To expect more help from my OH?

[1Catherine1]

I would be really interested to know how other peoples partners help them when they were working and you were on ML? Our first child was born 3 weeks ago, AIBU to expect him to do some cleaning before he goes to work or help me with the baby? What help do you expect if any?

This morning was really infuriating and I am quite mad at him now and need to know if I ABU or not. After a bad night I got up, fed LO and took her into the living room where my OH was sat playing a computer game. I told him I was going for a shower and to get some breakfast and put her in her carrycot. She then decided she wanted feeding again so I sat on the sofa and fed her for another half an hour. I put her down again (she'd fallen asleep) and told him "if and when she starts crying it is because her nappy wants changing" and left the room to get my shower. I took my time in the shower and was probably in there for a good 20 minutes and then came out of the bathroom to hear her crying and see him ironing his shirt. He hadn't changed her and told me that he had to iron his shirt for work and that is why he hadn't done it. IMO changing a nappy takes 2 minutes and would not have made him late for work. It did however mean that I had to go another hour before I got to have my breakfast as she then wanted another feed after she had been changed.

This morning was just one example of where I feel he has failed to help me when I have needed him too. All I wanted was for him to either change her nappy to give me a bit more time to make myself something to eat or for him to make me some breakfast (I had rice crispies and a Philadelphia bagel so it wouldn't have taken him more than 5 minutes). In the last week he has done no housework as (as he points out) he's working 10 hours a day and the only involvement with the LO he has had was one night where he fed her as I sat in tears on the bed as she'd been crying for 3 hours and I was just too tired to cope anymore. Is it unreasonable of me to expect help when he works so long? He seems to have time to play on the computer as where I can't even have breakfast till I've been up for 4 hours. I also enjoy computer games but since the birth of my DD haven't found the time to log on and play at all. It doesn't feel very fair to me.

Catherine YANBU. DH works and I stay at home. I do all the childcare and housework while he is at work and he shares when at home. I BF so he does no night wakings. I get both w/e lies in. He does most of the cleaning, I do all the cooking. I do laundry, he does DIY. We both do too much but try to fill in when the other person is having a hard time.

All the people who say that if you are a SAHM you do all the work at home are WRONG. My job now is much harder than my old job and therefore, I assume, harder than DH's job. Why should he get a break when I don't? Luckily, he is fab and agrees.

I agree with mrsterrypratchet

We're 4 weeks in so, like OP trying to find the balance. I don't think thw women at home should have to do everything, especially taking into consideration that dp gets a full nights sleep.

I do a lot of the housework during the day but dp does a lot of the nappies, cooks half the nights and always does the washing up while I clean the kitchen nad put things away.

He doesn't think its fair to sit and relax while I do everything and this way we can relax together!

Have a word with him, I'm sure he'll understand

Loudlass - just because you stay at home to look after your children doesn't mean you have to buy into some "traditional" (read sexist) set up where women's work is valued at nil.

When that was the way things worked women were housewives, not sahm. Their job was to keep the house, the children were a secondary concern. So if you are not shoving your baby outside in thd garden for hours while you clean the house, then yanbu to think you do 8 hours childcare and everything else, when you're both at home, should be split equally.

I can't believe the shit some people think having a job entitles them to. If your wife gives up work to care for your children you do not lose the ability to do housework. There's more of it now, so just keep doing it as you have since you grew up and left home.

Women without children who do all the cooking and cleaning for their partners and expect them to stop being useless freeloaders when babies show up are idiots. Proper men value their independence and are able and willing to look after themselves. Being expected to be a bloke's new Mum should be an immediate dealbreaker. Only shit men treat their mothers as skivvies.

My Granny was a housewife (a bloody good one too), my mother was a sahm. They are not the same thing, and there is no reason at all why you must accept a lazy partner just because you don't earn a wage if you keep household costs down by looking after children.

I don't understand the bit about not being able to have a bath or a shower. In the early days I put baby in the bouncer in the bathroom and had a shower and by about six weeks put the baby in the cot. Was that wrong? How on earth can anyone not have a shower every day, baby or no baby?

OP - your DP should be helping a bit more when you have a three week old baby. My DH, who is far from domesticated, and who used to leave for work at 7am, used to bring me a cup of tea and a slice of toast before he left having usually brought the baby in at about 6.15 for a feed. He never had to iron a shirt though and I would often have all the jobs done by 10 and be wondering what to do apart from feed the baby all day.

This is the time NOW to nip it in the bud with your DH and make it clear how you'd like to proceed with child care duties. If he's a good bloke he'll understand and fall in line. It's important that he at least covers whilst you have a shower!

