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AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

Original poster

To think what DH does is not saintly?

896 replies

Loulou0 · 31/05/2016 06:24

We have a toddler and a newborn. I'm on maternity leave, DH is back at work full time. DH does the night feeds. Roughly at midnight and 3am. Our baby will then wake up around 6ish and I get up with him for the day. Toddler joins us shortly after and DH sleeps until about 8. We get the kids ready together and he leaves for work about 9. DH does his desk job all day, I look after our kids. I make dinner in the evening and DH puts our toddler to bed while I have some time to myself, I normally go for a run or have a bath etc.

This seems fair to me. Others (friends with kids, my DM) think DH is some kind of Saint and that I am 'so lucky!' And that I 'should be grateful'

Aibu to think that he's just doing his share and nothing particularly special??

OP posts:
KP86 · 31/05/2016 07:16

I think working out of the house is the easier option! The relentlessness and 100% 'on' of parenting is far more wearing (for me) than working 9-5, and I only have one toddler.

If I could find a suitable and decent-enough paying job I would take it in a heartbeat.

And I have a DH who shares a lot of the responsibility, like OP's. He was up half the night with our DS who is refusing to sleep at the moment.

BarbaraofSeville · 31/05/2016 07:18

Fine if it works for you but the working partner shouldn't necessarily be expected to do some or all of night feeds while the SAHP is on parental leave for example if they have to drive or have an otherwise demanding job or one with safety issues.

There's a big difference between driving or operating other machinery safely and generally functioning effectively at work and being a SAHP.

A SAHP can sleep in the daytime or have a lazy day if they feel a bit tired, which is unlikely to be an option to someone at work.

branofthemist · 31/05/2016 07:19

It's works for you.

I went back to work when ds was 6 months and we shared night wakings and honestly. It is exhausting even with a sleep in.

So while I don't think he is a hero, or rather anymore of a hero than any parent who does all night wakings, I do think it's fairly impressive.

I really don't know why it bothers you so much that people think it is. If he was a shit dad and people were jumping up and down everytime he bothered to do something, you may have a point.

Original poster
Loulou0 · 31/05/2016 07:20

Penelope I didn't mean to make anyone feel bad. You sound like you're doing a great job. My nephew hascolic and it sounds awful 😟 I don't think that I take DH for granted.. He knows I love him and I do what I can to make him happy

OP posts:
StrictlyMumDancing · 31/05/2016 07:22

I get what you mean OP. Some people's DHs don't pitch in as much, and that suits them. Others won't pitch in and that doesn't suit them. Other's do much more and that suits them too.

I still field the how wonderful DH is for looking after my DC comments (they're 5 and 3 and they're his DC too!). Largely this boils down to him taking the last feed at night to allow me to go to bed and him to have some bonding time which he loved. I did the in the night feeds although sometimes he pitched in. It really helped us both with DC2 because he decided to drop a night feed early on, but he would go to bed after a feed around 8pm and wake for the day at 4am (a time which DH felt didn't exist!). We were a team and in it together. Now he will take the DC off so I can have some me time or clean the house, and he's apparently a saint for babysitting not because he wants to spend time with his DC or anything Hmm.

I do appreciate I am lucky in comparison with some people, but even DH thinks he's just parenting his own DC!

froubylou · 31/05/2016 07:23

If I could sleep in while 8am I wouldn't be going to bed until midnight. So in my mind he is only getting up once at 3am. Then the op is up at 6am. He then puts the toddler to bed. The op then has a bath or goes and takes some exercise.

It's not a lot really. It's enough but he is hardly a hero.

If a woman on maternity leave posted she wanted her dh to do a night feed and help with bedtime while she had a bath and the dh wouldn't there would be collective gasps of horror. Then when a dh does we all call him a hero.

Justmeagain78 · 31/05/2016 07:27

You have a set up that works for you and that's fine. I think you have touched on a valid general point though that men do get more credit for things child related. My friends were recently cooing over dh playing with his toddler nephew in the garden remarking how good he is with children. It's true he is but I couldn't help thinking - I stayed at home and raised my child for three years, I now work in childcare jointly looking after 20+ children under 5 and no-one ever gives me any credit for my abilities with children!!!

DoinItFine · 31/05/2016 07:29

Both DH and I would choose 2 extra hours sleep in the morning over doing night feeds.

We're both OK on broken sleep but bad at getting up early.

We both also find going to work for the day less exhausting than looming after a newborn and a toddler alone all day.

TBH I think most people do.

It's just that our culture expects women to be exhausted constantly and for men's energy to be preserved.

Any woman who has tried to have hypothyroidism taken seriously by medical professionals will know how little anyone cares for women being so tired they can barely function.

pollyblack · 31/05/2016 07:29

No one ever called me saintly for feeding my baby but hey ho Smile

Agree saintly is a bit over the top but i think when you're a mum of babies/small kids you just love anyone who does anything for you so i can see why your friends would be jealous!

