AIBU to expect some housework done during my partner's mat leave?

If it all only takes 5 minutes what is the problem with doing it when OP is home and spending time with his child?

Same

takes 5mins to put a wash on or unpack dishwasher or even Hoover - might even send baby to sleep as white noise

if she isnt doing anything at all then yes she should be able to

tho judging from most of these replies many did nothing

i also seem to be the rare breed who always managed a shower a day - yes sometimes mini blondes was in a bouncy chair watching - other times asleep in Moses basket

how old is baby ?

Are you getting up with baby during the night 50% of the time? Do you both get a full, uninterrupted lunch break during the day? Do you both get an equal amount of leisure time? I suspect the answer to all these answers is no. You have the luxury of being able to go to the loo when you need to, eat when you need to, sleep soundly through the night, and I will hazard a guess that you still manage to squeeze in some form of leisure activity, whilst your partner is at the beck and call of a mini dictator 24/7?! Suck it up, buttercup! If it's too much for you, ask your boss if you can go part time & do 50/50 so that your partner can also maintain a career. Share everything equally.
Before you do, though, I would suggest a trial run for a week. Book a week off work & take over all the tasks your partner is currently doing. I'm sure you'll discover why she doesn't have time to be the perfect Stepford Wife you want.

If she did the bulk before despite also working and being pregnant then that was unequal and it's about time he did his share. Why would you expect that to continue? Then I'm sure you/the OP would expect it to continue also once she goes back to work also.

I feel like there’s probably a lot more context needed before anyone can fairly judge your situation.

Maternity leave is definitely not a year-long holiday. You’re “on” all the time, often without much of a proper break, especially depending on how well the baby sleeps. Even with an “easy” baby, every week brings new challenges, changing routines and different phases.

For example, my 10-month-old is currently a very messy eater, and I genuinely feel like Cinderella cleaning the kitchen, highchair and floor countless times a day. Some days it honestly feels easier to just go out for lunch to avoid yet another clean-up. Of course I could minimise the mess by spoon-feeding, but I prefer baby-led weaning because my baby enjoys it and it’s great for her development.

Ultimately, when someone is on maternity leave, the baby becomes the priority. You can’t always expect them to manage all of the housework as well, especially when babies are unpredictable and demanding. And when you finally do get a spare moment, sometimes you’d rather spend quality time with your baby than catch up on chores.

Housework really needs to be approached as teamwork, regardless of whether you have a baby or not. If one partner isn’t naturally tidy, chores will probably slip unless there’s shared effort, communication and realistic expectations on both sides. It helps to regularly check in with each other and divide tasks between evenings and weekends so things stay manageable.

For example, while I’m on maternity leave, I usually cook dinner. When my husband gets home, he does bath time while I give our baby her final feed and settle her for bed — although I know that’s much easier for us than it is for some parents. My sister, for example, has three children and has to stay with them until they fall asleep. Once our baby is in bed, I’ll finish making our dinner if it’s different from the baby’s meal, and then we’ll tidy up together — kitchen, washing, dishwasher, hoovering, etc.

For the deeper cleaning jobs, we split tasks at the weekend. I’ll usually do the bathrooms while he hoovers and mops.

That’s just an example of what works for us as a team, but it definitely isn’t always smooth sailing. Sometimes cleaning ends up at the bottom of the list, especially during busy periods or when the baby is unwell. If it’s financially possible, getting a cleaner weekly or fortnightly can make a huge difference and take pressure off both partners — something I personally dream of!

YNBU.

how were jobs split before? If she did the bulk before then I’d have thought that continue if you did the bulk before then I’d think that would continue. Raising a baby isn’t an excuse to be a slob, babies don’t make mess your DP needs to clean up after herself. If baby is clingy suggest she wear baby so she can get some bits done in the day, obviously she’s not going to be cleaning the bathroom out wearing a baby with the chemicals etc but she can wash baby bottles out, run the Hoover over the floor, wash her coffee cup etc.

id guess this is a 1st baby if she can’t handle normal life tasks after this one then don’t have a second as clearly she will need to abandon one child as all she can do is look after 1!

of course you could come home and take over on baby duties if DP enjoys cooking she may enjoy that time without baby doing something she loves.

in all honesty she sound like she may have post natal depression. Is she able to take care of all her needs while home alone? Or has she stopped doing her hair like she used to, doesn’t shower as often as before?

speak to your DP and come up with solutions she’s maybe just feeling out of her depth just now and needs more time to adjust, be there and work through it otherwise you won’t survive and you’ll be back on here asking for advise on how you can see your child at the weekend and why you need to pay maintenance when it’s to keep her in her lifestyle!

