Night feeds 2 parents who does What?

[Hisnamesblaine]

Following on from my previous thread when I was introducing the dream feeds.......... my DH and I have just had the mother of all fights. So s not to drip feed I'll lay out the facts now. He works 9/5 mon-fri. I'm on mat leave. I get kid no.1 to school and during the day tend to kid no.2 plus housework etc. I do the school pick up and arrange dinner And help with homework. I 90% do the dishes general tidying etc then bath time. We take.it in turns to put kid1 to bed. Occasionally I might have a couple of hours of sleep between 8pm until 10/11 then I sleep with baby in the lounge in order to let DH sleep uninterrupted upstairs. I get our bed nd room on Friday night which I really.look forward to! I am happy with the arrangement and we have ticked along fine. That was until LAST WEEK when I introduced the dream.feeds. getting baby up to have a bottle between 11pm and 12pm. All hell has broke loose today because he went up to bed at 10. I naturally assumed he would do it. He thinks 12 is too late to go to bed. But it's still a good 6/7 hour block of sleep for him. Whether I'm lucky if I get 3 hours uninterrupted. I accused him of not getting on board with the dream feeds as it meant he would definitely have to do at least one feed every night. Whether before hand it was just luck of the drawer as to whether or not the baby would wake. I don't know why but I've been crying for the past hour as I feel so hurt he's not backing me up. He explained if he were on mat leave he would DREAM of making me do it if I wanted to sleep. But I honeslty think he's got a good thing going. Speaking to other parents I know they all sleep in the same room as baby so by default both get woken when baby stirs. It's quite possible I'm in the wrong. Please be gentle with me if I am. I suppose I'm still in the new born haze and I can't think straight. I'm interested to see what's the mumsnetters be live to be a fair distribution of jobs regarding the kids.

Sorry if I didn't mention before it was me who was happy enough to go downstairs as it's a sofa bed. I'm just too lazy/tired to pull it out and make it up. Plus I'm only 5 foot and a fart! So I can fit on the sofa. It's not a forever deal. I'm hoping baby will eventually sleep thru.... But yeah WHY CANT HE sleep downstairs! Great idea!

I sometimes wish mine had a dad friend who could explain to mine that he's got a good deal

Another person’s experience is what kicked DH into gear.

Baby wasn’t sleeping, I was bf, next door was being noisily renovated during the day (grrr) so I had to take DS out in the pram for naps meaning I couldn’t doze in the day. I was exhausted. DH just went to bed as normal and decamped to the sofa if it got noisy.

DH was coming home from work with “tips” from a fellow worker whose wife had had a baby at about the same time. Elevate head, white noise, dream feed...

It took a while but one day I realised that DH was saying “Peter says he...” when passing on these tips. I remember staring at him and saying “you mean Peter gets up in the night?”

DH was like a rabbit in the headlights. Confusion, then dawning, then a bit of shame.

I started expressing milk, DS luckily took a bottle or breast, whatever was put his way and we shared from them on. I still tended to go nights but DH did early mornings which is the time I sleep best.

I still remember that first lie in. I woke RESTED.

DS was breastfed and even then DH did the 6am feed (expressed milk) so I could have a lie-in. He didn’t need to get up until 7:30, but he used to get DS up, fed, dressed and then keep him entertained in a morning and then hand him back to me when he left the house at 8:30. We were also all in the same room until DS was 15mo (one bedroom flat).

Your DH is a lazy arse.

DH works 9-5 and I’m a sahm. He did the dream feed every night as it was the only bottle feed we gave, and then I did all the night feeds and early morning. But I’d usually go back to bed for an hour or 2 and he’d look after the baby (and the toddler) until 8am when he had to get ready for work. He also did toddler bedtime.

So he fed the baby at 10/11pm and then he got up early usually around 6. Every day.

Midnight is too late for him to be up to be honest. I couldn't do that if I was working. I'm on mat leave with a 9 week old who wakes 3 hourly for feeds. I do all night feeds as I'm the one who is off. DH will very occasionally do the 11pm on a weekend but as LO will usually wake me up anyway I usually just get on with it. We all sleep upstairs in the same room and if DH is getting woken a lot he'll go into the spare room or futon. Baby should be in the bedroom and he should be downstairs. Surely it's better for baby to be in a familiar room where they know they go to the sleep than downstairs.

Blackcat86, midnight isn't too late for him to be up, as he doesn't have to be at work until 9am, and it's a 20-30 min commute (as per OP).

I did all night feeds even when I went back to work (breastfeeding) but baby shared our bedroom for first four months. If DH had attempted to get me and baby on the sofa I would have shown him the front door!

Midnight is too late for him to be up to be honest. I couldn't do that if I was working.

I was back at work around 4/5 months (live in a country with rubbish maternity leave) and did night feeds while working every day. Midnight is nothing if he gets 6/7 broken hours afterwards. Ask any working mother!

Midnight is too late for him to be up to be honest. I couldn't do that if I was working.

I went back to work when DD was 1. She woke three times a night until she was 2. I coped because I had to. DH coped because he had to.

I cannot understand the things that appear to be impossible for men but completely easy for women (night waking, doing housework and working, looking after a child for a few hours).

I'm going to buck the trend here. I did night feeds whilst DH slept then at weekends it was his turn and I slept. I could sleep during the day and he couldn't. I wouldn't be on the sofa either.

