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!

Does he work at the weekend? If not does he help out then?

Dh was like this I had a complete breakdown and acted like a demented crazy person! Walked out of the house and left him to it. He soon changed he's ways. I hid the leads and he's controllers to the PlayStation and told him he needed to grow the fuck up!

I suggest you do the same and make the mornings less cosy and put them in the bed with him until he gets up.

It's a tough one, if your husband was just sat around in the house all day I'd be saying he's not pulling his weight, but he's not. Whether you think his job is easy and he's just sat there, he's still at work for 12 hours.

My husband helped more with our first child at night, but he was self employed, he worked 7 days a week but only afternoons and evenings. With our second child he'd changed careers and now does 12 hour days in the week and more work from home at weekends. I breastfed both children (still breastfeeding the second) he's never got up with the second child ever, even the first night he was born after being in labour all night he rolled over and went to sleep and left me to it.

It is sometimes annoying especially now as I am also juggling working too but he works longer hours than me and has a long commute on the motorway too. I wouldn't want him getting up all night and then driving on the motorway at 6am in the dark.

My husband does do all the cooking though so I get a sit down when he's in the kitchen, he also puts the eldest child to bed too. I sometimes think he's getting an easy ride, but he's exhausted when he gets home so I can't really expect him to do much else, he usually does an extra couple of hours work once he's eaten in the evening too.

I guess everyone is different in terms of their situation, if you aren't happy and struggling though you need to tell your husband.

You need to make a rule that either you both get up at the same time and start sorting things or you take it in turns and you each get your days to have a lie in or rest (not as easy when you are ebf in the early days, but you can feed them and then go back to bed - or just hide alone in the bedroom, which is what I've often done).

I found with our first, it was a bit of an adjustment and it took a few screaming fights for my dh (who is genuinely lovely and involved and supportive) to understand that actually it made a big difference to just have him up doing things if I had to be up doing things in the morning or during the night as needed. As I bf, I didn't need help with feeds and beyond the first few months, I didn't bother changing nappies overnight, but he would help with holding a screaming baby while I showered if necessary and he's up helping with any issues that arise (changing sheets, a sick child, giving medicine, etc.). We also tag team it a bit, so he deals with our older one more and I do the baby (so he does all the night wakings with our older one, which isn't often as she's 6, he gets up and gets her school uniform ready, starts her breakfast, etc.).

I go back to work next month and on my work days, he'll be doing everything with both of them from 6am to 8pm. We're also sharing childcare, so I'll be home 2 days a week (working 3) and he'll be home 1 day (working 4 days). It took juggling and negotiation to get to that point though. So keep talking, wake him up and hand him a baby or two, go back to bed or have a bath. As they start solids, it's much easier to get away and have a break or send them out for a morning so you can have some quite. No way I'd be letting my dh sleep in til 10am! I don't think either of us has done that in 6 years!

I forgot to add I get 2 long lie ins on Saturday and Sunday (10am), he gets up with the kids and I catch up on lost sleep, it's probably the only reason I don't go mad about how little he does house wise.

*Also working full time is not an excuse for not being able to parent in your off hours, including nighttime parenting. My dh works probably 50 hour weeks (9-5, plus evenings from home doing admin after kids are in bed). In the summer, he easily works 60 hours, he can work 7 days a week straight for several weeks at a time. From when both of mine were about a year, I went back to work part-time but was commuting to London, leaving at 6am and home just before bedtime, up again at 5am the next day. We both managed to parent just fine without needing to 'rest' and we both share the overnights even when we're exhausted and need to be up early the next morning. We do balance it so that the one with the worst day the next day gets a bit more of an easier time the night before, if possible. But it's still roughly 50/50. No one gets to sleep or sit down while the other runs around doing everything.

Quite a lot for the older children, most of the school runs, activity pick ups and drop offs, packed lunch making and he usually finishes off dinner.

Very little for the baby (four weeks) as the baby hates everyone who isn't me at the moment!

He also does probably 60% of the housework.

I formula fed, and my husband had long shared parental leave, but we split everything 50-50 from the start. Nights were initially split (so be for 3am and after etc) and then once night feeds reduced, we alternated. Once we were back at work, we might shift the nights round a bit if either of us had soemthing important on, or was knackered, but that worked both ways, and it was very much 50-50.

In the mornings/evenings/weekends, we split it. I probably do a bit more cooking, but he does more tidying. I do more organising of plans etc, he does more nappies. We each have one lie in a weekend.