I've had two kids and always found the time to do housework, shower/bath, and eat.

How can it be so hard for some and easy for others.

Surely it is about managing your time?

Heartened by the responses on this thread :) Mumsnet has become less excuse-making since I posted a similar thread 2.5 years ago. Even down to the computer game comment - I think my exact wording was "I play computer games too, there's a pause button for a reason". If he can't pause the game and he's not willing to abandon it at a minute's notice he shouldn't be playing it when in sole charge of Dc. If he needed to iron his shirt he should have done that first - you just can't leave things until the last second when you have a baby, because you can't guarantee they won't need you as soon as you start.

Oncemai how wonderful that you found it so easy

OP YANBU. You need to have a proper talk with him about how you feel - you both have a responsibility to this baby and he needs to step up to the plate. Parenting styles aside, (okay it's not going to scar a baby for life if they wait 2 minutes for a nappy change, though I wouldn't want to leave them crying either) it's a bit inconsiderate of him to wriggle out of an unpleasant job assuming you'll do it as you're "on duty" straight after him. If he won't talk (or he won't listen) - you have bigger problems.

On the 20 minutes shower thing if the OP's DP is up, awake and doing something non-essential (like playing a computer game) why shouldn't she have a slightly-more-leisurely shower? 20 minutes can go quickly if you want to undress, shower, wash and condition your hair, try and apply a bit of body lotion and get redressed!

Changing a nappy or making some rice-crispies and a philadelphia bagel takes very little time indeed.

I'm more concerned about "the only involvement with the LO he has had was one night where he fed her as I sat in tears on the bed as she'd been crying for 3 hours and I was just too tired to cope anymore". That needs addressing, not necessarily because your DP is a horrible, unfeeling, sexist whatever but possibly because he's scared and doesn't know how to get involved or what to do and the longer it's left the more scared he'll be, the more normal it will be for you to do everything and the more you'll resent it.

How much housework did he do pre-DD and throughout your pregnancy?

I'm quite shocked at the idea that the OP couldnt dare have a shower that lasted 20 minutes. IME having a shower refreshed me more than the naps I rarely got to have with DD and made me feel happier and more human...maybe the OP needed to feel like this too. It would not have hurt the OPs DP to change his own daughters soiled nappy, nor would it have hurt him to iron his shirt before he needed it, regardless of if this incident occured at 3pm or 8am

I don't think the OP is at all BU. I think a lot of the views of some posters are very outdated. You would probably think I'm spoiled, but my DH worked many hours per day (no fixed hours) of manual labour with lots of driving, but he still understood that WE had chosen to have a child and therefore WE would be responsible for her. Some days when DD was very young he would get home, get changed and take her while I had an hours nap. I still cooked dinner and still did most of the housework and got up in the night so he could sleep, so DH would do what he could when he could. Often he would fetch DD in the morning and bring her to me in bed with a fresh nappy before work so I could get an extra few minutes dozing.

^could dare, not couldnt.

If you found it easy then consider yourself lucky - most people don't seem to. And in the early days/weeks when you're feeling shit about not being able to do as much as you used to, maybe feeling a bit hormonal, possibly even having PND or dealing with an unsupportive or critical partner, it doesn't help to read posts from people saying "Well I found it easy, why can't you?"

And yes actually OP I'm concerned that you say the only time he helped was when she'd been crying for 3 hours and you couldn't cope any more? :( He should have stepped in to help before that, he shouldn't have let you get into that state! What kind of husband can sleep happily knowing his wife is struggling and getting into a state of exhaustion?

OP don't think you are being unreasonable and you do need to have a proper focused conversation with your DP about this , preferably not at a crunch point like 3am or when your LO is screaming. Having said that, as others on here have said, there is no real reason why you couldn't have had breakfast before the 2nd feed - as you say it takes about 30 secs to put a bowl of cereal together. I find it a bit odd when mums of babies more than a few weeks old say they couldn't get dressed before midday - babies that age sleep so much and even if they are awake, lay them on the bed / cot etc while you get dressed, washed etc. It doesn't get easier when they can move about - my toddler now uses my shower time to empty the drawers in the bedroom which we then have to tidy up while I get dressed. Given your DPs shift pattern it does seem U to expect him to do night feeds BUT if he is up by midmorning, you should get a couple of hours "off" then.

Yes I don't understand these "I found it easy why don't you" posts.

I haven't read all the posts, but wanted to sympathise.

