To want just one nights sleep?

[ifeeltheneedtheneedforsleep]

I had a baby almost 2 weeks ago - long story short was a traumatic birth that ended up with an emergency section under general anaesthetic, baby in SCBU and we were in hospital for 9 days. During that time, barely slept as the hospital ward was terrible - dh kept things going at home with dc1 and visited several times a day etc
Since we came home, I've pretty much been expected to just get on with it despite having awful headaches and still having some pain from the wound. DH will have cuddles etc with baby and help in terms of making up bottles etc but when it comes to night time, I'm on my own as he buggers off to the spare room where he has yet another good nights sleep. I'm totally wiped - baby is generally really good all day but come night time he will not sleep. I just need a bit of a break and it's soul destroying hearing him snore in the other room while I'm sitting here with a screaming baby absolutely exhausted

If he doesn’t let you sleep, I would strongly consider a hotel night.

What a dick. If baby is bottle fed then he should absolutely be sharing the night duties. That's one of the advantages of bottle feeding FFS. Tell him!

Just tell him that you need a good night's sleep and that he's on night duty tonight. It's really not acceptable that he just buggers off to the spare room and leaves you to struggle.

Agree with pp. Bottle fed and not up for work? Tell him he's on duty now.

You know what pisses me off? If OP was on mat leave after an uneventful birth and her DH happened to have just had major abdominal surgery, there's no way anyone would expect him to do anything. At all. But she's doing everything. It's absolutely disgusting. And the fact that he appears not to know that makes him pretty disgusting.

MrsTerryPratchett you're 100% correct.

what the fuck why wouldnt he help you?? I had a c section and I breastfeed so OH couldnt help with the feeds but he did all housework etc.and took baby for a few hours during the day so I could attempt to catch up. your partner is outrageous

If he can’t help then he can pay for a maternity nurse to give you a night off!!

It's very unlikely you're going to get a full night sleep with a newborn but you need to find a way to make it fairer and manageable.

When DS was tiny I'd go up to sleep at about 8pm, and he'd give him an expressed/bottle feed and bring him up at about 11.30pm. He could then go to bed. I'd breastfeed him and then luckily he mostly slept 5-6hrs and DH would take him for an hour before work.
I'm still cosleeping now and DH still takes him on a morning at the weekend for a couple of hrs so I can just lounge in bed and sleep in or read or surf the net. DS is 2!

Absolutely no reason he should be in another room sound asleep when he is still on paternity leave and you are recovering. Get him the f*ck up and tell him to take over.

He should be helping you not snoring away in the spare room, it sounds like you had a horrific time, you need a chance to heal and you are not getting it!

He should be helping out on paternity leave. That's one of the reason it exists! So you can both parent, which is a 24/7 responsibility.

He needs to be helping you. He should be doing half the night feeds while he's on leave and helping out when he goes back to work too.
However if you don't get him helping no, he never will. I used to do night feeds Sunday to Thursday but on the weekend it was my husband's turn.
Just give him the baby and go to bed in the spare room. If your husband says anything just tell him you need to sleep so he's on night duty.

You go to bed at 6pm and get 6 hours straight sleep.. you then do the 12am - 6am shift. This continues when he goes back to work until the baby is sleeping a little better.

What an arsehole he is.

I bf so we DH did 9-1 ish, it was as long as baby would go. And shifts worked well for quite a few months then it all went to pot.
Would your mother or his mother come to stay for a few nights and look after the baby? I know your DH should but this might be the quickest method of getting some much needed sleep.

He should be doing ALL the nights at the moment.

@booberella yeah pretty much - what I was worried about and what did happen!! He made a point this afternoon of doing his feed except he clearly wasn't ready so after two hours of baby getting progressively more cranky, I'm now left with an overtired baby to deal with as he's gone upstairs without eating dinner (that I stood and cooked) and is faffing about with laundry. Clearly doesn't get that it's not one bottle at 4pm I need bell with!

Sorry, I really just needed to vent as the last thing I want is there being tension between us but I can already see it going that way (he was the same when ds1 was a baby) and it caused massive problems which he clearly hasn't learned from

Don't have any more kids with him ffs.

If baby is bottle fed, husband should be doing 100% of nights while on paternity leave to leave you recover from birth.

Then when he's back at work, you take Sun-Thurs nights and he takes Fri and Sat nights.

Jesus op, he's being very unreasonable- I feel for you!

My fiancé did 50/50 with me at night even though I had a straight forward vaginal birth and was exclusively breastfeeding! He would do nappy changes, winding, settling etc and would've been horrified at the thought of me doing night after night just me.

Not trying to brag or boast, just trying to show you what a normal relationship looks like. Might be worth showing your dh this thread or telling him about it! He sounds very selfish. You've had a c-section and are ff. He needs to step up!

You had more kids when he did this the first time?
Get off Mumsnet. Go give him his child. Go rest.

Exactly @ScissorsBike !

I was coming to say YANBU, my LG is 1 on Thursday and I still havent had a nights sleep as she wakes every 2 hours if I'm lucky, usually less.

HOWEVER, I'm breastfeeding so dont really have much choice in the matter, YADNBU to want help if your little one is bottle fed and he is still on paternity leave!!!

Can you sit down with him and talk to him about it? You've just given birth to a whole human life, least he can do is take a couple of the night shifts! Especially before he goes back to work and even then I'd expect help on his days off

Just to add to the general consensus that he's on leave but swanning off for a lovely full night's sleep every night..he's an arsehole. A weapons grade arsehole. Time to law down the law.