to ask for your opinions about a woman's role and responsibilities on mat leave

[Aracha]

And how much does your DH help? Does he have specific jobs or do you feel baby/household is your job while on mat-leave?

Does he help during the night?
What about weekends?
How do you allocate personal time?

(I'm not a researcher... I'm planning to show this thread to DH as we'd like to know what other parents do)

Background:
DS is 6months, wakes every 1-2hours at night, sometimes has a 3-hour stretch. Can be difficult to settle after feeds. EBF at night but will take bottle/sippy-cup. Goes down at 6pm up for day by 6am, often awake for few hours in night.

DH has a high-stress job (with 1-hour commute each way) leaves house around 9am back around 7pm.

You work out what works for you. But I hate the 'he's the breadwinner, so mustn't be disturbed by this baby nonsense' mentality. You're both parents and have to step up. Also, you are responsible for a baby all day, so being on your knees in exhaustion is not exactly ideal.

We shared night wakings - but I was bf so that was a factor. I did majority of cooking, cleaning, shopping. DH did all laundry though and big jobs like washing floors.

To be perfectly honest though, housework took a big back seat.

It's whatever works for you. On Mat leave I was happy to do everything baby & house related. My son is now 5 months & I have been working full time doing 50 hrs a week since he was 3 months. I still do all house & children stuff like bedtime, baths & homework. But I do really enjoy being busy & im a bit of a control freak.

I suppose I'm just practicing for when DH earns more & I can be a SAHM. The house would be so tidy & I'd be so organised!! That's my dream though.

I totally think it should be time to rest & get to know your baby. But it honestly is whatever works for your family. If you want to split things, then he should be willing as he made the baby too.

There's no right or wrong.

If I ever want to do anything then I can leave kids with DH & he can manage everything fine, I just find that's the way I like to spend my time. Maybe if I had money I'd find some spa days & shopping days to fill some time instead.

I think the main aims of mat leave is to give yourself time to recover from the birth, bond with the baby, establish a routine and get to the 9 month point where baby is hopefully sleeping better and your more able to leave them.

The housework, although part of it is baby related is not the important bit

I do all night feeds in the week. We share housework and DH probably does slightly more general childcare than me in the evening and at weekends, he wants to as he sees so much less of her than I do.

It's a shame that people feel grateful or lucky if their husbands do more than just go to work. I guess that mindset is left over from when men were not expected to do anything except go to work. And I guess some women feel lucky because they know some men still do no more than go to work, even in 2016.

Having a family should be a team effort, working together, however that works for you.

Going to work is no harder / easier than being at home with the children!! The parent at home shouldn't think 'oh they've been at work all day, let's give them a break.'

Although once the all children are at school full time I think it's different. When there are no children at home for six hours every day then there's no reason why the parent at home shouldn't do the bulk of the housework etc - is there?!

DS is 9 months old I'm taking around 14 months off.

I do all night waking a and look after DS until DH gets home at 5pm, he then takes over (dinner, bath, bottle).

Weekends I get to have a lie in and DH had to deal with breakfast/night wakings.

I do most of the housework but then again I am a bit of a control freak about it so would rather do it.

I'm going back to work 3 days a week so will continue to do the lions share

His job: office 9am-6.30pm (yes, very stressful, important career and all that)

My job: making sure the kid is alive and well 9am-6.30pm (also very stressful, important little person and all that)

6.30pm - 9am is shared responsibilities baby wise (I do 12-6am because of night breastfeeding but I have guaranteed sleep 6-8am).

Anything related to household chores is out of the equation and sorted out with a separate system that has nothing to do with being a SAHM or on maternity leave (roughly 50/50 and we have a cleaner 2hrs a week).

It's a shame that people feel grateful or lucky if their husbands do more than just go to work

I agree. I used to get old all the time how lucky I was that dh does his fair share of stuff around the house and with the kids

if dh heard his response would be 'I am lucky she is happy to go out to work and share the burden of providing with the family too then?'

I found that people (but mainly women) thought a man doing house work was amazing. But a women going to work was lucky to have a good husband who let her work. As though dh didn't benefit at all.

It's a fair point, Magical, and I did think about it when I wrote that I feel lucky. However, my husband is such a kind, considerate, thoughtful, caring man, and I do feel lucky just to have found him. I really appreciate the fact that he values my contributions to the household and that he is so supportive.

