To think that spending time with DD is more important than housework?

[prettyinpink90]

I'm currently on maternity leave with DD who is 15 weeks old.
Last night me and DP got into an argument after he commented that I had been saying I would sort through one of the bedrooms (currently being decorated) for over a week now and I couldn't expect things to get done when I was out 'enjoying' myself all of the time.

I do try and get out at least 3-4 days a week to do activities with DD such as swimming, baby massage, etc and feel this is important before my return to work in January. Housework is done around this as well as in the evening and at the weekend. DP comes home daily to his dinner on the table, work clothes led out and packed lunch made for the next day. He is never asked to do any of the housework and I am happy to do this myself.

AIBU to think that spending time with DD is more important than doing the housework during the day? I feel as if DP resents that I am on maternity leave and do not have to go out to work.

Firstly op you should be proud of yourself for taking lo to so many things. It will be great for her development and for your bond.

I think you should also feel proud that your managing to do all the normal house work and look after dp with such a young baby (my ds was a nightmare at that age)

I think your dp is being unreasonable in that you are doing a lot and time with DD will alway be more important (you cant get that time back). However if your saying you'll do it and not i can kind of see where hes coming from - id tell him youll try to do it or preferably you'll do it at the weekend whilst he looks after lo.

OP I was coming on to say that it is possible to do housework and look after a baby, but I see you are doing that! You have all essentials covered. The task you have not completed is a large, extra task and I think that it is fine to put that off until you are ready to do it. Going out and about is a good thing and was necessary for my mental health tbh.

I do think those poems are awful though. I mean, mostly it IS possible to do the basics of cooking and cleaning a house AND spend quality time with your children. I know people who grew up in houses where no one ever did any cleaning and rather than holding fond memories of their parents they remember being embarrassed to bring people home to their houses due to the mess.

I often avoid housework if I can, and DD is 3.

We go to free activities, and get out and about when we can. I'd rather stimulate her mind and keep her active than have her sat around (she doesn't nap) when I'm hoovering etc.

I can't imagine anyone on their deathbed wishing they'd spent more time washing floors.

My dh is a teaching assistant and as such is currently on holiday. I work full time shifts. At the moment I am out at work five days a week and those days he is in charge of the house and the dd. When I get in from.work all I want to know is have they had a nice day together.

The hoovering can be done whenever. The laundry can be done whenever. My child is growing up now amd the time will never be repeated. I encourage him to go and do as much with dd as takes his fancy.

If there happens to be a tidier house at the end of the day then marvellous, and if not then he and I will do a bit of housework together when dd goes to bed.

I am getting more lie ins though which is great!

Oh and I certainly wouldnt expect him to have tea on the table, my lunchbox packrd and my uniform laid out for the following day! Im a grown up I can take care of myself.

I have always done these extra bits for him and can't see that changing to be honest. He is always thankful.

Anyway, whilst DD took a long nap this afternoon I managed to get the room pretty much sorted through which pleased DP.

It's called maternity leave for a reason. It was set at 6 months because it is generally understood that caring for babies under six months old requires full time, one-on-one care, especially if you are breast feeding exclusively for those 6 months as recommended. It's not a holiday!

Your husband sounds selfish and entitled. Getting his dinner on the table, work clothes prepared, lunch packed? Ridiculous. Tell him to put the needs of his child first instead of his own for once. He is an adult and can take care of himself just as he would if he were single or when you both worked and had no DC. If you want to tackle home improvements, that's fine but you're not his personal servant so ditch the meal and clothes prep if you do.

Cross post: oh well if you've 'pleased' your DH, pretty then that's all that matters. As long as the master of the house is appeased then all is well!!

wonders where OP left her self-esteem

Your husband is lucky in comparison with some - mine for e.g.! I found DS1 took up most of my day, he would nap for no more than half an hour, maybe twice a day, which doesn't give a lot of time to get stuck into anything. He didn't like to be put down and he had an inguinal hernia, which meant I couldn't leave him screaming in case he strangulated it (until it was repaired at 7wo of course) but by then he was used to being picked up whenever he screamed. He was also a breath-holder (not deliberate, just couldn't catch his breath, DS2 is the same, so was DH apparently) so leaving him to scream until he couldn't breathe wasn't really ideal.

DH did most of the cooking in the early days because I just couldn't hang it all together. He did none of the night work because I co-slept with DS1, and he was exclusively breastfed, so DH didn't see that there was any point in him being woken up, especially as he was doing quite a hard job (physically hard, I mean). I agreed but him doing the cooking and kitchen clean-up afterwards was the trade-off. And we had a dishwasher to do the washing up.
Housework went by the by most of the time; he tried complaining about it once but never again!

No where in the OP does the op say that her DP expects his packed lunch, dinner and work clothes out.

This was a single argument over a spare bedroom which how I read it, is the op wants this bedroom done and asking her DP to finish decorating it but first the room need sorting

had been saying I would sort through one of the bedrooms (currently being decorated) for over a week now and I couldn't expect things to get done

"Cooking and cleaning can wait 'til tomorrow
For babies grow up, we have learned to our sorrow.
So quiet down cobwebs, dust go to sleep.
I'm rocking my baby and babies don't keep".

The OP also says " I feel as if DP resents that I am on maternity leave and do not have to go out to work.", Ican. This goes beyond the one argument over one room if she feels that way.

