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

[Aw12345]

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!!!

...and he works from home. Jesus wept.

Tell Mummy’s Boy that this stops NOW.

Remind him it’s YOU he’s married to, it’s YOU he’s had a baby with, it’s YOU he’s living with...what Mummy thinks is irrelevant.

Don’t let it continue because the resentment will grow and grow until you no longer want to be with him.

It’s a shock to find out you’re with someone so different to who you thought they were...I’d tell him that too, because this isn’t just about sleep. It’s about his whole selfish attitude. About his attitude to raising a child.

After about the first 10 days or so I started doing the nights on my own to get used to it before DH returned to work, but he would stay up with the baby until midnight or so every night so I could get some good sleep in first. I was bf but would bf her to sleep and then hand her over and he would sit very still watching tv until she woke up for the next feed!

Now dd is 7 months, I do the night wakes and he gets up once she's awake for the day, which this morning was 5.30. I think I definitely had more sleep overall last night because of only 1 night wake up and how early she woke up. Other nights she wakes up loads overnight and only wakes up for the day just before he goes to work so he gets more sleep.

You're a team so YANBU to expect him to pull his weight and a full 8 hours sleep is a ridiculous expectation with a 2 week old. Maybe he could get a 6 hour sleep and take charge of the first few hours and the last few hours so you can get some sleep in those hours. Safely co-sleeping on the worst nights is always the best option for us too.

He works from home? He's having a laugh.

My ExH said the same and i stupidly went along. For nine months i slept with a baby with apnea and a breathing alarm constantly going off and a four year old (Ex slept in her bed) who woke when the baby woke. But it was OK as ex got his 8 hours.

I set the tone for our parenting relationship, i did all t9be hsrd work. He got the fun. I fell asleep at traffic lights, in work carpark etc.

I didnt sleep more than one and half hours in a block (generally 5 hours max as a luxery) until DS had an operation at 3. I was working full time, doing all nursery drop offs and commuting.

Buy its ok, Ex got his 8 hours and was safe on his 25 minute train commute.

He works from home in a non-demanding job with child-friendly employers. He is absolutely taking the piss.

Call him on this now, OP, because if it continues you’ll end up knackered, quite possibly looking after an infant while your brain is muddled with huge sleep deprivation to the point it’s dangerous, and resenting the hell out of him.

Also if you’re planning to go back to work yourself after mat leave, odds are you are still going to be doing 100% of the night-time parenting while he gets his 8 hours sleep.

I had a baby that screamed all night, I breast fed, I told DH he should sleep in the spare room as he needed to go to work in the morning and I could sleep late and have naps. If a baby is breast fed I don't think there's much dad can do so my view is they might as well sleep so at least one of you is well rested the next day.

If he's at work and you're at home, him not doing the night feeds in the week is fair enough if your baby is FF. However, you should get a break at the weekend so you can get a couple of full nights sleep yourself.

Thankfully, hopefully, these few weeks with a newborn being up all night are short lived, so hang on in there.

MIL should keep her beak out, suggesting spare room sleeping, CF.

I can see the reasoning behind "there's no point in the both being tired" & that if Op is bfeeding there's not much he can do.

Mine had a shitty commute-A52 anyone?

So I told them to sleep in the spare room if they wanted.

They didn't & tbh was a fairly heavy sleeper & rarely woken by the baby or if woken got back to sleep easily.

And for me it was comforting just having them there whilst I was awake & feeding.

I was lucky as I also slept in the day when the baby did.

Would sometimes go to bed at 7 & sleep until 10.

Whatever I could to get some unbroken hours.

If a baby is breast fed I don't think there's much dad can do

The very least he can do is sit up with baby in the evenings until say midnight while mum gets an early night though, perhaps giving a bottle-feed of expressed milk if parents have chosen to give one or mum is particularly exhausted and making sure baby has a fresh nappy when they do go upstairs. My DH has walked circles around our living room with baby DS in a sling until the small hours on nights he was very cranky. Yes, feeding is a massive part of caring for a breastfed newborn, but it isn't everything.

He's taking the absolute piss. He's not helping because he doesn't want to, and your MIL gave him a "good" reason.

Reading some of these posts on mumsnet make me so grateful for DP. He has never shied away from doing the nightime routine. In the past, he's held DS all night so I could sleep.

MIL needs to butt out.

I'd keep doing nights, but get a few hours' sleep in before the cluster feeding starts and in the morning, he needs to take the baby for a while so you can lie in. I personally also starting DD on one bottle of formula at 6 weeks or so, once my supply had evened out, so DH could do the 10pm bottle and I could sleep 8pm - 2am. Highly recommended.

