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AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

Original poster

AIBU... DH "needs 8 hours sleep", 2 week old baby

269 replies

Aw12345 · 21/08/2018 08:38

AIBU?

My MIL has convinced my DH that he should sleep in the spare room to ensure he gets 8 hours uninterrupted sleep every night because he has work.

This has annoyed me because obviously DH has taken this straight to heart and doesn't help me at all with DS (2 weeks old) overnight anymore. We have never discussed this and it annoys me that DH wants all the benefits of a baby without the drawbacks (mainly sleepless nights).

He does not have a demanding job and his work place are very child friendly.

AIBU? I'm seriously annoyed!!!

OP posts:
LeftRightCentre · 21/08/2018 09:14

He's pisstaking! Nip this shit in the bud. 'We need to talk. First of all, I'm your wife and the mother of your child, not your mum. Also, it's 2018, not 1950. We had this child together with the understanding we'd parent him together. Parenting isn't helping, it's what you signed up for because I didn't agree to have a child with a sexist. So we need to discuss how to divide up the parenting and lifework fairly, because this isn't working.

Bollocks about his sleep. He works from home! He's pisstaking.

DameSylvieKrin · 21/08/2018 09:15

I've been working from home for medical reasons and if your DH's job is computer based like mine it is the easiest thing in the world to have the baby asleep in the sling while you do low stakes stuff like answer e-mails and let the other parent sleep for a couple of hours.
When I was still going to the office, it was totally a break from baby stuff. Drinking coffee while it's still hot! Adult conversation! A meal in the canteen that you don't have to cook with a baby in one hand.

Guienne · 21/08/2018 09:15

Also, the MIL is a red herring here. She doesn't understand modern parenthood

It's not an issue around modern parenthood. My DH did his fair share of night care over 30 years ago, and he wasn't in any way unusual. Why do people on here constantly assume that anyone over 50 was bringing up their children in the 1950s?

arranfan · 21/08/2018 09:15

My DH is the same. He can’t possibly get up at night because he has to drive 35 minutes to work on a busy motorway, and apparently even waking up once during the night will make his commute dangerous

Do some men literally never talk to their friends or other men with children to find out how they cope? Or do they genuinely believe that no father ever needs to tolerate disrupted sleep?

ZigZagZebras · 21/08/2018 09:16

Do you have more than one DC?
Our set up for night time is I get up with 9 month old (3-5 times but breastfeeds and doesn't take long) and DP gets up if nearly 2 year old wakes (about once or twice a month).

DP always starts out in our bed but if DS wakes him up he tends to move to the sofa so he doesn't get woken more than once, but he usually sleeps through DS waking up.

At weekends he let's me sleep in until 8/9ish on saturday.

Bella898 · 21/08/2018 09:16

Mine is 9 wks old. DH puts her down to bed, then I do the rest of the night. He sometimes does the 5am one too, which gives me 2hrs before he leaves for work.

MingeUterusMingeMingeYoni · 21/08/2018 09:17

Perfectly reasonable to feel bitter. You both have a job to do the next day, so the idea that he needs sleep because he's the worker is nonsensical. And his activities the next day aren't more important than yours. Additionally, only one of you is recovering from pregnancy and birth.

Granted, if you're ebf that limits what he can do overnight. You may need to spell out to him exactly what can be done and what you expect. After all, quite often the winding, changing if needed and settling takes longer than the actual feed itself.

HushabyeMountainGoat · 21/08/2018 09:17

I'm not sure I could be with a man who was quite happy to lie in a nice warm bed while his wife had night after night of broken sleep for potentially years.

apriljune12 · 21/08/2018 09:17

It really is all about what he does evenings and weekends op. He doesn’t need 8 hours Fri/sat!!!! He should be holding the fort then and the lions share of shopping/cooking/cleaning etc

Does he do that?

ZanyMobster · 21/08/2018 09:19

I do agree it's fine to do the nights if DH is working as a rule however if you are up 7 or 8 times a night you get a to a point where you can't function. One or two wakings shouldn't be an issue as long as he takes over at weekends. We had a day each to sleep in at a weekend, it made such a difference.

MairyHole · 21/08/2018 09:20

Guienne, because among the people I know your husband was the exception not the norm. Now among the people I know he'd be the norm and not the exception. Even then, I said nothing about the 1950s, just that OP's MIL doesn't understand modern parenthood. Which she obviously doesn't, no matter when you think modern parenthood began.

DontDribbleOnTheCarpet · 21/08/2018 09:23

I still shudder when I think of those first few weeks with my first baby. He had colic as well, to make it worse.

Do you think your husband (who is definitely being an arse, by the way) could be persuaded to take the baby for a couple of hours in the evening, so you could have some sleep? I ebf all four of mine and the resentment about it always having to be you can really eat you up. I found that if we did that, I could cope much more easily with the night waking. My husband did heavy manual work and did get up in the night when needed, but obviously most of it had to be done by me. He managed just fine and never crashed his lorry or buried a customer in cement.

I'm sure it won't help much, but do try to remember that this all gets much easier, the first few weeks are by far the worst part.

OwlinaTree · 21/08/2018 09:24

Why would he be getting up at night if you are breastfeeding?

Verbena87 · 21/08/2018 09:24

As he’s initially been great, then changed at the suggestion of his mum, I would point out to him that it’s difficult that he’s choosing to conform to the expectations of his mother who he doesn’t live with or have a direct impact on, rather than the needs of his wife and baby who are his next of kin and are directly affected by his choices.

