Dividing the workload with a new baby

[PirateWeasel]

I'm just a few weeks off giving birth to my first baby, and I'm really torn about the best way of splitting the workload of caring for the newborn, running the house etc. once DH goes back to work after paternity leave. As he works rotating shifts doing a job where he needs to have his wits about him for his own safety, part of me is inclined to 'let him off' getting up in the night with the baby so that he can be awake enough to concentrate and not get hurt. But is that a precedent I really don't want to set? Am I going to go insane if I take all that on myself? DH does come from quite an old-fashioned home where wife = everything baby/cooking/laundry related, and husband = gardening/maintenance/heavy lifting, etc. But TBF he's very good at taking the initiative with stuff like cleaning and grocery shopping. I want to be fair to him and set reasonable expectations, but I don't want to create a rod for my own back later on or perpetuate an outdated stereotype. Please send advice! How have other couples divided things up so that everyone is happy?

How have other couples divided things up so that everyone is happy?

Thats never actually happened

You'll have to suck and see really depending on what kind of baby you get and if you bf etc

Personally, I don't think there's anything gained if both parents are on their knees so if you will be up BF then not much point getting him up too.

With DS, Once I'd got bf established and could express, DH would do an 11/12 feed so I could go to bed about 8pm - 3am then I'd doze between morning feeds - not really getting up until 11am if it had been a bad night.

With DD she would cluster feed from 5pm - midnight (!!!) so DH would go to bed early then take her from 5/6am to let me get a good uninterrupted chunk at that end of the night instead.

Re housework etc just do what you can but have a chat with OH now to make sure he understands that 'days off' don't really exist once baby is here as both of you will be mucking in to get everything done!

Exdp drove for his job, a lorry, so it was essential that he had sleep (not just for him but for every other road user), so I done all night feeds.
However as soon as he came home, he would pick up my ds from school, then come home and take the baby off me. He would do all changes, feeds, play with him, bath him, take him for a walk and anything else.
After his last feed and he went down, he would do anything that needed doing- emptying the washing machine, fold the laundry, wash up etc. He also done all the ironing.
I done the night feeds, getting both ready in the morning and the school run. Dusted and hoovered. Done the washing and all the cooking, and done all the food shopping (pre on line deliveries!!).
That was how we split things, and it worked for us. We did not intentionally set out like this, we just fell into it.

Ours isn't split.

I work part time, do everything child related, all housework, life admin, DIY, taking bins out, car maintenance, cooking, everything.

He's tired because he goes to work.

I did all the night stuff for the first year. I was breastfeeding so not made sense. My dh helped before he went to work (got up earlier to take the baby so I could nap) and after work. It still wasn't ’even’ but it helped. It didn't set a precedent for night waking, once I stopped breastfeeding after a year my dh got up on the night too to settle lo. Granted he wasn't waking that much but now when he does we share it, if anything dh gets up more than me. I think if you seek an even split you might be setting yourself up for disappointment, most of my friends (and myself included) did more in the early months / first year in terms of childcare but general support and help around the house goes a long way to helping feel less resentful. It's a tricky time to navigate as a couple but lots of communication would be my advice. You also need to constantly review the situation because things change frequently with a baby. Try not to get I to petty tit for tat stuff though. I have a friend who breastfed but would insist her dh got up with her because she didn't think it was fair that he got to sleep. It just resulted in two super tired people and if she’d let him rest at night then he would have been more helpful when he was home from work and she could have rested more then.

Just play it by ear. Much depends on how you feed. I've always breastfed so did the nights, but coslept so it was easy. As they got older dh would muck in if they stirred and could be placated without milk. Like last night, we were both up for hours with the 10 month old because he wasn't feeling well and we took it in turns .

I've always done th majority of household stuff as I was around more, but it is 50/50 when he's here. He does bedtime for the older kids (8 and 6), most stuff at weekends, the garden etc. His job isn't physically tough but is full on mentally qnd fairly high powered, but he's always been totally hands on at home. We both worked part time around each other for a few years when the older kids were younger.

Take it in turns for a lie in at weekends.

But when you are not working I would expect to do the majority of night work and home stuff.

