Who should get up early with toddler

[Babynonamee]

I genuinely don't know what is fair.

We have DS1 (18 months) and DS2 (6 weeks)
My DH works full time 8:30-4pm Mon-Fri. I am on maternity leave.

I am up 2-3 times per night feeding the newborn baby (he's pretty good baby to be honest).
Our toddler wakes up between 5am and 6:30 am. And is occasionally up during the night.

Who should get up with the toddler early in the morning? Me who had had a disturbed night sleep every night, or DH who has work all day (he leaves At 8am)?

Also- on the rare occasion toddler wakes during the night, who should be the one to go to him and settle him? (It can take 1-2 hours to settle him)

DH thinks I should as he works. AIBU to think he should? As I am up every night with newborn... Or at least we should take it in turns?

Babynonamee

He will begrudgingly get up in morning but he makes me feel as though I'm being lazy as I "get to stay home and do fun things all day".

I have a newborn, I'm not sure what this fun he speaks of is. 🤔

It's ridiculous he basically doesn't want to help with any of the hard work. Getting up earlier with a toddler isn't bad if he doesn't have broken sleep like you do.

Fucking hell who are these people who can’t possibly function at work on less than 8 hours sleep (or the laughable suggestion that he might fall asleep on the job!)? My dc were awful awful sleepers. I went back to work on very little sleep. I managed. Dh did the same as he was doing half the night wakings / early mornings. Neither of us were sacked or fell asleep at work. Of course you can get up in the night and go to work. I bet you thousands of woman (and probably significantly fewer men) in this country do it every day.

I save my greatest derision for the woman near the top of the thread who said she couldn’t possibly get up in the night as she had meetings at 8am

I can't believe people are saying you should do it all!! It obviously depends on what you're DH does for a living,but if it's like most jobs his day is MUCH, MUCH, MUCH easier than yours.

Swanning about in an office all day is NOT hard work compared to the utter relentlessness of looking after a newborn and a toddler. I've done both and going out to work every day was a lovely rest in comparison.

Assuming your DH isn't a brain surgeon or similar he should absolutely be getting up with your toddler in the morning. I would probably compromise on the night wakings and do every other night if you feel you can.

This is yet more of the glorification of money making men's work over (the actual hard work of) child rearing and it is bloody sexist bollocks.

I'd love 8 hours sleep . I can't even blame baby / toddler stage . I just don't sleep well! Never snoozed at work though which is good because I'd likely die given my job !!!

In my house, he would definitely be getting up with the toddler at 5am - if he needs a solid night's sleep he can just go to bed at 10pm.

Whenever we have had a newborn, I have always done all night waking/feeds (breastfeeding) and DH deals with older children.

Weekends - do one lie in each.

Unless you get a chance to catch up on sleep in the day (which I think is unlikely with children your ages) I can’t believe anyone would think you should be doing the night feeds and getting up at 5am!
If you’re being then he should get up with the toddler every day imo. If the baby is bottle fed then you should share the feeds and early mornings.

This thread is horrifying!

In my experience, going to a desk job all day after a broken nights sleep with a baby/toddler, even the days when I'd have to stay until 7-8pm, was a lot fucking easier than being at home all day with a newborn.

Now I know the truth, I've put my foot down with DH re DC2 - I'll sort one out and he can sort the other one.,

I am really very surprised by this thread.

We split it according to our particular ‘abilities’. I sleep badly and wake at a pin drop so all night wakings are mine by default. It would be ridiculous for me to sit there waiting for dh to wake. 11 month old dd also rouses at 5am every morning and comes in with us which stops me sleeping properly but she falls back to sleep usually. Because of this when she rouses for the day dh always gets up with her. Every single day of the week and weekends. Sometimes I might only get 20 minutes depending on his schedule but it matters to me.

This works for us as he gets a shorter time of good quality sleep while I get more broken sleep. It sort of balances out.

You’re on maternity leave so you do during the week. He does the weekends. He also does the rare toddler.

This 100%

@Bumpitybumper
Totally agree with this:
“I think sadly a lot of these types of responses are based on the age old assumption that a non-working person is inferior to a working person. It doesn't matter what the person who hasn't been at work has dealt with in their day, how they are struggling or the fact that the compound impact of sleep deprivation is absolutely horrific, there is still a prevailing wisdom that a working partner must be given priority. This seems particularly cruel when women are often still trying to deal with the aftermath of pregnancy and childbirth, battling to breastfeed and potentially contending with the post birth hormonal rollercoaster that can plummet mothers into PND. This is a clearly a very vulnerable group of people and yet burdening them with terrible levels of sleep deprivation seems totally acceptable because they don't have to go out to work.”

