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AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

Original poster

To do nothing all day

73 replies

Oysterbabe · 01/02/2016 09:46

My baby is just over 4 weeks old and I'm on maternity leave. We've had visitors all weekend, three different sets, and the kitchen is a disaster area with pretty much every plate and pan dirty.

My baby does not sleep at night yet and had a particularly bad night last night, I think I got about 2 hours of broken sleep. Maybe she was unsettled after being passed around all day, I barely got to hold her.

WIBU to not clean the kitchen and spend the day on the sofa cuddling my baby, napping and watching Netflix? I do see the housework as my job while I'm on maternity leave and will feel bad if DH comes home to a tip but I just can't bring myself to move. Plus DD will cry if I try and put her down to clean. If I leave it for today I'd do it tonight once DH gets home and takes over with the baby. He wouldn't say anything but can imagine he'd be a bit Hmm at me doing nothing all day.

OP posts:
AdoraBell · 01/02/2016 11:29

What ridemesideways said.

Get thee to the sofa, but make sure you eat and drink. This may require washing a cup, glass and plate but the rest can be left while you are busy looking after your baby.

Congrats Thanks

Original poster
Oysterbabe · 01/02/2016 11:36

Thanks all. I now feel justified in taking it easy for today. I've found myself quite enjoying some shit gameshows and have scavenged some bread, hummus and a big bottle of lemonade from the kitchen. Baby is showing no desire to move from my chest.

OP posts:
ShowYourSeams · 01/02/2016 11:39

I have done pretty much exactly the same thing OP. My kitchen is a state, the living room is covered in toys, there's a basket of clean laundry that needs sorting and putting away. I'm currently laid in bed with my 4mo twins having cuddles and hoping they will nap soon so I can go back to sleep.
Enjoy. SmileBrewCake

JugglingFromHereToThere · 01/02/2016 11:42

A day catching up with your 4 week old DD - and with sleep after a busy weekend - is not a day doing nothing!

TreadSoftlyOnMyDreams · 01/02/2016 11:48

Sod that. It's difficult enough with a newborn when you start from a clean slate and not from a sh*thole.

What utterly rubbish guests / DH to leave without making any effort to help clean up.

Unless you have a dishwasher then the most I would do is to stack it all neatly and wipe the surfaces. Then blitz it with your DH when he gets in. He can wear the baby in a sling while he dries up Grin

And try and get some sleep.

coffeeisnectar · 01/02/2016 11:48

Who were these visitors? Why are they so selfish to leave you with a mess. I have never been anywhere where I haven't offered help. In your house I would have just done the dishes and left feeling I've helped.

You get on that sofa and stay there.

MargotLovedTom · 01/02/2016 11:51

Do nowt!
One thing though, and I don't want to be the voice of doom and I'm sure you're fully aware of this, but be careful of falling asleep on the chair or sofa holding a tiny baby.

OnlyLovers · 01/02/2016 11:57

Your weekend sounds hectic enough even if you didn't have a newborn as well!

Enjoy your day.

PunkAssMoFo · 01/02/2016 12:03

YABU. You need to make a brew & get some biscuits first. Then assume the position in front of tv. I am currently doing this with my 6 wk old who refuses to be go down. The mess is bothering me, but I'm just too tired & quite frankly can't be arsed!

CheesyWeez · 01/02/2016 12:07

Have a day catching up with your baby and your rest. You've had no sleep and you'll go mad if goes on day after day. Then what good will you be? :-)

BeakyAndBun · 01/02/2016 12:36

I asked a somewhat similar question recently about how much housework I should be doing whilst I am breastfeeding a baby all night. I just wanted to recommend the book "What Mothers Do (especially when it looks like nothing)" by Naomi Stadlen as it is absolutely fantastic. Also, since you asked for advice I will give you the advice I should have given myself: time spent with a baby isn't doing nothing. I danced around the living room to the radio with my DS this morning and he was laughing and grinning the whole time and watching us both in the mirror. I also put away some clean washing and put another load going. I know that when DP gets home and asks how my day was I will automatically start with giving him a list of what jobs I managed to do, usually followed by some kind of apology that I haven't done more/enough/anything more interesting. DP appreciates anything I do in the house but that isn't the point.

The point is a lot of us are probably used to having jobs where you have something to "show" for your day. You work towards targets of some degree, be it getting paperwork filed, writing reports, stacking shelves. Then someone appraises that work or oversees you to make sure it gets done. With parenthood, there is none of that. No-one sees you feeding and clothing and caring for your child(ren) day in day out and all the times you had little chats with them or danced together or pointed out things around the garden, or rocked them when they cried. Some days they just seem to feed loads or they cry lots and your house looks exactly the same as it did the night before (or worse) but you have put as much as you could into feeding or soothing them. Those things make your DC feel loved and safe and will help them understand the world and become confident as they grow. You couldn't explain every detail of it to someone if they asked what you have done all day so you feel like the things you have done are the more tangible things: "I loaded the dishwasher," or "I cleaned the bathroom" because those things are visible and can be proven. I am not saying that babies and clean houses are mutually exclusive (thanks to a sling, in my case) or saying you can or should devote 9-5 to baby-centric activities. But that not having anything to 'show' for parts of your day because you were interacting with a baby is totally normal and OK. Not to mention how tiring it is to feed a baby round the clock! Flowers

