out, no one else to worry about except himself - if he can’t see this he is extremely selfish

They are. So is business travel which is why both need a break.

When did she go back to work each time? Does she do fewer hours and would she consider herself the primary parent?

no. we both work full time. i went back to work after 16 weeks with my oldest (different country with short maternity leave), and 6 months with the youngest.
no grandparents help either, no nanny, no cleaner etc in case you were wondering.
I have career, my partner has a career. we both work hard, and look after our children (who are both neurodivergent )

Oh please Dh has done 9 hour flights to work intensively from early morning, do the dinner socialising bits, then go back to his hotel room to work till the wee hours and then get back on a long haul flight and he will still say not having to be responsible for another human being is a relief. Babies and children are exhausting in a very specific way.

I'd already been a single mum before meeting my husband, so I made it clear before my second child was born that I wasn't going to carry any passengers and that there had to be equal division of parenting responsibilities.

We each got one undisturbed night's rest at the weekend, and I got up during the week nights whilst on maternity leave.

Fortunately mine all slept through from about 2 months, but none of them ever so much as blinked during the day, so I did find it very wearing not being able to shower/eat/exercise etc.

I decided early on to pay for childcare one morning a week even during my maternity leave, for the sake of my physical and mental health.

It was worth it's weight in gold, enhanced my quality of life and by extension that of my family - after all you can't pour from an empty cup!

There is this culture now that women should just do everything 24/7 and I don't know where it comes from because our grandmothers and great grandmothers might not have had any option but to breastfeed, but they still had a village around them to help carry the load, something we have lost.

Generations ago, aunties and nanas were often still lactating themselves and in poor families babies were passed around for a feed, whilst the better off ladies hired a "wet nurse".

Going on a conference is not a break - you hardly spend any time in the room as you get roped into dinner & so on. If you had a baby, toddler & another needing to be dropped at school I’d sympathise but one baby (in my experience) is pretty easy compared to working. I teach secondary but have worked in industry. I found being home with a baby really nice & you can do your own thing.

He’s so selfish, Dh used to take over as soon as he got back and give me some time by myself because he knew already how tiring looking after a baby is (because he had bothered to actually look after the baby before). Even now DC is 6 he’ll still happily admit that being away for work is easy and he’s basically chilling. Yes he’s mentally stretched etc but he’s competent so doesn’t find his work stressful as such and he gets to have dinner a shower and sleep without disturbance.

Literally everyone in my family who travels abroad for work will cheerfully admit it’s a bit of a break from the kids and they appreciate being in a hotel room by themselves for a couple of nights.

He really needs more solo time with the baby for him to learn.

You were lucky, surely you see that? My son at 5 months was still waking every 2 hours and only napped for 42 minutes exactly at a time. I had a mental breakdown and had frequent hallucinations from the sheer sleep deprivation.

I also threw my back out from all the contact naps and one day the baby didn't nap at all because of it. He would only contact nap on my chest so when I couldn't hold him, he just didn't sleep. Not in the pram or car, anywhere. Imagine a screaming 4 month old who hasn't slept in EIGHT HOURS because mum couldn't hold him.

Your experience of a magical maternity leave is not universal.

Do you have a female partner who is a sahp.

Me too. I work full time in a healthcare role that doesn't end with a 9-5. Conferences go on all day, more to do before and after. I'm in a profession so constant CPD and further education courses that I have going on in the background a week working is easier in every way than a week solo parenting.

At no point on mat leave was I sat on a sofa with nothing else to do or think about. Do you have household staff? Someone who cooked, cleaned and shopped in between breastfeeding, nappy changing and dealing with reflux etc? Did you not bother with baby groups? Trips to the library? Also mine was walking unaided at 9 months and needed constant supervised exercise. I don't think I sat down more than an hour a day at any point and neither of mine slept at night. Are you sure you've had a baby?

i’m not a dad. You on the other hand are sexist.
conferences for me means work starts at 5 am and ends at midnight. With 15 min for breakfast and about the same for lunch. my normal day job doesn’t go away just because i’m away. its work, not a holiday.
Read my post above for more details.

When I was on mat leave I did all the night feeds but DH would always do the first one in the morning (5am ish) and leave me to sleep until he had to go to work or on weekends he let me sleep as long as I could! He enjoyed that time alone with the baby and I never had any problems leaving baby with him to go somewhere.

the issue here isn’t the work vs baby it’s the sense that The DH doesn’t seem to consider himself a parent!

A work trip isn't a break. I've also found being home with just one baby a dream. You're on maternity leave with one child so you can rest, enjoy long walks, spend time with your baby, see friends, snooze while they nap etc.

If you have a drip feed that you're looking after a toddler / other children that makes a big difference:

So you're a dad. Ok.

I go to overnight conferences where there is a 30 minute lunch factored in, takes finish at 7, you've an hour until a dinner with further talks 8-10 then a further social event. I work in a profession.

Parenting absolutely js 18/19 hours of relentlessness in my house with an autistic/ADHD 7 yr old who doesn't sleep and a 4 yr old who rises early. That's even before you take into account cooking. Cleaning, keeping track for hospital appointments, school meetings. I'm not convinced you ARE that involved a parent.

Do you often solo parent for a week?

His work conference is absolutely not a break, but he should also realise that after solo parenting for a few days, you will be desperately in need of a break yourself.

You both sound unreasonable tbh.

On the one hand, you've got one non mobile baby and are on maternity leave. Mine were no unicorn babies, but the first 6 months of their lives were the most relaxing period of my life! It was absolutely a break from my very stressful job.

My second then woke every hour from 6-18 months (and I was breastfeeding with a bottle refuser so it all fell on me), whilst also juggling an older child and work. That was HARD. But one baby that can't go anywhere, and nothing else to juggle - I'd take that!

But he's totally unreasonable for not sharing the nights. If baby is bottle fed, he should be sharing every night, not once a week. He needs to actually grow up and parent.