To ask my dh to mind the baby while I make a bottle during the night?!?!

[Fuzzyduck21]

Ds is 4 months and wakes crying twice a night for a bottle. He's in a cot next to us. Whole bottle making process takes up to 5 mins if I also wee. Aibu to ask dh to try and comfort him while I make the bottle?! He seems to think so as he gets up for work at 5am. I've just taken ds downstairs to lie under a play gym while I make the bottle as dh has been making such a fuss recently but ds gets very upset and I thought it's kinder to ds to at least try and be comforted... Wonder whether your dh does the same?!

I get up at night because I can have as many cups of hot coffee in the day as I like. I can go for a walk by myself for a few minutes whenever I like. I can sleep on the tube. I can have a Facebook break for ten minutes. I can go to the gym in my lunch hour. So if I have four night wakings I suck it up. She's my daughter too

It's really good that you and your partner have worked out something that works for you but you realise not everyone has the same working day as you? I don't get chance to pee never mind drink multiple cups of coffee and Facebook. And a lunch hour is but a dream. People seem to be so against judging mum's who stay at home but feel fit to judge those who work.

And baking I understand. To be honest though if it was only one of us who worked full time we would have the same system; working one gets to sleep, which is what we did after his paternity ended. Unfortunately it's the nature of our jobs but obviously we have had to adapt to this situation as a needs must sort of thing. If I didn't get the sleep I did when he did the night stuff I would have had to quit my job. I wouldn't have trusted myself to do what I have to do.

Christ it is bloody hard this parenting malarkey isn't it. We just do it but when you put it down into words it hits just how hard it is

The whole 'sleep when the baby sleeps' is a complete red herring - because not everyone can. I believe an accomplished bf-er can - maybe - I did with my first, once dh had gone off to work, I took baby into bed with me, bf and slept till 9-10am everyday. It was bliss, and was the reason I could cope with the night feeds. Of course, once you're on your second or third child, - just doesn't happen.

However - the dh not getting up to do night feeds when at work the next day doesn't mean he's absolved of all baby duties. Personally, almost the second he got in from work, mine would be handed the baby. 1. to bond and spend some time with him and 2. because I'd had the baby all day. And frankly, had been counting the seconds to handing him to daddy.

The point here is that you have to be smart - when the two of you are sleep deprived by a waking baby - you don't both get up/wake up to do a night feed. You plan it smarter than that - for both of your sanity.

Greys yes that was a bit of a fuelled rant, haha. It wouldn't work if I was a surgeon for example, I wouldn't have enough down time and the consequences of me being sleep deprived would be potentially too awful.

The guys who piss me off are the ones in the same industry as me (so the same working pattern) who think they deserve a medal for changing the odd nappy at weekends. They are horrified when I tell them they could (and probably should) be doing the night wakings.