CottonFrock · 01/02/2016 12:41

You're doing exactly the right thing, OP. Your visitors are supposed to be the ones doing the chores, not dirtying the dishes. Housework is completely unimportant, and people who think otherwise, or who get their knickers in a twist because they 'can't sit down with a sink of dirty dishes' have very strange priorities, or haven't thought through the implications of exactly why they feel so morally compromised by undone housework, while their male partners don't feel 'slatternly' by the sight of an unmade bed. Your DH, who has been at work all day, talking to adults, getting things done, going to the loo by himself, having a lunchbreak etc etc, will cope with the dishes.

Your job at this very early stage of maternity leave is looking after a small creature which (if it weren't for humans' inconveniently large brains and heads) should still be happily inside your body. It's not meant to be out in the cold yet, and it wants nothing more than to replicate womb conditions for a few more weeks (google 'fourth trimester'). If you worry about 'not doing enough' or 'not getting things done', I recommend a lovely book, What Mothers Do by Naomi Stadlen, which essentially argues for treating what you are doing now - slowing yourself right down, responding to your baby's needs etc - as work, which is insufficiently recognised by mothers themselves and society at large.

CottonFrock · 01/02/2016 12:42

In fact, what Beaky just said is very much the drift of Naomi Stadlen's book.

BeakyAndBun · 01/02/2016 12:46

CottonFrock- it is the best baby book I've read!

SoporificHobnob · 01/02/2016 12:49

Sod the housework, your baby is four weeks old and you aren't expected to do the housework.
My baby is 12 and I haven't done the housework today so I don't think that you should do your housework or you will be making me feel guilty.

BeakyAndBun · 01/02/2016 12:49

In case it wasn't clear from my earlier post- the advice I gave was basically the premise of Naomi Stadlen's book. I am not articulate enough to come up with that argument myself! Grin

CottonFrock · 01/02/2016 12:50

Beaky, I used to go to her Mothers Talking sessions in north London, when my baby was tiny, and found them really helpful, though I didn't always see eye to eye with NS herself.

Sanchar · 01/02/2016 12:59

Yanbu!

I'm having a lazy-do-nothing day today and I have no baby to blame it on😄. I've been awake all night because of pain and painkillers not working and making me feel really sick, so I am doing the bare minimum, school run, feeding greedy little mouthes and bedtime.

ricketytickety · 01/02/2016 13:08

yanbu

  1. your guests and dp should have chipped in
  2. you are busy with baby

Beaky and Cotton are so right!! I always give my dp a run down of the day to explain why I haven't got things done. But he knows and doesn't care. It's me who worries about it. I'm getting much more relaxed now baby is 6 months old.

Original poster
Oysterbabe · 01/02/2016 13:38

You're right, I don't think of it as work as there's nothing to show for my efforts. But also it's because looking after my baby doesn't feel like a chore at the moment, it's something I want to do and therefore can't count as work. Hopefully I'll find my maternity leave groove and stop feeling guilty about "not working" soon.

OP posts:
HackerFucker22 · 01/02/2016 13:47

I'm in bed with my baby now.... and she is 1

We had a shit nights sleep (she is recovering from bronchiolitis) so we've had a lazy day. Granted I've taken the older dc to school, done a food shop and done a few chores but I'm too tired for anything else.

46LivinglifeintheFastLane46 · 02/02/2016 14:10

Sod the housework!
Why didn't your guests offer to help? Even if they just washed up what they used.
You're definitely not doing nothing, you're caring for a baby ☺

Verbena37 · 02/02/2016 14:25

Don't be harsh on yourself. Blimey it took me about three months to even leave the house after a section with my first.
You're looking after your little one which takes time and strength. Don't worry about it.
Ask your DH to shove the washing on and ignore him if he looks miffed.
If you carry on finding it tough, especially with lack of sleep, could you look into getting a mother's help......nursery nurse students from local college would be willing. Wish I had done that.

CrazyMamaOf2 · 02/02/2016 14:28

No just enjoy your rest and your baby. x x x

PurpleTreeFrog · 02/02/2016 14:30

Yes, I agree with everyone else, you're already doing enough. I also recommend What Mothers Do - it's very good and very reassuring, as other posters already mentioned.

The only other thing I can recommend is trying out a good sling if you have a sling library near you, or even just a cheap stretchy wrap from Amazon. When my baby was that age, I didn't get a lot done around the house, but if I ever felt the urge to do some washing up or hoovering I was able to do so with him in a sling, he would often fall asleep while I was pottering around, especially while hoovering as its ideal white noise!

Don't worry, it does get easier. In just a few short months your baby will start weaning and you can sit them in a high chair with a rice cake which can keep them amused for a surprising amount of time in the early stages while you have a cup of tea or wash up a couple of plates :)