I cannot stand this attitude that women should sacrifice anything resembling decent sleep night after night, to spare their partner from losing one or two hours in the morning before work. If it’s not enough to function at his job, then he can bloody well go to bed earlier.

Lots of people get up at 5 or 6am before work to go to the gym or whatever, he’ll survive.

Breastfeeding a newborn is hard enough without this hideous expectation that you destroy yourself physically for lack of sleep.

Your husband is being unreasonable.

And being home with two babies can be fun. But it is definitely bloody hard, relentless, physical work.

It should DEFINITELY be your DH! Every time.....

Can't believe people think it should be you! If he gets up at 5 DH still has had a decent amount of sleep.

Also, people can work with less than 8 hours of sleep a night. My DS2 is nine months but woke every half hour for the first six months of his life. It was horrific. DH and I did half the night each and he still managed to work as a teacher.

Wow, can't believe the early posts.
Tootling into work where I mixed with adults and had relaxing coffee breaks and lunch hour was a doddle compared to being home full time with tinies which was exhausting, thankless and endless

He is a selfish shit, like my DH was

I have a small baby and dh always does the mornings with our 2 young children. He knows I have all 3 all day and have been up feeding in the night.

The new baby is 6 weeks old - this is a tough time and DH should definitely be picking up some slack. The baby won’t be sleeping through for some time yet so whilst OP can do night wakings and early mornings for a while it’s not sustainable for month after month after month. He has got to do more - 50/50 not at all unreasonable, more if he can particularly in the short term when the baby is tiny.

I work full time, my husband is SAHD, I did all the night time wake ups with toddlers and do a big office based job like 50-60 hours a week. I can smash a big day with 3-4 hours sleep if I have to - OP’s DH can handle it too.

Also here’s another angle that might be helpful - if he gets home early from work why don’t you hand everything over to him there? Feed baby as he is leaving work then lock yourself in bedroom for 2 hours for some sleep? If he is crap at mornings this might work better.

Hang in there OP....

What time do you both go to bed?

Frankly I think with a new born you should both go to bed about 9pm to give you both enough sleep. He should then get up at 5am with your toddler - 8 hours unbroken sleep should be ample. Looking after 2 small kids all day is hard - as hard as most office jobs imo. Your husband doesn't even work that long hours.

He should be up in my opinion.

Getting up at 530 and being in the gym for 6 is pretty common for lots of people. It's not like you're expecting him to be up and entertaining DC from 4am.

He should definitely share night time and morning wakings. You work during the day too - just happens to be as a sahm! No less taxing.
My friend is in a similar situation- her dh deals with the eldest and she the youngest. Kept that routine when needed even now they are 6 and 4.

Thank god this thread shifted the way it did.. I thoroughly agree with the posts reminding us that mat “leave” with a baby and toddler is actually just work of another nature (and in my own case a damn sight harder than my pretty high stress office job). Constant sleep deprivation for months on end is no joke, especially when coupled with the physical and emotional ordeal of recent childbirth. The partner should absolutely be picking up as much as possible to share the pain. My own husband sort of gets this now but he certainly didn’t work it out himself.. i had to do a hell of a lot of shouting and moaning and reasoning. A pain in the bum but essential.

I just don’t get how a ‘partner’ in any sense is heading to work well rested every morning while the mother is crying with tired, has no unbroken hours of sleep and is knackered.

My husband would do anything to help me when I’m feeling like that. Generally that means I get 7 lie-ins out of 8 a month and occasionally he will take a flexi morning so I get an extra one

Oh, as well as getting up half an hour earlier in the week so I get a wee lie in then too

I have a 3 (almost 4) year old and an 8 month old. The 8 month old sleeps terribly, up every 2 hours or something in the night and is usually up about 6.15am, but sometimes 5.30am. The 3 year old generally sleeps through but occasionally wakes or gets up early.

Our arrangement is that I do all night wakings with baby, and DH does all 3 year old wakings plus gets up first in the morning with whichever one is up first. Once the second child wakes up then I get up too. Occasionally one of us will have a lie in on a weekend while the other looks after both children. Also, if it took 1-2 hours to resettle the 3 year old like in the OP, then we would probably take it in turns to cope with that during the night.

After reading some of the responses on this thread, I'm feeling pretty lucky with my DH!

Some seriously goady responses on here.
To clarify, my comment about FT work was intended to poke fun at someone who works 40 hours a week (paid) somehow acting as though they are working “harder” than a mum working all hours of the day and night with a toddler and a newborn.

When I was at home with a newborn, my DH (who works 60-70 hours a week) still managed to get up and give me breaks when I needed it because his wife was struggling and he could handle the sleep deprivation better. That’s what a partner should be doing.

My eldest was 2 when youngest was born and my job was the baby and he did toddler. It’s no effort for your husband, he’s up anyway whack on peppa pig on tv and get him some breakfast,l