To be mad and disappointed with him

[hersandhis]

Basically we have a six week old. I'm on maternity leave. DH works 8-5 Mon-Fri.

He's never done an entire nights worth of feeds. He's done one half a night and for a few days while he was on paternity he took LO in the morning so I could sleep in.

Now he's back at work. I don't expect him to do the nightfeeds whilst he's working but thought it would be nice if he did one night once a week, maybe on a Friday. This hasn't happened.

Last night, (Saturday) I was so utterly exhausted I struggled to hear my LO crying in the night and he was literally right next to me. DH heard him and just kept nudging me throughout the night to get me to wake up. I also a dodgy belly in the night and was sat in the toilet for god knows how long.

We were supposed to be visiting family this morning. All of us. DH literally couldn't wake me up this morning. He went downstairs with LO at 8:30am and was trying to wake me up for an hour and a half. Bearing in mind we were supposed to be leaving at 10am. I didn't go in the end because I didn't have time to get ready and I still had a poorly tummy. So DH went with LO without me. They were gone 2-3 hours.

Tried talking to DH to explain that I feel like I'm not getting enough help and support from him and all he said was 'I gave you a lie in this morning and went out with LO to give you a break and that's you not getting enough help and support?!?'

Um. No. You didn't give me a lie in. I wouldn't wake up. You kept trying to wake me up because we were supposed to go out.

You didn't go out with Lo to specifically give me a break as we were all supposed to be going.

Just infuriated me.

There's so many other little things as well but this is so long already so if you managed to get to the end

I would take his advice now and shhhhhh. You've told him what needs to happen and that he needs to step up a lot. Watch and see what he does. It looks to me like he's on the path to being separated from another child. If he doesn't make significant changes now, you should leave. He really is a lazy disrespectful twat. The sausage and chips....what can I say. Also, don't marry him unless you see a sustained improvement for a year or two. Otherwise you'll just end up paying him off when you finally get round to accepting that this is who he is.

I don't agree with the advice to write him off because he's being shit, both men and women sometimes are shit and this is often fixable. Falling silent because you've asked is cutting off your nose to spite your face, you will just achieve nothing and breed resentment. You fall silent when you have really got through and a satisfactory compromise has been reached.

You need to be explicit about the fact you need at least one day and night off every week, just as hee does, and remind him that for all he wants to switch off after work, you are never getting to do that because as low level as sahp might be from hour to hour compared to actually going to work, there is no set time that it ends you are on duty 24 hours. At 3am you are still on the clock, day in, day out.

If he loves you, it is more than possible you can get things to a better level than you're at now but you might have to be boldly explicit about it.

Now I'm in the doghouse because I screwed up in regards to night feeds

How??

@Lollypop701 I didn't wake up quick enough.

It was the 4am feed. I don't know how long LO had been crying for. All I recall is DP getting up, making a bottle and starting to feed LO. I woke up and tried to take over so DP could go back to sleep. He got all shitty and said there was no point as he was awake now. Eventually I took over and asked what his problem was and he said he was angry and left the room.

This morning before he left for work he was decidedly frosty toward me.

He has now sent me a text apologising so

Anger is a strong emotion. Does he have any additional reason other than being woken up. Is he suffering from depression? Are there any health issues, mental health issues, sleep deprivation on his part?

@Italiangreyhound not that I'm aware.

I can probably see it being because he had to get up.

I know the pure rage I have felt night after night getting up with LO and watching my partner lay there soundlessly asleep. Actually a couple of times in the first few weeks I was rather petty but in my anger at watching him sleep peacefully, on a few occasions I was lot louder than I needed to be when I woke up to do the feeds because I wanted to wake him up because I was jealous that he was sleeping.

So, he heard lo crying for ages, so long he felt he could be angry at you for it, yet chose not to Meet the baby’s needs? Wtaf?!

He is selfish and decided to punish you for not attending to his want for sleep. Instead your body attended to its need. A good partner would not act this way. They would recognise you need sleep too.

This man is a poor partner. He may apologise but i suspect he will continue to do this until the punishing frosty or silent treatment does its job and you make his wants paramount..

The fact that he would put his want for sleep over your need for it and your baby's need for attention is disgraceful. Tread carefully in listening to his moans as i suspect you will be blamed again tonight 'sorry i snapped but i need sleep and you should have got up' a false apology. You need to be frank and honest and he needs to step up and act as a decent partner and father should.

@C0untDucku1a I don't know how long LO had been crying for but DP did get up and was feeding LO when I woke up. I tried to take over and he got all shitty and told me not to bother has he was up now. I did eventually take over from him and that's when he told me he was angry and walked off.

@Weepingangels I suspect you're right about the false apology.

