To ask how much childcare your partners REALLY do?

[Lipsticktraces]

Because I’m not sure if AIBU or not...

We have five month old twins. They are ebf so I do all the night wakings. They are up around five times a night between them at the moment. I’m almost hallucinating with tiredness!

DH never wakes up before me to do morning nappies etc. He says he will but it happens about once every blood moon. For example this morning my DD woke up first so I took her downstairs to feed/change as I was getting my breakfast. I’ve had about three hours sleep so not in my best frame of mind.

I hear DS making noises upstsirs. These get progressively louder and after ten minutes I go upstairs to check him. He’s awake in his cot and DH hasn’t so much as rolled over to check him. His excuse? “He thought I was in the room” So I end up changing DS as well and taking him down to feed him after a few choice words with DH. He isn’t lazy but apparently I am?

He’s at work 10 until 10 today and he’s still in bed. He’s done bugger all for these babies this morning and they’ll be in bed when he gets in. I’ve told him he’s a rubbish father and should be ashamed of himself.

I’m at my wits end!

I guess I’m asking would your partners do similar in this situation?

You must be exhausted, I can’t even imagine the level of tiredness with ebf twins. But 12hours is a long shift your dh has got ahead of him. Personally I never expected dh to do anything overnight/ morning before a working day but days off were another matter and although I would obviously do all the feeds he would get up in the mornings half the time so I could have a lie in which seemed fair.

He needs to set an alarm for 7am so he can take over from you until he leaves for work so you can grab 2 hours sleep.

Does he do5x 12hour shifts?

He should be helping on the mornings. When does he even bond with them?

You're facilitating it, because you're so tired that it's easier to just do it than to have the argument. He's playing chicken with you, and it's completely selfish (he even admits he heard DS this morning and chose to ignore it!). But it's working.

So if he's supposed to be doing the mornings, don't just do it yourself, wake him up and send him downstairs to do it.

Why did you take DS downstairs and leave DH to sleep? That was his job to do.

Me and DH had a handover time in the morning. Set an alarm if you need to. Everything to do with the girls (except BF) from that point on until 9(?) is his.

DH doesn’t help during the week as he works, but friday evening - Sunday evening we split childcare 50/50 (except for breastfeeding lol)

BUT!!!!

Twins?!?! TWINS?!?! That’s something else! You need help! If you can’t hire anyone to help, he needs to help regardless of work. He should be doing the non breastfeeding stuff IMO.

He isn’t lazy but apparently I am?angry

What? Did he tell you that you were lazy when he deliberately ignored his crying son? Nip this shit in the bud before you wind up doing it all and getting divorced. Set his alarm and get him the fuck up to parent his own kids. Do NOT go part-time or give up work to enable him to check out of life because 'I work'. He knew damn well you were not in the room, he was too fucking lazy to change his own son's dirty nappy. He's a shite father, literally. I'd be fucking raging.

But 12hours is a long shift your dh has got ahead of him.

Equally, 12 hours with twin babies is a long shift the OP's got ahead of her... and she's just come off a night shift!

Why does her DH's work need completely protected sleep, but looking after twin babies is ok to do on zero sleep?

Loads of mums go back to work while still doing night wake-ups. Miraculously they still manage to do their jobs.

He doesn’t do childcare, he does parenting.

DP does all night feeds and the majority of the evening from 5.30 onwards, also usually a full day on the weekend.

Gees, I used to work and still manage to do all kinds of things - go to the gym, buy my own food and prepare and cook it to feed myself, organise my life and look after my home. I had no idea all I really needed was a Wifey and then all I needed to do was work.

DH and I worked opposing shifts for years, OP, so he did his share and I did mine.

I should add his working day mainly consists of sitting on his arse as he’s a a support worker for an exceptionally lazy client. They must have so much in common!

When I was on mat leave I did all the wake ups but he did Friday nights so I could have a break, been doing 3-4 days back at work since DS was 5 months so he does more but it's usually me (by choice) as he works much longer hours and drives hundreds of miles a week so would rather he got a decent sleep, he does bath and bedtime though when he isn't working away

I have twins. I also ebf.

It’s extraordinarily hard.

The agreement we had was that DH didn’t normally do night waking Min- Friday because he needed a minimal amount of sleep to drive a long commute safely.

However he got up early and brought me breakfast and tea in bed while I was going the first feed and did nappy changes.

As soon as he got home st night he did nappy changes, settled crying babies, played with them, made dinner and did laundry.

He bathed them every night he was home on time.

If I was having a really bad night and they were both screaming he’d get up and walk the floor with one while I did the other.