My dh never even heard our babies cry in the night Hmm

Makeupbabes · 31/05/2016 07:30

Oh wow! I think it's amazing that he does the night feeds even though he's up for work, my boyfriend has never done any night feeds even on the weekend when he's off & I always put my DS to bed at night. He sounds amazing & you go out for a run have a bath! I'm jealous!

branofthemist · 31/05/2016 07:32

Can I just say though. I think it's pretty heroic of anyone to do all the night feeds.

Dh would be very grateful if I did them all some nights and I would be grateful if he did them all. We generally shared them. But still grateful if the other did it all.

I think the baby stage it's bloody difficult and getting through it all an be pretty heroic. But then I was blessed with 2 non sleepers Grin

PestilentialCat · 31/05/2016 07:33

Do whatever works. I used to go to bed at 10pm, DH did the late feed then went to bed (& later to work) & I did the small hours feed. DS slept through from 12 weeks so it wasn't too bad overall.

Justmeagain78 · 31/05/2016 07:34

Makeupbabes - why do you think this man is amazing - what you do is more amazing, you do it all!

Costacoffeeplease · 31/05/2016 07:36

Is this another stealth boast thread?

FankEweVeryMuch · 31/05/2016 07:38

I don't think it's heroic, my H helps out during the night, for example I get the baby and he gets the bottle warmed up and I'll feed it to him. When I was breastfeeding and the baby wouldn't settle after a feed, he'd take turns to do the rocking/ pacing around the room. I get to stay in bed for an hour more than him each morning as well. This is baby no.4, he wasn't quite as involved with the older two's night time antics.

Funnily enough the baby has just started consistently sleeping through, before that he'd have 1 or 2 quick feeds and then back to sleep, probably 20 mins waking time max. Now he sleeps through he wakes an hour earlier. I am more tired with the sleeping through than I was with the 2 X nightly wakings.

witsender · 31/05/2016 07:41

He's doing the 'tough bit'...bedtimes and night waking. That's not heroic, but above the beyond when you are at home all day.

Could you do a night feed each? Make it fairer. And would also prepare you for when the baby inevitably starts waking more as they get older.

StrictlyMumDancing · 31/05/2016 07:41

Any woman who has tried to have hypothyroidism taken seriously by medical professionals will know how little anyone cares for women being so tired they can barely function.

I'll totally second this - I've lost track of the amount of times I've been told I'm meant to be exhausted because I'm a mother Angry

FankEweVeryMuch · 31/05/2016 07:44

DoinItFine I couldn't agree more, great post.

ChocChocPorridge · 31/05/2016 07:49

YANBU - 2 night feeds, then lie in until 8 is fine - you seem to have a pretty good balance I think (toddler + baby all day is bloody relentless!)

I BF, but once the babies were down to 2 night feeds it really barely had an effect (perhaps years of DS1 feeding every couple of hours, and still 3 times a night at 18 months inured me) - if I'd have been able to stay in bed after a 3am feed for a continuous 5 hours I'd have been absolutely sorted!

I expect your DH feels the same or he'd have raised it as an issue (you seem to have everything else so balanced)

ChihuahuaChick · 31/05/2016 07:49

My DH took over night feeds pretty much straight away with DS2 because he needs way less sleep than me and there was no paternity leave here and he felt awful about going back to work and leaving me with a 1 year old and newborn the day after we were out of hospital. Luckily DS2 was sleeping 6 hours 11 - 5 by the time he was a week old.

Champagneformyrealfriends · 31/05/2016 07:53

My DH does one night feed a week, the night before his day off work, so to me your husband is a saint! And like him I am capable of functioning perfectly well on little sleep and have been since way before DD came along. Even so it is hard work getting up in the night and there are times when I dread going to bed because I know I'll have to be up in the middle of the night. I can't imagine doing that and going to work too.

Equimum · 31/05/2016 07:53

I wouldn't say your DH is saintly, but I certainly think you are very fortunate. I don't know many people who get both 'me time' and night feeds covered.

NeedsAsockamnesty · 31/05/2016 07:56

Is this another stealth boast thread?

Not really a great boast is it?

Dad acts like a decent human being and just happens to prefer the night feeds.

The op has a huge huge point.

The other day I got on a bus I had 4 kids with me 2 under 4 the 2 older ones are noticably disabled and I have obvious mobility issues, I was with a friend whose a single father to a 6yo people were almost falling over themselves to 'help' him despite him being bemused by this and 4 people actually approached him to tell him just how wonderful he is and this sort of thing happens to him lots nobody even registered me.

Kittyrobin · 31/05/2016 07:59

I think your extremely lucky indeed to have a partner who is doing so much.
From my pool of people I know in real life your dh is indeed saintly.

KP86 · 31/05/2016 08:01

But OP isn't fortunate, it's how it should be!!

Other posters whose DPs don't do their share are UNfortunate, not the other way around.

Do you describe your (less involved) DPs as been lucky or fortunate, or yourself as saintly because you do it all yourself and then just cope with being exhausted?

PP hit the nail on the head that mothers are just expected to the martyr. Not in this house. DH and I are equally exhausted. All of the time. Lol.