She’s told you she can’t do it. Why would you doubt that? She’s reached her capacity.

Some people find looking after a baby more manageable than others. Depends on the baby; depends on the parent. Also depends on the support (practical and emotional) they’re receiving from other adults in the picture.

My maternity leave was when we got a cleaner for the first time. Introducing solids to twins pushed me over the edge. Help with the house from my mum had been sufficient for the first 6 months but it just got too much for me. We still have the same lady 14 years later. I owe her my sanity. I know it’s a luxury to be able to have her, but if we were struggling to afford it I would give up so much else in my life before losing her.

I presume whilst you're cooking and cleaning she is still looking after the baby. No? So she has them around the clock and you're work finishes when you clock off? Got it

Large families 2 or 3 kids???

2 or 3 kids is a pretty normal family size. I’d say most kids adore having siblings and the huge benefits/joy/love that having a sibling brings.

Thinking you’re a better Mum because you can’t leave your baby to happily play isn’t healthy in anyway.

In reality, most mums in the real world have to get on with a million different jobs on maternity leave (often not living near family in this day and age).

I’ll take my happy, content, independent kids who didn’t mentally suffer playing with their shape toys or looking through books all alone …a whole room away from me! 😱

The majority of parents do have more than one though and life doesn’t freeze on maternity leave.

As I said from the start, instead of normalising ‘I cant get anything done on the whole of maternity leave’, it sounds like she is struggling (if you can’t do anything at all) and its only the OP who knows what is going on at home.

Nearly everyone in the comments who has said they couldn’t get anything done was struggling in some form.

Only the OP can tell us what his baby is like at home. If baby naps for two hours a day and sleeps well through the night, there shouldn’t be issue.

AIBU to expect some housework done during my partner's mat leave?

What is she not doing that she used to do before your baby arrived? Is she ok in herself - back to ?normal and not struggling with sleep deprivation or overwhelm? Is she less tolerant, tearful or overly worried about how she's coping?

Do you recognise that the arrival of a baby can throw a normal/expected routine into chaos?

Having a baby rarely makes life easier for both parents, but given time to adjust and offering lots of support to each other is what it's all about. It's a big life change and when daddy goes back to work things are going to look entirely different at home, especially when your partner isn't going out to work too, but there's a baby to look after 24/7 now - neither of you have likely done 24 hour shifts back to back so you need to figure out a way to make it work where you both get enough rest. There's no law about housework, it'll get done when it gets done. Be nice to each other & make sure you're hands-on with your baby, he/she needs you both above everything else.

I agree pay for a cleaner.

I am on mat leave at the minute and I don’t have the time to clean. Between my baby sensory classes and contact napping, breastfeeding the day is gone.

Do you realise, OP, that by adding a baby to your household you added both a round-the-clock commitment to supervise it but also a huge set of additional small multi-step tasks associated with going anywhere or doing anything, a set of tasks connected to managing all the equipment and clothing required, and a third set of tasks around reading up on and delivering activities and a healthy daily life for it?
But at the same time, all the previous tasks you had as adults living in a house are still there.

Weirdly, it is not uncommon for men to think the equation is "I used to work for money and do some housework, and so did she - but now she isn't doing the working so she has spare time and should do all my housework to make up for it, if she isn't doing full-time housework hours then I'm working more than her and being taken for a mug" and somehow totally disregard the actual baby and baby-admin, actually trying to reduce their own load of expected-hours-of-action at a time when in fact they have jointly committed as a couple to take on an additional large time-and-effort burden?

Don't do that.

Yes - she also works full time and then some (especially with nights). Pay for a cleaner?

Crikey! Those are quite large and must have been tricky. I definitely was fortunate how feeding on the go worked. It totally took the work out of it for me. During the day anyway.

I didn't even want to breastfeed, but baby wouldn't take a bottle from birth but took to boob (I expressed but in the hope she'd eventually take a bottle. She didn't). So I was determined that if I was breastfeeding, and it all had to be on me, that I wasn't going to feel trapped. We made it work.

You know what, we need to petition that they change the name, it's not maternity LEAVE, it's maternity WORK, 24 HOURS A DAY.