When he did get up and start feeding LO in the night when I didn't wake up he did say something like 'it's fine, I've only got to go to work tomorrow.' I totally got the sarcasm and the dig from that.

I imagine if it does come up again when he gets home tonight it will be something along the lines of 'I'm sorry I snapped but you really need to start getting up quicker because I have to sleep for work.' Etc.

What will you do in response hersandhis? It may be best to prepare yourself for this response and have in mind your ideal outcome.

He is being quite an arse.

Op you are in charge of keeping a whole other person safe and well. While I’m sure his job is important to him, unless he works for an emergency service I’m sure he can cope with a little less sleep. You on the other hand need to be alert to be able to look after your child.

he sounds like an asshole
move baby back into your room, right next to the bed ( fuck him and his sleep) get a nappy change station right there too, so when baby wakes up you roll over turn on the bottle heater, get baby out of the cot/bassinet change baby's bum, give bottle, pop baby back in the cot roll over and go to sleep, if he doesn't like it he can go sleep on the couch
Leave all house work, if it doesn't get done too bad its not the end of the world. sleep when baby sleeps for a few days ignore everything just get some much needed sleep and ignore him too ( unless he starts to pull his weight that is)

@Cloudyapples I suppose you could say he does need to be alert and up to date on sleep for his job. It's not emergency services or anything but he does major repairs to cars and if he's over tired or not alert, lacks concentration or whatever one error could potentially cause a serious accident. He could potentially hurt himself or worse if he makes an error or something and then someone drives away in their car it could be very dangerous so he does definitely need to be on the ball which is precisely why I said I'd do all the nightfeeds on his working days but last night for whatever reason I just didn't wake up

her my DH worked in a plant in which a mistake could end up releasing toxic sludge into the water supply. He managed to not contaminate the drinking water after the occasional loss of sleep. And think of all the parents who return to work before their LO is sleeping through the night who don't have the luxury of a SAHP to get up for night feeds. Heck, DS2 was still waking once per night when I returned to work. He was EBF so it was up to me and I managed.

I'll bet if your DH had lost sleep because he was watching sports or meeting friends his attitude would be 'Oh, it's a one off, no big deal". Hell, we've all managed with the occasional loss of sleep when what we've lost sleep over is 'worth it'. Apparently feeding his own child on an occasion isn't 'worth' losing sleep. I'm not saying he should be doing 50/50 since you aren't working, but he needs to man up and stop acting like a jerk.

@AcrossthePond55 Yeah I see what you're saying. The occasional night here and there when I struggle to wake up isn't going to be a problem.

I'm certainly looking forward to him doing the nightfeeds on Friday and Saturday this week like he promised. Especially as he's got a leaving do for a colleague Thursday night after work which means I won't even get my usual hour or two break when he looks after LO in the evening.

Why did you get up to take over? I’d have been oh brilliant thank you I’m so tired i cant function. When it comes up in discussion your response is I’ve told you how tired I am. I can’t function at this level and you need to do more. Once you are taking a weekend night as discussed it shouldn’t happen again unless baby’s sleep is really bad. I didn’t sleep through intentionally , HOW DARE YOU Think I would make my baby suffer?

When my son was young, from Sunday - Thursday nights my then-husband got up if the baby woke up before 3am, and I got up if he woke up after 3am.
Then on Friday and Saturday nights we alternated so that, ideally, we both got one lie-in at the weekend.

That way, we both got some (hopefully) uninterrupted sleep, and he had a minimum of 5hrs sleep before he had to get up for work

If I could go back to when DD was a baby, I would have insisted on DH waking up with the baby one night/day at the weekend.

I asked him and he refused. ..saying I was on mat leave and the weekend was for him to rest.

The me of today would have given an ultimatum or I would have left. Then he'd have had more than one day a week to wake up.

Sleep in another room and he'll have to wake up and feed the baby.

Getting really sick of him annoying me now. Seems like every bloody day he does at least one thing that pisses me off.

Perhaps if he hadn’t let you do everything until you were literally on your knees with exhaustion you’d have heard the baby crying.
He just doesn’t get it does he?

He sounds useless but has possibly been allowed to be.

Time to spell out exactly what he needs to do now.
Friday or Saturday night he's in charge.
One night a week he makes dinner.
He puts all the bins out and replaces with liner.
He cleans the bathroom once a week.
He vacuums and polishes once a week.

Type thing anyway. Write a list so he can refer back to it.

He will cough and splutter no doubt initially but he's a big boy so I'm sure he will get over it.

Do it OP 👍

He's actually just said to me that he is going to start confiscating my phone when he gets home from work. Worst thing is, he has said this in front of his children.

I'd confiscate his balls.