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 dunno, I mostly looked after the babies in that phase but DH looked after me, so I didn't actually lift a finger when it came to housework or cooking or anything.

Both of mine fed almost constantly for the first few weeks. I didn't get up though, learned to BF lying down and dozing. Only changed a poo nappy at night never just because.

Seemed to work.

You made several references to being able to work very efficiently despite broken sleep, and also that due to your baby’s health it’s was actually necessary for you both to be involved.
Neither of these appear to be the op’s circumstances?

And if my colleagues or staff were tired and incoherent at work because they were dragging themselves out of bed at night to basically faff around watching someone else feed the baby, I would not appreciate it.

I actually agree with this, though I understand how it comes about. DH and I both got up for the first week or so, because it seemed at the time the best thing to do, and we could both muddle through nappy, change, him making me tea etc. After that we started to evolve a system (helped by introducing formula) where he'd do 8-midnight "shifts" so I could sleep, and then with any luck DD's timings meant we'd all sleep relatively well. She's now 11 months and he'll wake up early with her on weekends so I can lie in, but I do all weekdays/nights (she now sleeps through, barring illness). I'm pretty ill at the moment though, and he's doing all the incidental crap that usually falls to me as the sah-er - running to Sainsbury's for food, waking up with DD each day etc.

Congratulations on your little one, I'm sure it will all fall into place soon.

Oh, I follow you now. I was posting those things in response to the people insisting all partners need their sleep for work. They clearly don't. I posted about my DD needing lots of feeding to clarify that I didn't happen to have a miracle baby who slept really well, so I'm not going off an example where both parents actually get a reasonable amount of sleep whatever you do.

Hope that makes more sense now. I did specify that I was taking issue with a general 'mumsnet' belief rather than the OP, though.

I have just realised how unusual my heterosexual relationship clearly is, and think I must in fact be married to an awesome man.

My DH used to get up at night and bring DS to me to feed so I didn't even have to get out of bed. Then he would take him back to his cot and settle him, if we didn't all doze off together. I went back to work when DS1 was 4 months old and then with DS2, when he was 8 months old. Both were still BF, but I was the one with the longer commute.

I think I would have been quite annoyed if DH had made such a fuss of being an equal parent. I'm the child's mother, I carried him for 9 months, I've been the lead parent for 9 months and quite frankly I would like to continue doing so.

Why are you helping her into a chair do you carry her ? By the sounds of it your wife isn't doing an awful lot of equal sharing if you are doing the shoping and all the rest of it . Congrats on your new baby remember every family is different and not all women want helpedinto a chair in the middle of the night.

I think your post does come across a little sanctimonious but to answer your question, I think it’s entirely up to each couple how they work things.

We played to our strengths and certainly didn’t both get up in the night as it’s bloody stupid to have two tired people when only one needs to be up.

Also a big part of DH’s work was driving long distance so him not getting good sleep was not an option for us.

I think what I’m saying is that there is no bad way to do it, only ‘some’ bad relationships where one person does not pull their weight. You cannot generalise and assume your way is best as what you describe would not have worked for us.

And agree with the PP above. Had DH attempted to ‘help me into a chair’ in the night I’d have told him which dark place to shove his help

DD was formula fed so we used to take it in turns to do the night feeds, I would try and insist that I was happy doing them as he was working but he wouldn't hear of it. He did probably more than his fair share of cleaning during the early days and took care of cooking for a while. This has been true of most of my friends with new babies. One thing I did find shocking was comments from the older generation, yes I'm looking at you Grandma, who thought it was so amazing that DH was changing nappies, she practically gave him a medal.

I get up at night because DH is working, some days he can work from home and I'll take a few naps during the day if it's been a really tough night. He does a lot during the day since he's not half asleep

I think it must be more complicated if you are both women. I think I would have found it hard if my wife had had the baby and not me. I'd probably want to 'prove' I was a big part of its life.

My exhaust bought us a super king size bed and a dimmable up lighter.The bedroom Wes big enough for the city to be my side if the bed so if she woke I could have enough light to see,drag her from the cot ,feed,put back.On the whole neither if us really woke up.On the odd occasion where she cried for no good reason and oh woke up her would get up and pace with her until she settled .
Also what the hell is a feeding chair?

Bully for you, aren't you fantastic! We should all be more like you, you win!

There isn't much point once the dad/partner goes back to work having 2 people angry and tired. It's completely pointless if you are exclusively breastfeeding. My husband does his share, he puts the other child to bed and does most the childcare in the evening before he goes to bed. He has to commute on the motorway to work, I'd much rather he wasn't driving half asleep and risking his life just so he can sit up all night with me.

As for helping to the chair LOL, I deffo would have bitten my husband if he'd tried that !

What MrsJayy said, actually. What exactly is your partner doing when you work fulltime, shop, cook, clean, tidy, and get up in the night to help her into the chair?

I think both people getting up at night is ridiculous. It doesn't take 2 mothers or a mother and father to breast feed a baby. The last thing I want is for my DP to go to work tired particularly when we are relying solely on his income for a year! We've agreed that he is fine to go in the spare room occasionally if needs be as I can sleep when the baby sleeps throughout the day. If one person works and the other is a SAHP then they do the bulk of the parenting as that is their 'job' instead of going to work.

Having said that my exh did say he felt a bit left out sometimes when I bf as it is a pretty exclusive activity when you are concentrating purely on you baby.Maybe getting up for you to is help with the bond with the baby but to be honest I liked those quiet feeds just the two if us.

I totally agree. Although you have to be practical, there’s really no point in losing sleep if someone is breastfeeding. But tidying and cooking, yes!