Im now heavily pregnant with my second and so my sleep is up the wall etc. So he does about 80% of childcare when he's at home, and virtually all nights. It'll go back to 50-50 once the baby is born, but for both children.

I'd be beyond furious personally with how he's treating you. Parenthood should be a partnership, but he doesn't seem to understand that.

Mine are 3&5 now and husband is very hands on.
He was a bit useless with the night feeds as he was such a drip waking up.
These days he leaves the house around 7,
If the kids are up, he’ll help get them dressed and will give them breakfast if he has time.
He comes home and helps put them to bed.
I work part time, he works 9 days a fortnight.
On his working day off, he’ll do everything that I do on my non working days.
Weekends, everything is shared.
He also brings me a cup of tea at 6am every morning.

He sounds like a bone idle lazy twat.

He def needs to be doing more.

When you get up with the first one, wake him up and tell him. Or if it won't disturb the other one, put a changing mat on the bed, change her on there and nurse in bed. When the other one wakes up, poke him and hand him a baby.

His days off id wake him hand him a baby, two nappies and go for a long shower. Maybe coffee in the afternoon. Every day.

When he complains point out he does this every day and expects you to just do it, so how hard can it be.

Well done for telling his Mum in him. My MIL would go mad at DH if she thought he wasn't supportive enough

I read something once that compared sleep to food.
At the moment he is having 3 full meals a day (full nights sleep) plus snacks (lie ins). You are barely getting meals and have hardly eaten in 5m. A good husband would never let his partner starve while he was having full meals plus snacks. It’s absolutely not acceptable

A good partner will see that you are struggling and do everything they could to do their share of the workload
An abusive predatory partner sees that you are struggling and because you are weakened and unable to stand up for yourself they take this opportunity to make life as easy as possible for themselves leaving you to struggle on

Your H is being a complete dick. He's not a father to your DTs, but you are a fabulous mother.

He needs a reality check and he needs to grow up.

No, mine wouldn’t and never has.

We have a 15 month old and pretty much since he was born DH always does his fair share. I am a breastfeeding mum too.
DH gets up at 6, takes DS downstairs to give him breakfast and play with him/change nappy etc so I can catch up on a bit of sleep and then brings him to me before he gets ready for work. When he comes home, he takes him off to play with him while I cook dinner. He feeds him his dinner and then takes him to do his bedtime routine/bath/pjs etc and then brings him back to me for around 8.30pm (asleep) for me to do the night shift. It means I always get at least an hour a day to myself and sometimes more.
I am back at work now but he stil does this.
I think you’re partner is lazy.

The thing is most people cannot just go straight to sleep as soon as they finish work so if he is working 10-10 regularly mornings are the worst possible time for him as that is when he needs to be asleep.
He should be doing everything between when he gets home and 1/2am however and then go to bed and should also be doing more on days off but with those working hours mornings is a time he should be asleep.

The thing is most people cannot just go straight to sleep as soon as they finish work

They do if they have baby twins!

@happyandshiney
Sorry but they simply don't. No 9-5 workers are expected to be asleep by 5:30 so I never understand why MN seems to think if you work outside them hours you should still be able to follow the sleep pattern of a typical 9-5 worker. He could and should be doing more in the late evening and on his days off but early mornings are not compatible with a shift ending at 10pm for the vast majority. Realistically he needs to do everything he can between 10 and 2 so the op can have almost uninterrupted sleep between these times but it's not really practical for him to be up with the babies at 6am on a regular basis.

Just get up on a Saturday and tell him you’re going for a walk. No questions no ifs no buts. Feed them and bugger off for 30 minutes minimum. Your dc will be ok. That’s what it took for me. Oh and I got a phone call in the middle. Eventually dh cottoned onto the fact I was deadly serious I wasn’t going to help for a whole 30 minutes each week and started to extend my walks.
Now my dh ‘gets’ it he’s great. Took a lot of me getting out regardless though.

Zero

It was a lighthearted comment User but I can certainly think of several occasions when my DH came in from work and immediately fell asleep on the sofa if we’d had a bad night with our twins.

It doesn’t really matter when her DH pitches in, the fact is he isnt doing enough.

The OP must be on her knees with exhaustion.

Dads who don’t graft make my blood boil. I would be consumed with shame if I had left it all to my poor wife. I really don’t know how these guys rationalise it.

