I don't think I should cook every night

[LurkyLurkerMcLurkface]

I'm on maternity leave at the moment with 8 month DS. DH works full time and is out of the house 8am-6pm. Our evening routine is pretty set, he gets in and takes DS, I get food ready for DS. He'll then sit with DS while he eats. He then does books/bath and I do final feed and settle. I then come down and cook
Every. Fucking. Night
Last night I'd had enough and cooked for myself and left him to it. He's been sulking since.
AIBU to think this should be a shared job?

Sorry I think you are being unreasonable. I work 24 hours a week in a stressful job, my husband works full time and I prepare all meals and do all of the housework and deal with the children

More fool you quite frankly.

It is annoying but why should her Dh do it when he's coming home from work.

The question is, why shouldn't he share the cooking duties a few nights a week?

What year are you living in??

she is at home so therefore cooking falls to her

He's at home in the evening, too. Why doesn't cooking fall equally to him?

The way we arranged it when I was on mat leave/SAHP-ing was that during the day, my main job was to look after the (clingy, unputdownable) baby. If there was time to get any housework done on top of that, I would, but I wouldn't spend every spare minute doing it. Laundry and food shopping usually got done, everything else usually didn't. Then, in the evening once we were both at home, childcare and housework got split 50:50 between us.

I honestly thought that was how most people did it, and am that so many people apparently think maternity leave = housework leave, even after the other parent is home from work.

Also on a broader level it is weird that men's work gets this kind of exalted status once women are off on mat leave. "He shouldn't cook, he's been working hard all day." "he'll be too tired in the evenings," "he's been out supporting you," "YABU to expect him to cook after a full day's work."

It's as if pre-mat-leave, we all know what kind of work men do and obviously don't see it as harder than ours because we're at work too and men are our colleagues. But once we're on mat leave, suddenly they're doing 12-hour shifts down the mines with no breaks and can't possibly be expected to manage the same level of housework they'd been doing their entire adult lives before reproducing.

It is so depressing that so many people that bring at home (maternity leave or Sah) should automatically cook for their working oh. So the person with childcare responsibility who is probably having disturbed sleep should cook every single week night and in this case twice as she cooks for baby too.
Why should the working parent do 40 hours per week say and the Sah/ml parent never clock off?

Think that being at home. Auto-correct.

Why is that depressing highland?
It's hardly as if the partner working outside the home can cook, or have a nap with a baby during the day.

Newsflash. Not everyone at home can nap when the baby sleeps. They have to do stuff like housework grocery shopping or care for other children.
I have 3 children and I only managed to nap during the day a handful of times. This was after months of being up in the night for hours at a time.
My dh was out from 6am to 7pm. That was his working hours. Mine went from whenever baby woke till 9pm. Than I was up for hours in the night too.
He did absolutely nothing in the house during the week and maybe cooked the odd meal at the weekend. Well bung something in the oven . Because he worked such long hours.

Both my maternity leaves are the tiredest times I've ever experienced in my life.

The trouble with this thread is that everyone is going round and round in circles describing their own situation which is not the OP's. (And constantly mentioning slow cookers and batch cooking ).

Maternity leave for me was so easy, I had a baby that slept, doing housework took 20 minutes a day - I was about and about doing what I wanted with no restrictions/expectations on me; life was wonderful .

I now work in a physically and mentally exhausting role, never sit down or get a proper break all day and absolutely hate the idea of having to cook a meal when I get home at night.

But that is my experience- the OP has to agree, with her DH what the best way forward is for them.

ragwort- that's it.

When I had an 8 month old baby I qualified as a breastfeeding counsellor, a two year study course, I also had a two year old and was in the early stages of setting up my own business. And I did 90% of the housework and cooking. It was busy, but not overwhelming.

"Why is that depressing highland?
It's hardly as if the partner working outside the home can cook, or have a nap with a baby during the day."

Of course the DH working outside the home can cook dinner sometimes when he gets back, just as they did (one hopes) less than a year ago before ML started.

User-lotsa numbers.

Presumably as a Breastfeeding counsellor, you met some women who, as the OP has described, have a clingy baby who doesn't nap much and takes a while to settle at night? I hope you were sympathetic to them!

(Please change your user name to something else than a default, you'll have a better MN experience)

I have tried several times to change my name. Mumsnet HQ are unresponsive.

My babies were both clingy, and we coslept. They could take as long as they liked to settle because that was my bedtime too.

she is at home so therefore cooking falls to her

This is one of the most stupid comments. I work very hard at home (a paid job) and would be seriously pissed off if DH or anyone else suggested that means I should do all the cooking and chores. I don't have more free time than him just because I'm not in an office. I don't really see the difference if someone is on maternity leave.
Obviously, if they have an easy baby and loads of free time it would be reasonable to take on more of the household chores and cooking but not everyone does. The fact that some people do is completely irrelevant.
It is maternity leave not housework leave.