I also exclusively breastfed (not through choice - baby was a total bottle refuser annoyingly) and it's fine doing all the night feeds as long as your DH steps up and does the housework/ cooking as well as making sure you get lie-ins and naps when he is home. Plus DS used to wake up annoyingly early so often I'd feed then hand DS to DH and grab an extra hour or so before DH had to get ready for work.
My friend had a good system if you are able to use bottles - she'd go to bed early, let her DH do the last bottle and bedtime routine, she'd take over for the night feeds but her DH would do the first early morning feed (around 5.30am) before work. So she got 2 good chunks of sleep and her DH got a solid block in the middle.
What doesn't work is expecting you to do all night feeds, get no lie-ins or naps and keep the household spick and span with a hot meal on the table every night. A frank conversation about expectations is definitely a good idea.

You just have to see how things work out. For the first couple of months my husband would often look after the baby for the evening whilst I got some sleep then I would take over. I would express milk to help him to do this. But after the first couple of months I pretty much just took over doing everything and always have done the main bit of the nights as I bf. I bf and co slept from early on to help me cope and meant it wouldn't have made sense to disrupt husband's sleep when I could do that.

Husband would give me lie ins at weekends and take the baby out etc. I also napped with the baby when I needed to. My husband wouldn't have been able to nap whilst at work!

I was bf so ultimately it was me up in the night- sometimes I was so exhausted though, I’d wake my DH and ask him to get up change DDs nappy and bringher back for a feed.
He cleaned the house for visitors whilst I rested in the first few weeks and did the food shop- he didn’t think to do any washing or ironing so that mounted up.
If you plan on bf’ing make sure your DH is aware how draining it is, how you aren’t just sitting round (other posts women say their husbands think this) and how he needs to ensure u are well fed and watered.

Yep agree

Yep agree - we had a cleaner and husband did most of the cooking. Never any pressure from him to do any more housework than I could manage.

In retrospect, I realise DH must have been exhausted after the birth of DC1. She was in our room and feeding every couple of hours so, whilst he wasn't involved in the feeds, was undoubtedly disturbed, did what he could in the morning (putting a load of washing on, bringing me a cup of tea or breakfast), went off to a fairly stressful, intense job for 8 hours and tried to get out as close to his official finish time as possible when he'd usually be there for at least an extra hour or two, get home & be handed DD whilst I went for a bath before the great cluster feeding marathon began during which time he'd make numerous cups of tea for me, cook dinner, clear up the kitchen, quite possibly sort out the dishwasher or washing machine and then try & settle DD whilst I went off to bed ready for it all to begin again. I was still more exhausted but at least I only had to sit on my backside all day feeding DD and generally doing whatever else was necessary to keep her alive whilst DH had to make some quite major decisions involving £££, people's livelihoods etc.

As other posters have said you'll have to wait and see what works for you. For us, we have a baby with colic & reflux so for the first 6 wks she woke crying every 20 minutes right through the day and night. It was pure torture and I don't think any one person could do any more than one night like that. It's a bit of a blur but I'd do several feeds a night until I could barely see, and then he'd do the next few, and then we'd swap again.
Now she's much more settled (10 wks) so like other posters, he puts her down to bed and feeds her at 8pm, and again at 11pm. I try to sleep from then until 3am, and do that one and the 5am. He does the 7am while I snooze and then he leaves for work.
We're trying to get the hang of weekends but I think he'll start doing Friday nights too.

*forgot to say that she's formula fed

IME (two babies with two partners) it's absolutely an attitude thing rather than being any set formula of who does what. If your partner sees the baby as your responsibility/job/project and anything he does as "helping" then it won't feel equal. He'll feel he's doing too much and you'll feel he's doing too little.

OTOH if you approach the baby and house stuff as a shared responsibility and in addition look out for each other, taking the approach of doing what you can and asking the other for what you need, keep checking in with each other etc then it's likely to feel much more equal and fair.

Once paternity was over i did all the night feeds as breastfeeding just made more sense. I was lucky that my DH work shift didnt start to 12 noon/3pm so I would then get a couple of hours catch up.

He took care of all housework for the first 6 weeks (with help from my mum and aunty) after that for the bulk of maternity I did it all and the house had never been tidied until toddler was crawling and getting into things.

We still had arguments about who was more tired but they were minor.

I found the hardest adjustment was the housework divide after returning to work. Maternity was a dream compared to that.