Currently not speaking due to a bust up about this...
DP works away quite a lot but it's sporadic so when he's not working away he's home (not in an office or anything)

When I was working (4days) I did all the housework, he'd occasionally run the Hoover round but he would do nursery runs, have dc on non nursery days & pretty much have dinner ready for me coming home. I would do all childcare/cooking on my non working day & weekend.
Worked ok although the cleaning thing sometimes bothered me.

Now I'm on mat leave I do EVERYTHING. All cooking/cleaning/shopping/running around after dc1/nursery runs/ebf dc2..... I have absolutely NO time for myself. I have tried to speak to him several times about this & he knows how difficult it can be doing anything around the house as he's been there with dc1 but he still cannot understand my problem
(Also, I have good maternity benefits & he's self employed so I'm still the main contributor financially, if that makes any difference...)

sorry for the rant

DD was breastfed so I did all the wakings and feedings. DP had the first month off so basically did everything else. He would take over the awake times if he could and I was exhausted, but once he was back to work I probably did 9 out of 10, if not more.

Once we sorted out BF (took 3 months) I had every Saturday morning to do a gym class and DP would either go for a cycle or a class some other time. DP had NO expectation for me to do anything other than care for DD. As things settled I made a point of doing more around the house, mainly laundry and preparing meals. I also kept the kitchen tidy. DP did all other cleaning, as I only had short bits of free time as DD isn't the best sleeper. However it was my choice to add these tasks when I felt I could. I would have gone crazy if I didn't have other things to do though, so DP soon got used to dinner being ready when he got home!
I think our way worked well, DP could see I always did what I could and because he was supportive and helpful, I did my best in terms of housekeeping to make things easier for him when he got home. We are very flexible and definitely work as a team.

I do the basics - laundry, food, etc - and dh picks up the slack when hes home, or takes both DC out so I can get on

10-6 with an hour on the train/in the car doesn't sound too tough to me?

My personal experience was that DH, apparently quite liberated, turned into a sexist pig after having DCs. It is very common. And I think we bring it on ourselves sometimes by expecting to have to do everything and to feel we have to justify being at home.

A few points:

Before you had children, you would not be home full time or part time, you would be working. You are at home now purely because it's the most practical solution for you and the family and, presumably, a joint decision. You have nothing to be grateful for and you are not indebted to your husband.

Before you had children, the housework would be split 50/50, no questions asked. If you do not have time to do the housework because the baby takes up all the time then you do not have time to do the housework. PERIOD. You do not have to feed back to your DH like a boss, saying you didn't do x, y, z because of this that and the other and have him argue with you about it. If he does, respond sarcastically that you sit on your butt all day eating biscuits and watch Jeremy Kyle.

And, why's it suddenly fair that you now do absolutely everything or he does nothing or very little? What did he do BEFORE he had kids??

Completely agree with Morris. STOP considering his pulling his weight/doing his fair share of lifework as 'help'. It's not.

We played it by ear. Dh certainly did some night feeds when I was struggling. His job is stressful sometimes but I don't think it's right for one person to be in charge 24/7 - I needed a break and he was happy to.

I did as much housework as I reasonably could so that we'd have time together in evenings and weekends. You just have to balance it up really. Some days I stayed at home and did chores on nap time, other days i took dd out. I'd say it worked very well with first dd, but with dd2 it was difficult to get anything done with my toddler dd at home as well as the baby.

I never understand these threads. Having a baby is a partnership, it's not advantageous for either the Mum or Dad to with-hold putting energy into the family pot.

So, if you have a miserable as sin baby and all that you can do is keep it alive and comfortable and cling on to your sanity until your partner comes home, that's what you do.

If you had a power sleeper and you were on your game, you would be a bit of a twat if all you did was keep the baby alive and comfortable. And how you expend that extra energy depends on what needs to get done, and doesn't rely on a standardised maternity leave description.

I took 6months of mat leave and then DH took the rest (now a SAHD). During my 6 months my job was looking after DD and I don't recall doing much cooking or cleaning. DH used to get home at 7.30, make me dinner and then he would look after her for a few hours so I could sleep, with me taking over at midnight/1am. I did all night wakings, but she was still bf at that time.

Dh has a high stress job, leaves about 7:30 back about 6-7 at lot of the time. He often travels for work and I really notice when he's gone.