For a bit of perspective... DD is now 11 months. Sleeps through, bar teething etc. DH in demanding job. I wake up with her at 5.30/6am, feed her, play with her. DH wakes up at 7.30/8am so he has her for an hour or so before work, so I can do my own thing. On weekends he wakes up early with her.

He needs to step up and be a parent more than he is being a child.

He is using his DM as an excuse to cop out of the work of parenting. Its ridiculous to suggest he can't do any of the night work especially on days he works from home. As you say he can help with changing/settling etc. You need to knock this on the head now, its just bloody laziness.

Its not generational either. My DF who would be 90 now and my DH both knew parenting was their job too, not just a mother's responsibility..

He's not helping because he doesn't want to, and your MIL gave him a "good" reason

This. He isn't five, he is an adult. Don't blame MiL's (admittedly bad) advice for an adult opting out of his share of housework/childcare

I have 3 dc, one is a year old so the sleepless nights are fresh in my mind, I wouldn't be happy with this. If my dh had a particularly full on day at work the next day then he wouldn't help out that night. If he didn't then we shared the night waking. I would be incredibly annoyed if my Mil interfered in how me and dh managed the nights. I would expect dh to discuss the night waking with me and we decide together what ourcplans are and Mil opinions would have no place in that discussion. Navigating the early years while your both learing how to be parents and are both knackered is hard enough anyway so you don't need outside opinions. Sit down with dh and have a conversation about how this makes you feel and come up with a plan together. I wish I understood early on with my first dc how important communication and working as a team with my dh was, instead it took us until dc3 to work that out and it made everything so hard.

I am a GM, not a particularly young one and EBF my children.
My DH got up so much during the night that when my children could speak, and woke during the night, they always shouted Daddy.

All this at 2 weeks old?! You guys should be at a team until at least the baby is in a routine. This is very early days and you need all the help you can get!

He is a parent now and 50% responsible for this child. He needs to grow the fuck up!

If you are BF baby I can't see the point in him getting up too. Can't you ask him to up his help elsewhere e.g. take on more chores/cooking. This was one of factors in my choice to bottle feed - everyone can help out. I know this isn't necessarily the right choice for everyone though. Again this is unpopular on MN but we did a routine and they sleep through from early age, so takes away resentment about sleepless nights as you can both sleep.

However MIL should keep out of it None if her business.

Our baby is 2weeks old too and we talked about how we would manage the nights before the baby arrived and we keep rediscussing it as we are learning what may or may not work. What is working for us so far is for me to feed early evening (EBF) and then go to bed for a few hours and DH brings her up between 10-11pm. He then changes her and he then goes to sleep and I feed and settle her. If she wakes for a short feed I leave him asleep, if she wakes often/won't settle I wake him to help. Generally we are awake for about 1-2hours over the night time period. He the. Gets up for work at 7am, changes her if shes up and then I get on with the day. So we are getting 6-7 hours sleep, sometimes unbroken for him. DH does a desk job and generally is in bed an hour before pee baby so isn't losing out on any sleep albeit broken sleep now. Weekends we just play it by ear. We also take it in turns to sleep next to her crib just as she seems to settle better with him next to her (probably because I smell milky!) Communication is key.

We did shifts at night. Ds stayed with DH from8 - 11ish (he wasn't a cluster feeder) then with me for 5 or 6 hours so DH got a decent block then I got an hour or two first thing while DH had Ds, took him out while walking dogs in carrier etc then brought him back when he went to work, when we often were ready for a nap so I snoozed with him.

Weekend nights, he stayed in room with DS, just bringing him to me for feeds then i'd take him back through and get my head back down.

Your DH is taking the piss. Your MIL is interfering well beyond her remit

If he feels like that he can go back and be in a marriage with his DM fFs

DS(13) was a nightmare sleeper for the first few weeks. He was EBF but would feed hours at a time, then refused to settle. So DH, although working with about 1 hour driving commute, would get up too once I had fed DS, so he would settle him and I could have an hours sleep before the next feed. I don't think I would have lasted those first few months if he hadn't helped out.

I ebf 4 DC. At night DH would change nappies, cot sheets, sleepsuits, do winding/cuddling. He's a lighter sleeper anyway but also knowing he would wake me up when baby needed feeding meant I could switch off and sleep deeply. Sometimes I could be up for over an hour feeding, so being able to hand the baby over once I'd finished so that he could change/burp/put down gave me an extra 30 minutes sleep. That's fair, no?

The issue isn't really the arrangement, as it is reasonable I think for you to do nights if he is the one working.

The issue I think is the interference form MIL which I get the impression runs deeper than just this incident? How is your relationship with her in general?

Yes it’s not so much the night feeding I guess it’s what he’s like evenings and weekends and what else does he do but until op comes back we won’t know.

and can people stop blaming another woman for a mans behaviour choice. Please!!!