Once I was recovered from the birth enough to move around comfortably and be useful (took about a month) I did night feeds and nappies by myself, but DH stayed in with us and would take baby when he woke around 6am and take him out in the sling for an hour so I could actually sleep, then bring up hungry baby for milk and go and get a big bowl of breakfast and a brew for hungry mum to have in bed. Can he do this in lieu of nights? Then he’s up and ready to start work early, can finish earlier and give you some time off to have a bath/walk/do some yoga/see a friend/drink tea and stare at the wall in silence until you feel human/have a nap before the evening cluster feeding kicks in?

He’s been great initially so he can do it again - it’s all new for men as well and some people don’t handle change at all well and need a bit of a reminder that they’re a responsible adult in a committed partnership and need to behave accordingly. I think it can be mended with some explaining.

Also cosleeping is still a total sanity and sleep saver for us. Makes a huge difference being able to stay horizontal overnight!!

Good luck. The newborn bit is really tough and a bit thankless: it gets loads easier. Flowers

3stonedown · 21/08/2018 09:25

I let my DP sleep 8 hours when DD was a newborn on working days because he drives a lorry all day. He helped at weekends and even then that 8 hours wasn't uninterrupted, that wasn't possible with us all in the same room. If he was working from home there would be no way that happened.

What would he say if you suggested he went to bed at 8pm and did all the baby work from 4am til 8/9am to you can catch up on some sleep. Still not 100% fair on your side but something

BigSandyBalls2015 · 21/08/2018 09:25

If my dad had still been alive he'd be 90 now and he was more hands on than this with me and my siblings when we were tiny.

BigBlueBubble · 21/08/2018 09:25

BigBlueBubble What about weekends? Does he batch cook in the evenings? Clean etc
Sorry don’t want to pinch OP’s thread. When my DH comes home from work he wants to play Dad so he takes the baby while I cook (so still no break). Then after dinner the baby is my responsibility again. At weekends he gets angry if I ask him to take the baby and let me rest, and says passive aggressive things like “Come on DS your mother doesn’t want you”. So I’ve stopped asking him. He will do other stuff like cleaning etc. When I suggest he does more childcare he says fine, you do more cleaning and going to work then. I have given up - I just hate him. It isn’t a good situation for OP to end up in.

apriljune12 · 21/08/2018 09:26

its 2018 not 1950

Errr how old do you think mil is? My mother wasn’t a mother in 1950 and she’s 86!

I was a mil at 48!

It’s bugger all to do with age. My dh stepped up to the plate in the far far away 80s/90s...

Don’t blame the mil here it’s up to the dh to step up not another woman’s fault

Mamababynumber2 · 21/08/2018 09:26

YANBU
He may need his 8 hours sleep but so do you because you are responsible for a child the next day. You are no good to the baby if you are exhausted. You are just as important as him and going to work he gets a break whereas you do not get a break. In essence you are on call the entire time whilst he gets 8 hours sleep and gets out of the house in the day.

I find it unbelievable that in this day and age we haven't got past this idea that the woman is at home so should do all the night care for the baby.

I'd be telling him he needs to do a feed in the night because you too have to be up in the morning.

53rdWay · 21/08/2018 09:27

Flowers BigBlue. That’s shit.

Dismalweathertoday · 21/08/2018 09:27

**Not only is staying at home with a baby exhausting, at extreme levels of tiredness you will be unable to safely take care of him or her.

This. I've experienced being overtired to the point of hallucinating at work and I've experienced being overtired to the point of hallucinating whilst in charge of a newborn. Unless your job involves operating heavy machinery or doing surgery, being too exhausted to function whilst solely responsible for a tiny baby is scarier. At one of my baby groups, most of us confessed to accidents or near-accidents due to overtiredness, mostly involving unplanned accidental co-sleeping in unsafe situations or tripping whilst carrying the baby.

apriljune12 · 21/08/2018 09:28

BigBlueBubble

So sorry love Sad baby won’t be small for ever and you will have options xx

QueenAravisOfArchenland · 21/08/2018 09:28

YANBU and he is an arse.

Both of mine have been EBF and co-slept in the newborn days. DH has generally slept in the spare room for the first 12 weeks or so with both, but nonetheless he has always:

  • sat up with the baby until midnight or 1am while I went to bed at 8, then brought me the baby when he went to sleep;
  • got up with baby and taken them for a long walk first thing so I could sleep;
  • done the occasional complete overnight and given expressed milk in bottles so I could just wake up to pump once
  • with #2, done all the attending to our older child at night.

This worked for us because I didn't really have to do settling at night and preferred him to do more in the daytime and evening, but critically that was my choice and there was none of this bullshit about him needing his 8 hours. You need to tackle this directly, because the resentment can kill a relationship.

CurlyWurlyTwirly · 21/08/2018 09:28

Well if he insists on 8 hours sleep.and has no commute, he can go to be at 10am, get up at 6am and have the baby till he "starts work" at 9am.
He should also have time to.make breakfast for you; lunch during his lunch hour and start dinner / do housework when he finishes work.
MIL should butt out about her.own.big baby....

ChimesAtMidnight · 21/08/2018 09:28

It's not an issue around modern parenthood. My DH did his fair share of night care over 30 years ago, and he wasn't in any way unusual. Why do people on here constantly assume that anyone over 50 was bringing up their children in the 1950s?

Oh yes this..... Except the fifties part.....I grew up in the fifties and my dad took on a lot of night duties when my youngest sibling was born. Mum had thrombosis and wasn't allowed out of bed for a month. My grandmother arrived early every morning in time for dad to go to work.