Housework - I do what I can in the day. Like things clean but not totally obsessed so if it's not done it's not done.
He does plenty at the weekend and often puts dinner on while I'm putting ds to bed. He does bath and final change if he's home, even if he's literally just through the door.
Ds is a crap sleeper and I'm really suffering with lack of sleep. At weekends he will get up with ds even if it's 5am and take him downstairs to play do I can get an hours sleep.
He usually works from home one day a week - he gets up with ds then too, takes him downstairs and gets a head start on emails etc

What hours goes your dh work and commute? Take those hours 9-7 and that's one full time job. Your job from 9-7 is baby wrangling.
Before 9 and After 7 and all weekends, should be split 50:50. The exception is weekday night wakings - I do those do dh can sleep. At weekends he will help in the night.
It is not fair to have one partner do all childcare and all housework - that's two jobs (and avoiding parenting.)

Things that aren't ok:

1. Mat leave partner doing all the housework. Ok you'll do a bit more on mat leave because you can Bung the laundry etc on in the day, but it's maternity leave, not housework leave. A man insisting you do it all because you're home is one to avoid.

1. Not helping at nights on weekends- you need sleep. He needs to be giving you a few hours unbroken kip every few days.

1. An attitude of "I'm babysitting the kids." theyre his kids!

1. Expecting to just work, with the attitude that they're bringing the money in and that's all they need to do. Unless they e hired you a cleaner, housekeeper and a PA then this isn't on. I see a lot of men use mat leave as a time to just give up on domestic responsibility and then this continues after the wife has gone back to work. This then leaves mum going a full week at work then coming home and doing another full shift. The end result of that is a tired, burned out mum who resents the husband, a husband who is distanced from his kids and infantilised.

Op: show your dh the 'incompetent husband' thread too.

And 10-6 with an hour commute isn't crazy work hours . Dh (and me when I'm at work) work globally so often have to dial back into a meeting at 10pm, etc.

Thursday for example:

Ds up all night on and off. Dh had earplugs, slept as much as he could. 5 am ds is up, dh takes him downstairs, changes him and sticks him in his bouncer so he can keep an eye on him and I can sleep.

I look after ds all day, dh pops out between calls for a quick cuddle and play while I make lunch.

At 6pm he does bath , I do bedtime, he puts tea on, takes another call and is fine for 9pm. I clean up while he's in that meeting. We bothe have an hour or two chill time then back to bed. If ds wakes either I'll feed him or dh settles him.

It's a team effort. It's hard work and you both have to pull your weight and be flexible.

Hmmmm after reading the posts im feeling more hard done by now. Dh used to be great when we had just one dc but now we have 3 he seems to have taken a complete backseat with housework and chores and pretty much everything other than being at work.

Dh still does most of the same chores he did before, taking out bins, ironing his own shirts, dig type stuff, he gets up with our two year old a lot of mornings and helps get him ready/fed before gong to work espeically if I have been up feeding baby ( he does sleep in a different bedroom so he is not disturbed by baby). We split tidying kitchen/rest of house. I do all washing and putting away, cook all the meals, do all the food shopping, do the cleaning that needs doing between the cleaner coming.
But the chores were split like that before mostly. I probably do just a bit more than I used to.

My husband had a stressful job and did the same hours as yours. Left 8am never back before 7.

When at home he did everything he cpuld with both our babies. First time round he did night waking and helped me settle baby. Second baby we were a bit more efficient and I Co slept with baby while he got sleep and woke up early with older child.

He did most of the house cleaning ! At night when the babies were young I would go to bed very early and he would always do a big tidy so the kitchen stayed at a decent level of tidiness.

He did most of the cooking and I can honestly say I hardly did any cleanjng on maternity leave other than chaos avoidance

Being at home with a ababy and then with a baby and toddler was fucking stressful ...just as stressful as his job and to be honest I hated it a lot of the time.

I went back to work in a stressful but interesting job with a breastfed 9 month old and a 2 yr old at home . Both children still woke at night and I can promise you that being at work is easier than being at home when uou are that tired.

All this stressful job bullshit that men pull is a massive con trick . They are at work doing intellectually satisfying rewarding work . They get tea breaks and time to think and be calm.

It's harder at home abd you need your sleep too.

If being at home with a baby is so much easier than going out to work why aren't men fighting to take leave instead ? They aren't are they !!

I haven't read the full thread but I have been back to work after maternity leave and am presently at home with a toddler and a baby. I have a high stress job and am out of the house for much longer hours than your DH.
I can honestly say work is much easier!

If your DH doesn't leave till 9 (?!) then there is a lot he can do to make your life easier - he can get up at the crack of dawn with the baby, do dishwasher, wash on, drying on etc. Sounds wonderful to have a DH who works those hours to me!

I agree those hours are not at all unusual. 9 is late to leave for work. He Could have full charge of the baby from 6 til 8 and still have time to get ready for work.