Resent is quite a strong work but I ran fully understand husband or partners feeling jealous or sad that they have to go out to work while a parent stays at home with a baby, it is a uniquely special experience which many men and women just cannot have. It have always felts insanely jealous of SAHP.

I totally understand the OP's DH being jealous. He has to commute to work and to work all day, while she has all that time in her no doubt pleasant home with the baby she loves. I appreciate that babies have to be fed and changed, but it's not that big a deal.
I managed to run a business, look after a house, and look after a baby of that age plus a toddler who was at nursery part time, all without any help. It was perfectly do-able. So I'm not very sympathetic to the OP not managing to look after one baby and do a bit of housework plus tidy out one room. Being on maternity leave is a bit like being unemployed or on a long holiday - women get used to not doing very much, and doing stuff then seems more and more difficult.

Tortoise, that is such abject nonsense I barely know where to start. Maternity leave is in place because women need time to recover from what can be traumatic and physically difficult births. Then they need time to bond with their babies and get feeding initiated. Some babies are not easy and have things like colic, tongue tie etc which may cause problems and result in very little sleep for mothers. This can go on for a long time. Then there is post natal depression in some cases. So whilst some women.may find it a breeze and just be lazy cows with a telly habit, most women.are not. Just because you found it easy don't tar everyone who didn't with the lazy brush. Clearly the OP is coping very well anyway even if she has yet to set up her business. No doubt she has that pencilled in for next week.

3 naps a day at 15 weeks?? Come off it. If his dinner is made, clothes clean, baby well cared for and happy then what has he really got to complain about?

YANBU. Enjoy this time with your baby as they grow so quickly. My little girl is 1 in just over a week and I look back with such regret that instead of taking her to meet other babies and go swimming and to baby massage etc, I was stuck at home looking after STBXH's very badly behaved 4YO DD.

Enjoy her while she's small and while you're off work.

Leave the dishes to wash and floor to sweep, hold your baby as babies don't keep

Frozen - rubbish. The OP has not suggested that her baby is difficult for any reason, so we can assume that he/she is not.
The recovering your health part of maternity leave is 2 weeks - that is the compulsory element of maternity leave that a woman is considered to need to recover her health before returning to work. The very very long maternity leave that most women currently enjoy in the UK is a very new phenomenon, and is certainly not needed for health reasons. In the US women don't enjoy this privilege. It is a luxury, not a necessity.
Women make much too much of a big deal about looking after 1 baby, no doubt so that their DHs don't get too jealous. There is plenty of time to do work (or fun) around looking after the baby.

Is it me? (Well said in your last post Tortoiseturtle)

I'm glad we now have the maternity leave that wasn't around when I had my children.
However, is it making us just a teeny tiny bit precious?
Babies can be put down while you get on with something else, babies do not need entertaining every waking moment; it does them good to learn to sometimes play and explore on their own.
And not taking them to every activity going or the park three times a day will not result in a lesser bond. I'm sure mothers in the US and other countries that have very short maternity leaves (or don't pay you to be off) still manage to bond with their babies just fine.

Do what you want in your own homes, but please don't make it seem wrong or unnatural to not spend 24/7 doing things with your DC.

According to Wikipedia, maternity leave in the USA is currently 12 weeks, unpaid.
Do none of those women manage to recover their health or to bond with their babies?

Just because the US have inadequate maternity leave provisions proves nothing about the reasons why we have longer in the UK or what the purpose of that period is. The 2 weeks you cite as recovery time for us in the UK would not have been nearly enough time simply for my physical recovery from birth, never mind anything else, and that is true of many many women. On the other hand some women are physically recovered within hours of a birth (or at least a couple of days).

Maternity leave is intended to be to spend time with and look after and potentially wean your baby. It is not called Housework leave, nor is it called Set up a business from home leave.

And no one is saying that you shouldn't do those things if you personally have time/energy and enthusiasm for them. But someone who wants to focus on their baby is not "precious" for choosing to do so.

And none of what I say above is aimed at or intended to be about the OP by the way.

Neither am I making any comment as to the bond between US mothers and their babies. There are lots of ways to make a bond and I am not saying that by going back to work 12 weeks' after the birth (or even 2 weeks' after the birth, you are necessarily going to bond less well with your baby.

Just don't criticise how other people choose to spend their maternity leave because you happened to do it one way.

I can certainly say that I ahad a poor bond with my eldest son and he has had difficulties all of his life and will continue to do so, I took a few weeks maternity leave.

It is up to the OP and her DH to reach agreement on who does what housework.
Personally I'm with the DH in thinking that the OP has time to do some, in fact quite a lot, during the probably 10 hours a day that he is at or commuting to work. On top of feeding one baby that is at the easy (not newborn but not yet crawling) stage, changing its nappy a couple of times, and playing with it.
A baby that age is quite happy to spend nearly all its time at home, and a lot of stimulation may well be detrimental. All the trips out are for the mum to have fun, chat with friends, etc. That's fine, but she shouldn't pretend that it's all about the baby. And it's understandable that the DH is jealous. Maternity leave is a lovely time that the father doesn't have the chance to enjoy. At least not yet. The father definitely gets the raw deal, unless he is madly in love with his workplace. Tidying out one room doesn't seem too much to ask in the circumstances.
NB the OP has not EARNED her maternity leave, as someone wrote. It is funded by the taxpayer, including those who don't have children themselves.

Yeah, men really get the raw deal because pregnancy, birth and the aftermath are just fun, fun, fun.

Dh used to say that if he came home and neither ds or I were in tears then it was a good day