Why the need for a 11pm/12am dream feed? It seems a little late to me or what’s the purpose of it?

I think you’d be fairer for you covering night feeds, which you would do if you were bf, during the week and for your DP to take over night feeds on a Friday and maybe Saturday night. If you must sleep separately, then whoever is taking care of your baby has the bedroom. And since your covering the night feeds, your DP could do the bedtime routine with the baby and aim to have him settled for around 8pm/9pm which should give you a good stretch to relax/sleep before you’ve tomcover the next feed.

I would think that it’s a little ridiculous for your DP to wake your baby to feed around 11pm or 12am when he’s working the next day.

Lots of night feed stories coming up in response to my comment. I have a 9 week old baby so I do understand how hard night feeds are. She's still up at least 2 hourly plus random cries and waking us up with loud chattering in her sleep. I really do get it and if she's still doing that when I go back to work then yes I'll do all of those plus work to. My point was I couldn't stay awake until midnight. I'm normally passed out by 9:30pm and then wake up for to feed LO around 10:45pm. Midnight is also quite late for the late feed. Most do a 10-11pm feed. I'm curious as to why it needs to be midnight?.

That should have said 3 hourly although she's certainly done 2 hourly feeds in the past.

I think being at work for me is probably more tiring than looking after a baby. But I'd still expect both of you to be more tired than you were pretty baby. He doesn't seem to be compromising much, I bet he is getting much better sleep than most men with a new baby! Having the bedroom all to himself is unusual when you don't have a spare room. Different people do need different amounts of sleep but he does need to compromise otherwise you will just burn out. Could he do 2 or 3 dream feeds in a row then go to bed really early and catch up on sleep if it genuinely is making him knackered?

I EBF a baby who refused all bottles and woke every 90 min - 2 hours. We did sleep in the spare room but my husband did try and help out where he could even though there wasn't much he could do. He would even take the baby for a walk in the middle of the night to give me an uninterrupted 3 hours sometimes and always took her in the mornings so I could have extra sleep. If we bottle fed he would have definitely done one late night / early morning feed plus more at weekends

My husband works 8.30am to 4pm, cooks dinner most nights, shares the cleaning (though I do all the laundry), changes all nappies outside of work hours and happily did 2am feeds for the week we could get the baby to take a bottle. When the baby is upset at night, my husband changes her, burps her, bicycles her tiny legs to make her fart, and snuggles her to get her settled.

Unless there's a massive dripfeed that the kids aren't your husbands, he never wanted them, you solemnly promised he would never have to lift a finger, he's only got one arm and a chronic health problem that means he can't miss a single minutes sleep and he's racecar driver who'll die if he loses concentration for a moment during the day, you've been had and he's a lazy, selfish, good-for-nothing cunt and I bet the only thing you'd notice if you dumped him would be that you're doing less laundry.

You sleep on the sofa so HIS baby doesn't wake him up in the night??? No you are not being unreasonable, there's no reason he can't stay up until 11 so you can get some sleep. So he works 9-5 Mon-Fri and you work 24/7? And he thinks that's a fair division of labour? What an arse.

Whilst on maternity leave I do the night wakings but babies are ebf so bit different. Dream feed.....that seems bonkers to me.

When I was on maternity dh did any feed that was before 1am even though he was up at 7am,he also stayed downstairs with baby for 2 weeks at night as i had bad pnd and lack if sleep made it worse.He should be making more of an effort,being excessively tired will not help your pnd ime

I'm a SAHM and my 1 year old is and always has been a terrible sleeper. I bf so have always done most night wakings but in the early days DH would always get up to settle DD after a feed, or a change her nappy or get me a drink. Now if she has a bad night she comes into our room with us which obviously disturbs him but is a bit easier for me. He doesn't mind when I bring her in from her room because he knows my need for sleep is just as valid as his. If he didn't I would struggle to stay with him. Your DH is very selfish and needs a wake up call.

You need to explain to him that maternity leave is a recovery period in which you are attempting to nurse a baby, not a rest. He seems very confused. You should be splitting the nights and trying to get a balance in terms of periods of uninterrupted sleep. He sounds extraordinarily selfish.

It's more that you both need to be on board with your plan than specifics of who feeds when. I do all the night feeds, but even on maternity leave, dp took DD to nursery. He does Bathtime. Nappies are whoever is closest at the time etc. It may not always look "equal" but it feels FAIR

My partner actually got up for all the night feeds the first two weeks while i recovered and then we took turns. One of us would go to bed while the other did the eleven o clock feed. Then whoever had the early night did the three o clock feed, we alternated nights doing this. We were lucky and the middle of the night feed was dropped at six weeks.

Bottle fed baby here. We split the night at first (swapping about 3am), then once baby was only up once a night we alternated the nights (and still do).

I went back at 3months (pt) and my husband was off until 6months, and we've kept to the alternating routine regardless of work. Having a 7-8 hours block of sleep every other night means the more rubbish nights in between don't seem so bad, so neither of us have felt particularly tired.

I breast fed, so was practically a zombie the first 6 months. My DH would come in after work and take her for a walk, I would have an hour to myself (usually for a shower) and then it was back on the boob. Bit of a nightmare when I think back to it.

He needs to do more. And also to sleep on the couch while you're the person mainly in charge of nights.