You can change it in "my Mumsnet - account" - MNHQ don't need to do it for you.

I didn't ask you about your co sleeping etc; I asked you whether you were more sympathetic to women who you counselled than you have been to OP.

I had two very different children; the first an easy baby, the second much less so. If someone had started telling me I needed to do more about cooking when the second was still feeding, and that someone was an "official" like a Breastfeeding counsellor, I'd've been pretty damn upset.

My babies were both clingy, and we coslept. They could take as long as they liked to settle because that was my bedtime too

You sound teeth itchingly smug. And what you did or didn't manage to do at home with 95 kids/horses/Cole miner husband/slow cooker is completely irrelevant to the OP. She isn't looking for stories of how much harder she has it than everyone else or visa versa. She's on maternity leave to look after her child, if she was intending to take time out for another grown adult it would be called domestic slave leave.

Makes mine itch too....
Even more than Slow cooker....batch cooking, baking meal planning marvelling tips.

Maybe her dh should learn to use a slow cooker twice a week.

This thread is ridiculous.

Two adults who I assume both want to eat. Unless they can manage some sort of Morcambe and Wise routine together in the kitchen every evening one of them needs to do it. It doesn't have to be the same one each night, but cooking needs to be done by someone.
If the OP cooks posters are saying it's akin to slavery or her looking after a manchild and yet presumably the posters who are saying this think the OP's husband should cook for both of them rather than just himself. So its ok for him to look after her but not her to look after him?
OP looking after the baby all day is work (and it is) but husband feeding and bathing the baby is suddenly not work but what he should be doing.
It's all so petty.
Do some couples really live like flat mates only doing things for themselves incase one accidentally does someone that might be seen as looking after the other one?
Do some people sit at home hungry with hungry children waiting for the working person to come home because the SAHP shouldn't have to do all the cooking?

I think some people's definition of a 'clingy' baby is very different to mine (and likely the op).

She will not be put down, not unless I am right there entertaining here, otherwise she screams the place down. Maybe some people would be happy to let her scream and cry. I am not. Neither is my husband. She is only 13 weeks old after all.

Neither will she tolerate an inward facing sling. She is still too young for an outward facing one. Which is unfortunate as I think she will love that, as she's so inquisitive.

Cbeebies, mickey mouse clubhouse, baby TV will distract her for a total of 5 minutes tops. If I'm lucky. Just long enough to take a shit. Lucky me.

And nap when the baby naps??!! Hahahahahaha. When I finally manage to get her off for a nap, I can not put her down. She instantly wakes up. She just wants to snuggle up on mummy or daddy. She is only 13 weeks old after all. However, this leaves no opportunity to nap, or do anything else.

Last night she decided she was going to do this from 1.45am until 5.45am. I was tearing my hair out. Lucky for me, my husband is more than willing to share the parenting with me and took over for a couple hours so I could sleep. In return, I'm now up with the baby whilst he catches up on sleep.

So, was your baby this clingy? With the same challenges? Or is it perhaps that your baby wasn't actually that clingy, or was happy to be in a sling? Mine isn't. So what am I supposed to do? Let her scream and cry and become very distressed so that Daddy doesn't have to cook for himself anymore? Nope, nope, nopity nope!

"f the OP cooks posters are saying it's akin to slavery or her looking after a manchild and yet presumably the posters who are saying this think the OP's husband should cook for both of them rather than just himself. So its ok for him to look after her but not her to look after him? "

Nope.

The title is about not wanting to cook EVERY night.

And about DP asking her what was for tea when he had had a chance to sit down and faff but she hadn't.

The thread is about him automatically assuming tea is her job.

The next day he cooked fajitas, so obviously him taking a turn is not impossible.

The thread became heated because many early replies were along the lines of "of course you should do it, why don't you do a bunch of prep at the weekend (when DH is, presumably, free to do it too) if you are finding it tough" rather than "yes, sharing seems much fairer"

Do some people sit at home hungry with hungry children waiting for the working person to come home because the SAHP shouldn't have to do all the cooking?

No in this case the OP's DH was arriving home 2 hours before dinner and then taking a seat whilst hungry and basically asking her what she was going to cook for him.

Notso Nobody is suggesting that they act like flatmates.
People are suggesting that there is no reason why one person i.e. OP should do all the cooking i.e. there is no reason why they can't take it in turns. Surely that isn't a complicated concept.

The child in this case doesn't have to wait. Op feeds child 1St as he has additional dietary needs. Than has to cook again for her and dh. This should be shared if op is not happy.

The thread is about him automatically assuming tea is her job.
OP said she had been cooking seven days a week. My husband empties the dishwasher seven days a week, if he didn't one day I'd probably ask him why, it doesn't mean I'd never do it myself if he got fed up of it being his job.

Chipoednailvarnishing that comment was more referring to posters saying it was depressing the at home parent cooked rather than the OP.

Op feeds child 1st as he has additional dietary needs. I thought OP is breastfeeding so also has the same dietary needs.