Wow! I'll bet he never even washed his dishes up eating at that time with work at 10 either did he? How many days a week does he work?

What a fucking waste of space! Sleeping in till 10am is completely out of order ESPECIALLY when it's because he's pissing about on the PS and not going to bed at a reasonable time!

Are you doing all the housework and mental load too?

"It’s not just me it’s impacting on and that’s what makes me so angry." YOU don't deserve more impact than is necessary either.

My ex (who has MANY faults) was nowhere near this bad!

When home (he was in army at the time) he worked mostly 8-5 he'd be up at 5.30/6am to train and would change dds nappy and train "with" her either use her as a "weight" which she loved! Or she'd be in her bouncy chair and he'd (quietly) sing her songs or make daft faces to amuse her. He'd make a cuppa to bring to me when he brought her through before going to work.

When he got in at 5 he'd take her straight off me, letting me get a bath/shower, he'd usually pop a load of washing in machine at this point, change her if needed, I'd then make dinner and we'd take turns to eat (it seemed to be her most clingy time). Then he'd bath her while I did the dishes (or vice versa), I was bf too so then I'd nurse her and settle her. Spend a couple hours with him but we'd be doing some chores together - eg hanging washing etc I'd go to bed at 9pm after a feed so I could get a bit extra sleep and if she needed seeing to before he went bed at 11 he'd do so. We'd each have a lie in at weekends.

Your "partner" is being an utterly lazy, useless, selfish twat!

TWINS and he seems to be doing sod all!!

I can understand why you've approached his mother BUT remember SHE is the one (along with his dad if he was around) that raised him to BE this lazy!!

Where's your mum? If my ex had been like this I'd have gone to my mum and she'd have probably tipped up the next day that night to bollock him and help me! (And I don't have a good relationship with my mum but this I do believe she would have done. She gave my brother a bollocking when he moaned with his first about lack of sleep and she also bollocked my sisters now ex when he was being like your partner - his mother was fucking useless too! She raised her 3 boys to do sod all and expect the world to give them all they needed on a silver plate!)

At the VERY LEAST when he's home he should be:

Doing bath times
Doing nappy changes
Doing colic/tired & fractious/teething night walking
Household chores (laundry, hoovering, dishes, cleaning kitchen,cooking, dusting, bins, cleaning bathroom...)
Doing "mental load" chores - he's getting more sleep so he has better concentration to deal with banking, ins, any benefits admin, organising mots and similar.

"Hide the PlayStation and tell him he'll get it back when he figures out how to be a father." Seconded! Yes it's infantilising but then he's acting like a lazy entitled teen so treat him like one!!

"Whether you think his job is easy and he's just sat there, he's still at work for 12 hours." And op is working too! Looking after twins! That belong to and are the responsibility of both of them! The other 12 hours certainly I'd say at least 6 of them he needs to pull his finger out his arse!

"The thing is most people cannot just go straight to sleep as soon as they finish work" if he was pulling his weight he could! He could certainly be asleep by say 1130 after eating and some time to wind down - does he need to eat when he gets in op or does he eat at his clients place?

Wow, so many replies.

He eats when he gets in. Tbf he never expects me to make his food and will make some for me if I haven’t eaten.

He does help with bedtimes. He usually gives DS a bottle of ebm while I bf DD. He’ll then do the dishes while I put them in their cots when they’ve fallen asleep. Bathtimes are always instigated by me. He’ll sit in the room with us but rarely actually bathes them.

I do all their clothes washing and sorting. I also do the majority of the housework. He’ll do bins, steriliser, washing up.

The mental load definitely falls on me. I sort all bills, house admin etc. DD is having treatment atm where are has to have set excercises done every day. He never does them with her. He also has a pet who currently needs eye drops twice a day. It’s always me who instigates getting him out of his cage to do it. We have a dog and he usually walks her.

They were ivf babies, so very much wanted. We went abroad for treatment and I spent all my savings!

Our twins are 6 now and she has always been fully involved, however, he can't use his initiative and needs me to guide his every move which makes me stabby

At 5 months I was the sahp but when home, dh did as much if not more as me as he cleaned the house. Ours were sttn at 5 months which meant I was much less miserable as I was getting decent sleep again. At age 6 he will take them out at the weekend, get up and do breakfast for us all and pretty much whatever needs doing.

@neversleepagain My DH needs to be talked through everything too. It drives me insane!