It’s one if the reasons I broke up with my Ex when the baby was 1 year old. There was no point having him around frankly. He did nothing, caused me stress and I was 100% happier even doing a full on job and looking after all cooking baby and mortgage myself!

I have 3 dc and all i can see is you both getting exhausted and ending up snapping at each other. Seriously, chill. You don't both need to get up.

My husband works full time and the second he gets in from work he'd do the 'lions share' if I let him - feeding, bathing, nappies, up each time during the night, getting up with the baby on the morning, dressing, feeding, until he goes back to work. He loves our baby and can't do enough. A lot of men are excellent Dads.

I agree with a lot of posters here regarding there being little point in both of you being knackered. My dh works v long hours in a high stress environment and what I find extraordinary is when people suggest he should be doing an “equal share” of the child rearing. He does his job, I do mine - no way would I expect him to do his job and then come home and do mine as well!! I know it is an old-fashioned set up we have but it works for us and may well not work for thousands. I think everyone just muddles through and find what works for them.

You can be appalled for all your might, fair enough, just please don't make a mistake and criticise these people. That would come out as self-righteous, smug and none of your business.

Truth is, we don't know enough about others before we judge.

I think yes you're exactly right, to an extent. I don't personally know anyone whose partner's don't do anything, but I also don't know many (beyond about the first month or two) who are both up all night with the baby either.

We've just had our 2nd, so this may be different (I'm assuming you've just had your first?), but my dh and I shared nights for about the first 6 weeks. He put our older one to bed while I fed our baby and then he would take the baby and stay up with him until about midnight/1am (because he only slept in the sling or being walked around the lounge at that age). I would sleep, with usually one feed in between. Then I'd take over from about 1am until the morning. After that, he started to sleep in his cot and I do all the nighttime wakings myself. I'm breastfeeding (from the tap, not expressing), so there truly is nothing for him to do. There's no changing or burping or settling to be done. He'd just be wake staring at me feeding him and then putting him back in the cot, which is a bit pointless really. But he does do all night wakings with our older one and gets up with her in the morning so that I can get extra sleep while baby sleeps (or even after he wakes, he can take him downstairs with him while he gets breakfast, etc.). I'd much rather have time to sleep in the morning and not be getting up with my older one than having him awake staring at me feed the baby at 3am.

I suspect though that the imbalance of power around household tasks carries on from before many people have babies. Probably most women take on doing the bulk of the housework/wifework before and don't expect much to change after. We've always done things equally and that didn't change after we had dc, except that on maternity leave, I'm home during the day. So I do 100% of the school runs and everything during the day when I am. But my dh still does the washing up morning and night, does the bins, does bathtime and (after dc2 was born) bedtime with our older one, puts clothes away, cleans, etc. when he's home. He's not just sitting around doing nothing or off at the pub before and after work, but that's also just always been how our relationship worked.

After the intense first weeks, you'll like find there is a shift though. You will do less because it's pointless for both of you to fuss around trying to do something. Your wife may need you to pick up slack in other areas. You also may find your life going back to a bit more like how it was pre-baby, while she does more. Be mindful of this because it can breed resentment. It's easy to maintain the whole 'we're both getting stuck in' mentality for weeks or even months, but after awhile, you'll want a break. You'll be in a position to take one, while she won't as easily if she's bf/the primary caregiver. That's when you need to be really mindful of making sure she's taking care of herself and you're supporting her.

When our youngest was born, my husband would get home from work at 8pm and I'd go to bed. He'd feed the baby at midnight, put her down, and go to bed himself. I'd do the night feeds as I was on maternity leave and he'd need to be out of the house early to commute to work. Normally I'd get up for the first night feed at 3am, meaning that I'd had a good 7 hours sleep by then.

It wasn't much fun, but it meant that both of us got enough sleep on which to function in those early months.

I really cannot see the point of both parents being up half the night. It is best to work together to ensure both partners can get sufficient sleep and maintain their sanity.

Oh, and I think the MN insistence that poor daddy can't possible work if he is a teeny bit sleep deprived is utterly ridiculous.

I don’t think that my DH couldn’t work if a “tiny bit sleep deprived” (though “tiny” as a measure of sleep deprivation with twins is specious)

I think that doing a complex job which requires extreme precision with a long commute at either end of the day will be done badly and potentially dangerously if the employee is chronically sleep deprived.

I wasn’t some poor put upon woman whose husband refused to get up, we agreed our set up together.

If I really needed him (Noro virus times two springs to mind as an example) of course he got up, stripped sheets, cleaned up vomit, held screaming babies and ran the washing machine all night long as necessary.

But as a regular occurrence that just wasn’t required. I was breastfeeding, I didn’t need help at night.

I did need help for all sorts of things during the day and he was brilliant.

Why do we focus on getting up at night as the definition of a “good father” or “good parent” when there’s a thousand other ways to support your wife without also putting other commuters/your job/society at large at risk?

My husband cheerfully bore the entire financial burden of the household for nearly five years. Why is he a “crap father” if he’s not superhuman and can’t do that on less than three hours sleep a night?

Doing “half the work” doesn’t mean splitting every job in two. It means splitting the entire load. People do that in different ways.

I can see you both getting up working. If you snooze when the baby is feeding and then take over so your DW goes back to sleep that sounds great. Partners can help when the baby is breastfed.

All of my friends had a very traditional set up regardless of whether the baby was bottle or breast fed. The lion's share of care fell to the women, particularly night feeds. I shared care with my oh but was in the minority. I went to bed early, he did last feed and 4:30am. I did the 2 am shout. I was very ill, it took me a long time to recover and u only has 22 weeks maternity leave. DH stepped up, I lost a lot of respect for my male friends not changing nappies or helping out at night.