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?

I don't think most men are useless, and agree it's wrong to generalise.

@noseytoday - if you've had a messy section sometimes it's recommended you don't try to feed propped up on pillows as the support isn't great and you can risk re-opening the incision.

Saying most men are useless is as bad as saying that most women are useless... it's just bigoted nonsense.

My husband does most of what you’ve described, bar getting up in the night (neither of us do: we cosleep and baby got good at feeding lying down pretty early, so we’re lucky there.)

Most of our other parent friends in our close circle have a similar balance. I think it’s about finding what works for your family and all feeling mutually nourished, really.

My OH is a pilot and was training each day so he had the spare room whilst I got up and dealt with our daughter in the night. He'd cook, clean, load me up with snacks and at weekends take her for walks where she'd scream non-stop

I breastfed and it was just easier for me to feed.

We both worked hard, but it was technically my job to be the main carer whilst eating packets of chocolate digestives and lounging on the sofa watching box sets

He's a great father and it worked perfectly for us

My sister's husband does loads of waking up in the night at the same time as her. Frankly find it unnecessary and weird. I think his whole attitude is one of someone who feels left out (takes the day off work if her family visit etc!) Do you think (and I mean this kindly) that you feel a bit left out because your partner physically birthed the baby and is presumably breastfeeding it (and the biological mother)? It's just an odd thread to start and I hope you are feeling ok.

I think you sound lovely and very empathetic, my husband wasn't as helpful, in his defence he sleeps badly and once women finds it really hard to get back to sleep, which basically means he's been pretty useless for seven years now!

@sisgal

After bragging that you hadn’t been deleted, I see MNHQ has got around to deleting your horrible posts on the OPs thread. HTH.

The deal DH and I had was that I would feed and generally do so without waking him, but if I needed help for any reason (poonami, for example) then he would get up as well. I don't see any reason to do anything else during night feeds after the first few weeks / when feeding is well established.

wtf? do people honestly use feeding chairs?!

Why not? I did the first time because it was very comfy, supportive, and was easier to get back out of without waking the baby. It was a great buy and we used it until the kids were past the cosy bedtime story phase.

Second time round I had more confidence so didn't bother.

I had a feeding chair (glider) with DS2. Loved it. The fit of a more upright chair (important for BF) but the comfort of an armchair.
Over the years I've realised that women taller in the body can easily slip into bad posture and a nursing chair helps with this. And it had pockets, was easy to clean and glided. Since I spent hours on it I found it very worth while.

My other half has an office sit down type job with coffee and meetings, which is 5 minutes walk from our door. So yeah when we had newborns he did a fair amount at home. I was EBF but he would get up, change baby, pop her next to me in bed, settle her afterwards. Half the time I barely woke up...

If he’d had a tougher job it might have been different, but as I have a tough job he pretty deliberately took a less well paid, more family friendly one with no commute. This is years ago now, kids are at school.

When I went back to work as a hospital doctor I work long exhausting shifts and have to be sharp so he became “lead parent “ I suppose. (Which I feel bad about sometimes). I stopped night feeding then.

Bf newborns was not that tiring, but getting up in the night is, was my experience. So his night time help was amazing and I had the energy to really enjoy my early Mat leave.

I too get depressed by how little some men help out, though sometimes it can’t be helped with tough jobs or long commutes in cars.

Enjoy your newborn op. If you’re able to, sharing all that early stuff is really bonding and helpful for a family. To be in it together, to feel supported- money can’t buy those things x

Putting asside breastfeeding and recovery for the birth mother, if one person has an entitlement to an extended period of (paid) leave then it just makes sense that they provide the main care for the child. Noone is saying then that the non-birthing partner should be doing nothing, but it would be a madness for them to attempt a true 50/50 or as in your case effectively mirror/duplicate care.

In the US where mother's typically have just 6 weeks leave child care is much more even but I can't think that we would want to adopt that system!

OP sounds like they have a massive chip on their shoulder about being a same-sex couple and somehow determined to do things better than a male/female pairing. But unless they have a job testing mattresses they are going to find the same constraints that any new parent couple encounters so I'd be interested to hear from them in a couple of months whether they kept up this arrangement!

I’m not sure I agree with that. Most jobs are 9-5, not 24/7. Outside of work hours, surely it’s fair to split childcare.

