To be appalled at how most couples share childcare of a newborn?

[lmcc13]

I’m in a same-sex couple with my wife, together for 7 years and married for 2. We were delighted to add to our family four weeks ago when my wife gave birth to our beautiful baby boy. Becoming a parent, I’ve noticed lots of people (friends, colleagues and strangers) sharing anectdotes about their own parenting experiences. The thing that has shocked me most is how unequally caring for a newborn seems to be shared between the couple. We don’t have any other gay parent friends, so I don’t know if this is different in same-sex partnerships, but amongst straight couples it still seems the norm for the stay at home parent (exclusively mums in our social circle) to do the lion’s share of the work; during the day, in the evening and at night. I keep hearing “well of course if she’s breastfeeding, there’s not much you can do to help” and “well, I have to get up and go to work in the morning”. I find both comments infuriating! My wife is exclusively breastfeeding, and I am now back at work, but the list of things I can contribute towards raising our son is long. I clean and tidy the house, get shopping in, load and unload the dishwasher, change 95% of the nappies when I’m home (including all the night nappy changes), sterilise the breast pump when she expresses...etc etc. I’m up in the night every time the baby cries to change the baby, help my wife into the feeding chair, then later burp the baby and settle him back into his cot. And, like most of our friends and colleagues, I have an office job - I might be tired and incoherent at work occasionally during the day, but I’m not solely responsible for a human life! Unless the working parent drives, operates machinery or cares for others (nurses, teachers etc.) I refuse to believe that they can’t share in the exhaustion too. Very long rant, sorry! I think I’m just a very disappointed feminist to realise that parenthood seemingly transports many women back to be 1950’s. Why are women allowing this to happen, and why aren’t men stepping up more?

Dh and I share the childcare and housework, He’s an amazing hands on dad.
When the dc were very tiny I did the feeding and night waking as I was BF and he did bath time and all the cooking and shopping.
Now they are older I do the laundry and most of the cleaning and he still does the shopping and cooking. It’s not 50/50 as I only work PT and I’m home more but he more than pulls his weight.

You sound just my like DH - he did everything you do and it was wonderful. The easy ride some men get once the baby arrives and the excuses the women make for it can make me cringe sometimes.

My DH wanted to do as much as he could despite working because he knew the baby was just as much his as it was mine.

Good for you OP and congratulations

You’ve had one child for four weeks and now coming on spout about how appalling others’ family arrangements are?

Not content with patting men on the head when they do what they are meant to do and parent, now we're doing it to other women. "Oh well done OP, you get up in the night to your own kid, aren't you great, pat pat".

Give it over.

Well given the woman who has given birth can sleep when the baby sleeps I think it is only fair that the parent who needs to be fresh for work stays asleep at night as much as possible.
There really is no point sitting up while your partner breastfeeds if it means you cannot wake well the next day. Also, tiredness is cumulative, so the less sleep you have the more it will catch up with you.
I am also staunchly feminist but feel that this is a practical issue as opposed to a feminist one.

And YABU for having a feeding chair-totally unnecessary! Much easier to bring baby into bed and latch on, than get up into a chair and then get back into bed. Also, why does she need helping into a chair?

OP isn’t coming back. Having totally cracked this parenting lark in four weeks she’s gone to sort out Brexit for us.

Some women just seem determined to give women a bad name.

I’m still laughing over ‘ helping her get into the feeding chair’!! I’m sure the birth mother must feel this help is invaluable and balances out the cracked nipples.............

All the research shows that same sex couples tend to share the load much more equally, and opposite sex partners rarely do. Of course you get lots of justifications on this thread as to why they could not share the load equally, but in reality it comes down to patriarchy and male domination.

I know I'm a bit late to the party here but... helping your partner to the nursing chair? Really?

When our twins were born DH and I split the nights 4:3 and DH worked a 4 day week. From about 2 months in we would do the night feeds by kneeling in between the ladies' cots and feeding them at the same time while they were lying down. There is no way on God's sweet earth that either of us would have woken the other in the night - you got through the "on" period with loads of caffeine and the expectation of a solid block of sleep to come.

I think people do what works for them. I done all night feeds, dp never done one. Our choice because firstly I was breastfeeding, then when I moved to formula, he had to get up at 4:30am and drive a lorry, so it was in everyone’s interest that he was rested.
However as soon as he was home, he took over the baby, he was besotted. Then once he was down for the night would do the dishes, sort laundry etc.
We fell into a routine that worked for us. Not everyone’s routines work for each other and as long as both partners are happy that’s all that matters.

My husband works 13 hr days and im a SAHM but he still contributes LOADS. He puts my toddler to bed and cooks dinner for us every night. If hes not at work the next morning he takes the newborn into the spare room with him and has her there as long as he can keep her settled then brings her to me for a feed. I have her the rest of the night. Then he gets up with my toddler and makes him breakfast. Then takes the newborn from me and has her so I can have a couple of hours sleep in the morning. He changes about 50% of nappies and he often takes my son out for a walk or to the park so I can get some space. He would take the newborn to but I dont want him to just yet.
He does the washing up and the bins.
To be fair when it comes to other cleaning I do do most of that and most of the washing... but he does his own ironing and he will do whatever cleaning I specifically ask him to do if we have guests coming or whatever.
I keep on top of what we need re food shopping and stuff for the children and usually do an order.. but he will come and help with the shopping if I want to actually go out to get it. He doesnt really pay much attention but he keeps my son entertained!