I usually did a feed at 8pm and another at midnight in the early days. He do any settling/nappies between 8pm and midnight so that I could try to get a few hours sleep.

That said it took a few weeks when they were newborns to get into this routine. It did take him a few weeks to understand that the concept of “freetime” was temporarily on hold.

I’d have been pretty disappointed I’d he hadn’t got it by 5 months though.

The only way to survive twins with your relationship intact is to work as a team. Time for a serious chat.

Sorry OP

My husband does probably more than 50 50 as I need more sleep (he does get more time to himself though as I use my time off to sleep)

When I was bf he would give the baby a bottle of expressed milk and when this started being rejected and he wasn't at work , he would get up with the baby, take her til she needed fed, bring her to me to feed, then take her another couple hours so I could stay asleep. He felt bad that I was up feeding every 90 min. If we were havin an awful night occasionally he would take her at 5 and walk the streets with her in the sling or drive around to get her to sleep

He does well on little sleep compared to a lot of people but he's also fair, and kind

I hope your husband steps up. I can't imagine how tough twins are but he can't have two 5 month old babies and not expect to be knackered! You need a night off a week or a day to catch up on sleep whîle he does everything else or you'll get more and more tired until you're ill or depressed or have an accident or something. I found the mental health side of things as bad as the physical when ours weren't sleeping

Good luck

Ps I wouldn't call it childcare, I'd call it being a parent

I’ve tried talking to him...repeatedly. He just doesn’t care.

If I waited for him to bath them they’d never get bathed. He’ll do nappies but I have to ask him. He does quite often cook the tea/wash up while I’m feeding them to sleep.

I’m not asking him to get up during the night. I’d just appreciate a hand in the morning. He never even brings me tea unless I ask. In fact I’ve brought him tea rye last few days! I’m clearly an idiot.

He’s got plenty of time for his fucking PlayStation though. Which I bought him for Christmas. I really am a fool

I’ve just messaged his mum telling her how bad things are and asking her to speak to him. It’s not my style at all but I’m desperate and sick of acting like everything is fine.

Does he do loads on his days off op? I might let this morning go, ahead of a twelve hour shift, as long as he's pulling his weight otherwise. Twins must be absolutely knackering, it should be all hands on deck wherever possible.

Loosely: anything before 4am was my problem, anything after 4am was his problem. Each of us was pretty much guaranteed at least 3 hours of unbroken sleep (barring an explosion of the baby or other emergency which needed both people).

You need to talk about this.

We have a deal that no one sits down until both can sit down.

So he doesn’t get use the PS unless the chores are done/children are sleeping.

And he should be getting up in the morning to help change/dress the babies and make you tea while you are feeding.

And if he doesn’t wake up on his own WAKE HIM

No he doesn’t get up on his days off. He still lied in until 9.30/10am. He might occasionally change one nappy, but they are normally both done by the time he decides to stir.

Xpost. This isn't on at all op. Why does he not want to take care of his babies?

Are you able to express a bottle for them? I’m guessing he’s never been on his own with the twins for an extended period of time. All it took for my OH to ‘get it’ was leaving him on his own with our baby for an evening! He realised what my days were like and really stepped up.

He only goes on the PS once I’m in bed but stays on it until about 1am.

I feel like putting the fucker on eBay (PS that is. I’d get sod all for him)

DH worked 10-10 yesterday he does psychotherapeutic work with very volatile individuals and needs his wits about him, he's not stacking shelves etc. Yesterday I was feeding DS around 6am DH got up and made us both tea, afterwards DH took him, changed his nappy and dressed him while I showered before getting himself ready for work, he then took DS and did another nappy change before leaving so I could have breakfast. When he got home he took DS while I warmed his dinner up and basically looked after him other than feeds until bed. DS is 8 weeks old so will nap downstairs until go up. He was unsettled after DH ate so he went to pick him up, I said I'd do it so he could relax for a bit, but DH said he missed him and I'd had him all day (velcro baby so quite relentless, I only get things done because of a sling) so he would settle him.
I do night feeds because I'm breast feeding but if DH hears him kicking off during a nappy change he'll get up to see if I want a hand, or if there's a poosplosion as there was at five am today I know I can just call out and he'll come and lend a hand if I want him to. I didn't today but when I was joking about it when he woke up ( it was everywhere), he said 'oh you should've woken me' I would've helped, and he has before.
It's not about helping you they're his children too and actually he should want to spend time with them!

Yes I express. There’s frozen milk in freezer too.

The most I’ve left him is three hours and he’s usually really stressed when I get back. My DD is a bottle refuser so I can’t leave her for long.