Of course some newborns are harder than others. Some new mothers have harder recovery than others. Some jobs are tougher than others. Lots of factors. Being flexible and talking about it helps.

You have to be pretty unlucky if you’re actively caring for a newborn 24/7..........

Really saddens me how so many women on here accept their husband not doing anything! Your life changes after a baby it seems like so many protect their ‘poor husbands’ from any impact. Why the martyrdom? I agree that there is no point in staying up all night,every night together but there’s no reason tge husband can’t get off his arse sometimes. Maybe I’m alone but night wakings are not always food related. Mine wakes up for nappy changes, because he’s too hot/cold, sick, gassy or just for attention! So I don’t think breastfeeding is an excuse to let husbands off. Neither in many cases is work. Obviously some jobs cannot be performed sleep deprived but many can. I can easily do my deskbased job on 5 hours sleep. So why can’t my oh do his?

People do split responsibilities differently and I respect that. However, the idea that night feeds is exclusively the mums role is ludicrous. No one gives you a medal for depriving yourself of sleep. Quite frankly it’s the worst part of having a newborn. Doing a bit more housework is much easier than bring up every hour with a screaming baby.

“Most” jobs are absolutely not 9-5 anymore. The days of the factory whistle are long gone.

Most jobs are 9-5 really! "Poor DH sleep deprived". Mine tried working shifts it made him ill, mentally, and physically, he fell asleep driving, YES it was dangerous, even with a day shift it was 12 hours plus commute, wouldnt dream of expecting him to help with childcare. this phase lasting 12 weeks! I breast fed second DS for 15 months because it was the only thing that settled him, mine didnt sleep through the night till they were 3, and there was no help in those days, no "Supernanny"

No one gives you a medal for depriving yourself yourself of sleep
Precisely. So why would both of you get up in the night when only one of you is breastfeeding?

In what world is most jobs 9 to 5

I breastfed both my children. My husband did loads at least 50% of the workload. Did lots of the housework, shopping, cooking and care of the baby during the day. I don't see the point of him being up overnight with a newborn. I used to feed them in bed as they were next to me in the Moses basket and I'd change their nappy on the bed. It really isn't a 2 person job.

When my ds was born, my dp was leaving the house at about 5.30 and getting home at about 8.00. In the 9.5 hours he was home, I wanted him to look after and cuddle and play with his baby and have some sleep. I would much rather the housework was left undone than he give up any baby time to do it.

I am glad poster’s on here don’t know the men whose lives change not a jot when they have babies, while their partners are shaken up beyond recognition. The ones who still manage three gym visits in the week and a round of golf at the weekend. Or the ones who expect shirts ironed, dinner cooked and shopping done. I don’t think I’d have to search hard on here or in rl to find men who happily hand over all the difficult stuff to the mother. I think the behaviour while the woman is on maternity leave massively sets the tone for how they continue as parents.

Most men are entitled man children enabled by their wives to do basically sod all when they get home from work

Most men? How do you know this?

It's not the world I live in. I feel sorry for the posters who think this is the norm based on their own experiences, but I can assure it is not. I know a lot of fathers and not one of them under the age of 60 had this experience as a father of not doing their half. I'm sure there are some of them, but I don't move in those circles, and I pity those who do.
Don't assume everyone else is the same though, few are. It's not what modern fatherhood looks like.

Lameregreyhoundhearmeroar

As I said not all night feeds are about feeding. Mine woke up twice last night for a nappy change. It doesn’t take long to figure out when they are hungry or not or when they are likely to want fed. Ours generally wakes up once for a feed about 3.30. The rest of the wakenings are not feeding related. Obviously, in the early days when they feed more frequently this is different.

Plus not all babies are breast fed. Why on Earth should formula feeding / expressing mothers for instance do all the heavy lifting at night? Our baby gets expressed milk in early morning. He is guzzler and will polish it off in 15 mins. The whole feed takes 30mins. Either partner can cope with an interuption in sleep. The worst is the other wakenings because you don’t know if or when they will happen. We split it so I go to bed at 9pm till he feeds in spare room. Dh feeds him about 11pm and sleeps with him till he wakes at 3.30 then we switch. I do the feed.We both get a good 4/5 hours in the spare room then whatever broken sleep baby will give us on top. Usually get about 7 hours each. Surely this is fairer than me doing the whole thing? Neither of us are sleep deprived.