I had twins last October, and my husband was fantastic. He is out if the house before 7 in the morning, and home sometime around 8 in the evening, but he appreciated that I was busy with the babies all day, and picked up whatever housework/cooking was needed in the evening. I think he understood that I couldn't do much in the day as juggling the babies through their newborn feeding patterns pretty much meant I didn't leave the bedroom all day, and that I didn't get more than 2 hours sleep at a time unless he did some of the settling between 8pm and 10pm.

In my experience, having a newborn (or two!) takes just about as much work as any couple can take. There is no room for computer games or other non-essential activities as they'll be taking time from things like sleeping/baby care/cleaning/washing/cooking ...

I don't want to defend your DH really, but he is having to adjust to being a parent too. I think that I forgot that with my DH, despite him being so helpful. I think it is easy for us to forget that our DH might be struggling/in denial because where they might show this by carrying on as normal (computer games, ironing etc), we don't have that luxury.

Take comfort from the fact that it does get easier. In a couple of months (it'll fly, I promise, just keep going!) the baby will feed in less than 10 mins, and they'll be able to wait a few minutes, and you'll be able to do things while the baby is distracted by a wooden spoon to play with

OP please dont listen to people who tell you that as a mother with newborn you will not be able to shower or eat. I hate these melodramatic statements. Of course you can. I was doing what onceamai said, baby in the bouncer in the bathroom and me singing in the shower. But in your case your dh is at home all morning so it was perfectly reasonable what you did. And he should have changed the nappy.

I'm not sure what happened with the breakfast. You are both home all morning so one of you can put some bread in the toaster-even whith one hand or with a sling on. He is not 'helping' you and you are not 'helping' him, just 2 capable adults making breakfast and enjoying their baby.

It does get easier, way easier by the time they can move. By that time you'll have been a mother for weeks rather than months and you are way better at it.

Being a new mother is overwhelming for many people, it's an emotional, not just a practical issue. So offering platitudes about how easy newborns are is beside the point. For many women the first few weeks is a blur of just about getting by. That is a much nicer experience if you share it with a decent man who gets involved rather than asserting his superior status as a male by refusing to do his bit.

months rather than weeks

Totally agree with spidookly. Newborns are much easier if you have two people working as a team, not one exhausted mum trying to do it all.

OP if you don't already have a bouncy chair, get one now...then it's no problem taking the baby with you while you shower, make breakfast, etc.

There are two issues that need to be separated here - looking after the baby and looking after the house.

Presumably (I hope!) before the baby came along, you shared the responsbility of looking after the house?

Why would that change just because you have had a baby? You are at home for a reason - you are looking after your baby. Your DH should be just as responsible for housework as he was before. You have not suddenly become a housekeeper!

There is a huge assumption that because you're at home, suddenly housework is added to the role of caring for your child.

Now - in the longer term, if you decide to stay at home rather than go back to work, you may decide to take on the responsibility for housework - but this is not where you are at now, with a 3 week old baby.

You need to talk to your DH about how you're feeling, how tired you are and what his expectations are of your day/what you are doing.

He's probably guilty of these assumptions as well. And to be fair to him, he probably has no idea what it's like looking after a baby all day. How could he?

(To give him something of an idea, next time he has a day off, feed the baby and then go out. Don't warn him you're going out, just tell him you're off as you shut the door behind you, and go out for as long as you think you can between feeds. Even if it's just to the nearest coffee shop for 30 minutes.)

It does depend on the baby as to whether you find it 'easy' or not. I was lucky with my two, and I emphasise the word 'lucky', because that is all it was, nothing to do with me, I was lucky I had easy going chilled babies who didn't spend all day crying, and half the night, like some of my friends babies. That must be very very hard and leave little time for anything else.

i agree about taking a bath or shower. baby in the bouncer or on changing mat in the bathroom and i sang or talked stupidly whilst washing etc. it is possible and i cant believe you have only showered/bathed twice in 10 weeks.
i have even left baby in the cot crying while i had a quick shower. 10 minutes crying isnt going to harm the baby and you will feel better for it

Further, it never ceases to amaze me that women on maternity leave are told they should be skivvying.

If my work pays me my full wage to stay at home to look after my baby then that is what I will use the time for. The idea that employers should pay women to stay off work so their husbands can take a pass on loading the dishwasher and doing the laundry is offensive.

You might as well insist that someone on sick leave, or bereavement leave must do all the housework just because they are at home.

Good post Because

I dont understand why you cant just have a shower? theres loads of way to keep a baby amused whilst you do essential tasks like showering ffs!
Bathe them with you? baby bath seat? bouncer chair at side of bath? pushchair? cot? Really no excuse for not having a shower.

Hate to say it, and I know I will be flamed, but really if you just have a single newborn what are you doing all day? You should really try to relax and enjoy this bit, its only going to get much worse