Id say hes pretty good. I suppose it is a traditional set up because im a SAHM and im a woman but thats because he earns about three times the amount I was earning so it wouldve been insane for him to be the SAHP. Even though I do think hedve actually been quite good at it.

When I read on here about women with newborns who are basically left to it by their partners it does boggle my mind. No way would I have coped with that. I dont know how I would have done it either time without the amount of support my husband gave me. I had PND with my first and quite bad birth injuries and my husband basically did everything while he was on paternity leave bar the breastfeeding. Women who do it all without support must be incredibly strong. Idve gone totally nuts.

congratulations on your baby. I breastfed mine, so yes I got up in the night, DH commute and operating machinery, would have been dangerous if he had been tired, he can sleep through anything and never actually ever heard our DD in the night, he also slept through the BIG STORM, didnt bother me, when I returned to work, I expressed milk, (was working evenings at first)

DH & I 'tag teamed' on household chores and any bottle feeds. He got up in the mornings and brought me a drink & a snack. Either of us would get DD up and I'd bf her whilst DH had his breakfast.
He'd go off to work and I'd do some light chores if need be (washing up, meal prep) but for a good few weeks I was limited as I'd had an EMCS.
When he got home I'd get him a drink & snack and have one myself. Then either he'd entertain DD whilst I made dinner, or I'd sit and rest whilst he cooked. If DD was particularly hungry then he'd give a bottle and I expressed milk so he could do night feeds if necessary.
Nappies too, were a shared "joy"
At times we were both knackered but we tried to work it out so we balanced his having to go to work with not leaving all the work to me.

Congratulations on your new baby OP!

But I’m afraid your post has irritated me. Concentrate on doing what works for you and your partner, but please don’t make judgements about other people’s parenting methods. Especially after 4 weeks!

It's overwhelming having a newborn and it can change things you weren't expecting, including the way you look at the wider world. Perhaps your friends' relationships were always quite conventional but you didn't notice til now, or the baby gives you a new reason to really make sure you're living according to your feminist beliefs and that bit of brain is gearing up?

I've known quite a few people say that 12 weeks is a bit of a turning point in terms of getting a routine going and things being a bit less overwhelming with the baby, but also possibly with the whole "making sense of the world again" thing.

Ignore the pile-on about getting up at night, do what works for you and your wife, I remember feeling sad at nights because it was harder than I'd thought to establish breast-feeding, and needing a bit of help from DH.

My DH always cheerfully does as much as he can and whatever I ask him to, but he’s a pilot. Would you be happy to fly with someone who’d been up half the night helping me into a feeding chair (whatever that is!)? Didn’t think so.

and in the first 4weeks it can be helpful to some women for their partner to also get up for the night feeds and do them together. My husband had a months paternity leave from work and during that he got up in the night with me for the feeds and helped settle the baby afterwards. We did try one night with him in the spare room all night but at that early stage I found it very distressing to be alone with the screaming newborn. Of course when he went back to work we settled into the routine whereby he would spend part of the night in the spare room to get a block of unbroken sleep.
But in those first weeks I was so grateful to have him there when the baby woke up, just because I found it overwhelming. Just knowing he was there with me made me calmer and more able to deal with the crying.

Best thing we found was me going for a 1 hour nap at 5pm while DH sorted tea, cluster feeding 6-10pm then me having 10pm-1am while baby slept in DH's arms. Then DH could have 1am-7am undisturbed or, with subsequent children, in with the wakeful toddlers. It's fine to do it your way too but I felt really supported and loved during the postnatal period - I guess every couple finds their way. Keeping things strictly equal is actually easiest with one newborn; it's readjusting to return to work or subsequent children when it gets really hairy!

OP isn’t coming back. Having totally cracked this parenting lark in four weeks she’s gone to sort out Brexit for us.

And this is why we need a 'like' button

Oh, FFS.

Is it not more likely that you've made some poor woman feel like shite, and she's not daring to return because she's thinking, fuck it, they'll pick to pieces anything I say, mock me for referring to a 'nursing chair,' and make me feel my baby isn't my own because I'm gay?

Just guessing, but I think that's more likely TBH.

I tend to agree, LRD.

I don't see the point in both people getting up in the night and being tired?

My husband did lots of those things - whilst working. But I did the lions share because well, I was at home and he was at work. I wasn't expecting him to come home after a 12 hour shift in a factory and then wake up in the night to 'help' with night feds that he couldn't actually help with. Whilst I was at home, I did the majority of the housework and jobs because I was at home. When I went to work and he was a Sahp, he did the majority. It worked for us!

Agree with LRD. Enjoy your lovely family, OP, and ignore all the shitty comments.

Is it not more likely that you've made some poor woman feel like shite, and she's not daring to return because she's thinking, fuck it, they'll pick to pieces anything I say

Oh really, should we have nicer and more complimentary to someone who came on here to insult and belittle us all and brag about how much better she is than all of us after being a parent for a month?

Poor woman indeed, we were meant to roll over and say yes dear, we all suck and you're amazing, how bad of us for not doing so