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fair to him and set reasonable expectations, but I don't want to create a rod for my own back later on or perpetuate an outdated stereotype.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?

While my DH was on paternity he woke with me each night to keep me company while I Bf ! What a stupid idiot I was , we were both completely knackered !!
So when he went back to work I co slept and kicked him onto the sofa so I sort of did night and he did days. When my lo woke at 4 my DH would take him downstairs so I had 3 hours sleep , then I'd come down when he went to work and when he came home he did the bath ect while I cleaned up ... and on a weeeknd he did days and I did night and he just woke me up to feed him.
I will say my DS has only just started sleeping through at 16 months so ya know , we both went a little insane

Make sure you get it agreed up front what DH will be doing. I naievely expected DH to do 50% at least. However, in his head he now had a housewife so 100% of running the house and the baby were my responsibilities as he went to work for a whole 8 hours a day and was tired (I was BFing so did all the night feeds). DH gave a bottle of expressed milk at 11pm so I could get a 3/4 hour chunk of sleep.

I was on my knees as I was effectivenly working a 20 hour day 7 days a week. I saw a solicitor when DD was 8 weeks old

How is it split now?

So you do all the stuff inside the house? If so let him know that it needs to change. Not for one minute does the stuff outside the house (gardening) take as much time up.

Nights. Well if your breastfeeding then I really don’t see the point in waking the other person up.

On thing I would be clear on is that baby’s tend to cluster feed in the early evening so he’ll need to be coming home and sorting dinner out for you both

Oh aswell now we are nothing working full time we both do 50/50 so one of us plays while the other does housework, then we both play then we swap, meaning we both get time with our LO and both can get organised x