Ask her how she is and how you can help. There, you're welcome. Now do it.

there's no reason you have to sit down still when expressing. Same for breastfeeding if you use a sling. That way whether a feed takes ten minutes or an hour it doesn't matter, because you can just get on with life in the meantime.

I had KK cup boobs when feeding. I had to strip to the waist every 3 hours to express (no in-bra pumps then). Adding the weight of DD to my chest via a sling would have seen my spine in agony, and she would most likely have suffocated. This is partly the reason I couldn’t breastfeed conventionally - even the hospital midwives were flummoxed.

I was so envious of mums that could just pop out a boob and latch their child on. For me it was a full time job of its own.

He worked away every week from Sunday night to Friday night for 18 months.

At weekends he did housework while DD slept (because he didn’t have the exhaustion from the week) and entertained her so I could batch cook for the week. He’d change the bedding and clean the bathrooms. I still had to wake up every 3 hours to express, but he did any wake ups I wasn’t already awake for. He hated being away and understood how utterly exhausting I found motherhood, so his weekends were spent making the week easier for me and spending time with DD.

I did a wash for me and a wash for DD most weeks. But we both had enough clothes (babygros in her case) to not need to do that, which was a godsend when I had mastitis so regularly. Dishes went in the dishwasher and as only me there it took me 3-4 days to build a load. I definitely did no more that 15 mins of household tasks in the average day. And DH didn’t expect me to.

She’s an only child partly because I wasn’t going to go through that again.

Fair enough we're all different. I'm not suggesting that anyone should be doing chores at the same time, more than someone could do chores at the same time because there's no reason you have to sit down still when expressing. Same for breastfeeding if you use a sling. That way whether a feed takes ten minutes or an hour it doesn't matter, because you can just get on with life in the meantime.

Baby is happy as it gets fed, you still catch the bus/go shopping/start dinner/do what you want and need to.

It's more that a lot of women it seem to think babies trap them on the sofa, but it doesn't have to. Sometimes it's nice being trapped on the sofa, but even better is the option to make a sandwich, or get a drink. And maybe if that dishwasher really needs putting on for whatever reason, or it's bugging you, it might be better to do it whilst expressing if baby is awake and in a bouncer, so you nap when baby does.

My dh was a fully functioning adult when I met him, lived alone, cooked, cleaned and did his own laundry. When we had our first dc, he was still able to do those things. He didn’t expect his life to suddenly get easier when we had a baby. He didn’t think that he had acquired a domestic slave when I was recovering from giving birth and waking every two hours to feed a baby.

He did everything he could to support me and the baby, and never assumed if the house was a mess that it was because I was lazy or taking advantage. We’ve always had each others backs.

When we had a second dc, he made sure the oldest had lots of attention from him. The house took a hit in the first few weeks because we were both more focused on the dc.

If there was work to be done when he came home, he got stuck in. If he wanted to sit in front of the tv when the dc went to sleep, he encouraged me to cuddle up and do the same. I bloody love the bones of that man.

At the point that it's being suggested that a new mum expressing milk every three hours on top of feeds should be doing housework while expressing, we're entering cloud cuckoo land territory.

I had to express with my first, as we had trouble establishing feeding. I sat on the sofa with my head propped up with pillows as I'd often fall asleep.

I was so tired during this time that I was practically hallucinating. I'd often wake in a panic that I'd accidently suffocated the baby.

@Cljw i don’t think you are being unreasonable to expect OH to do some housework throughout the day, i have 5 kids and manage to get all the housework done and cook dinner etc am i tired at the end of the day?-yes but i also like to relax in the evening in a clean tidy living room and not wake up to a sink full of last nights dinner dishes 🤷🏻‍♀️.
slam me all you want its not that hard to squeeze in some housework.

Absolutely unrealistic. A first time mum learning how to do everything for a young baby and you want a clean house! Get a fuckin* grip. How many feeds do you do in the night? You sound like a right tosser, grow up twat!!

Maybe they can’t manage to do a few bits during the day. It’s maternity leave, first and foremost they are on leave to look after the baby and care for themselves. They are not on maternity leave to be your housewife.

I assume they are the one who does the majority of feeding? most if not all of the night wakes? manages appointments for the baby? takes the baby to classes? makes sure they have enough clothes and nappies etc?

There are 168 hours a week. If you work 48 hours a week, commute 2 hours a day and sleep 8 hours a night there are still 54 hours a week left for you to do the house work. All the while I very much suspect your partner is essentially on call for this baby 24/7 and gets significantly less sleep than you do.