I found the hardest adjustment was the housework divide after returning to work. Maternity was a dream compared to that.
Preach!!!! Never a truer statement made

I think it's important to both muck in with everything as much as possible (obviously not breast feeding) as otherwise you get that annoying situation where your partner turns to you and says 'where do we keep the X...' or 'it's easier if you do Y because you've always done it'. No! No-one knows what they're doing with a new baby and having given birth to it doesn't give you a magical ability to know where the wipes are stored, what needs to go in a changing bag or whatever. Also, as long as your partner isn't doing things in an unsafe way then let them get on with it in their own way, even if it's different to yours.

We did a lot of schedules on whiteboards and rotas as it saved arguing when tired.

But as lots of PP have said it does depend a lot on the baby. Ours was pretty easy. Friends had babies who couldn't be put down, barely stopped crying or who fed every hour. Although, our DD is an extremely stroppy 5 year old, so swings and roundabouts!

There is lots he can do, without getting him up in the night for feedings (which I think would be very hard if he might then endanger himself/others at work from tiredness). If you are breast feeding supplying you with healthy tasty meals and lots of cups of tea, grocery shopping, ensuring changing area is stocked with nappies/wipes, taking bins out, cleaning, laundry loads, admin for insurance/passport/registrations etc.

I’m not sure you can plan ahead though - you might need to see what kind of baby you have, and what makes sense then.

Folks, all this advice is amazing, thank you! I'm feeling a lot better about it all now. Sounds like the best thing to do is have a good chat now before the Bean arrives and then play it by ear afterwards until we've got into our zone. I'm sure there will be exhausted tears and arguments at some point but hopefully we can keep them to a minimum. If only you could bank sleep in advance, lol!

I have always done all nights with my 2 year old even though I’m back at work (for ages now). It’s because I’m BF and for me to get baby/ toddler back to sleep between sleep cycles took less time than DP having to get up and pace around the house for hours.
He used to then get up with the baby early on weekends and just bring to me for feeds as I’d have a lie in. Not really possible now the 2 year old will insist on everyone getting up to play! But at this age it’s easy anyway to get “me time” away - gym classes etc.

Never divided tasks, although in practice I did all nights and still 50%+ of days on weekends of baby duty because of Bf and DP did about 90% of cooking even on weekdays when home from work and the majority of house work! Always basically did a divide and conquer approach and whoever had the most energy did what they could. I don’t like keeping a strict tally.

DT’s were formula fed and I had six months maternity leave before going back to work full time. DH is a doctor but we were both doing the night feedings as it was quicker to schedule their feeds for the same time so either of us got much sleep for about eight months when they are started sleeping better. We had a brilliant cleaner who came twice a week and basically kept the house operational. We don’t have any family in the Uk but both my DM and DMil both came over for several weeks in the early days to help and enable us to get some sleep.

This is how we divided it (formula feeding) -
Dh got up night feeding when he was off the following day. I did all the nights he was working next day. Whoever did the night feeds went to bed about 9pm. The sleep througher did an 11pm feed then put baby down and earplugs in.

On dhs working days he would get up at 6am with dd, feed and change her whilst getting himself ready for work then put her back down to sleep before going to work. Dd and I would then wake together aroind 9am. This lasted about 3m. Once she was 3mo he would wake me before leaving.

Evenings dh would come home and we would sit and talk about our day with a brew and dd. Then he would take her off for a bath and bottle and Id make dinner.

We would take turns putting her down; then ear dinner together.

Housework - id do dishes/surface cleaning/1 load laundry in the day in addition to making sure there was stuff in for dinner. Saturday am dh would do an hour or two of vacuuming/car cleaning/garden.

Is it too late to sign him up for a couple of month's parental leave in place of your last few months' maternity? IMO by far the best way to get men to step up is for them to experience how much work a baby is. Otherwise he'll think you're sat at home with hours and hours of free time.

It would also mean that any precedent he sets in your mat leave can be turned back on him in his parental leave.

@LannieDuck OMG I'd love to, but he's not eligible at his work. Meh. So he gets two weeks paternity and then whatever holiday he can take during the year. Love that idea though. I might leave him in charge one weekend though when I'm feeling confident, and run away to a spa with a friend!