to want my partner to do his bit?

[Chrissy1291]

My boyfriend and I have a 12 week old son. I’m happy to do the night feeds Sunday - Thursday as he has work (from home, I.T) Monday - Friday. I am very lucky that both our mums adore our baby boy and so take turns to have him overnight on Saturdays. All I ask of my partner is that Friday nights he takes responsibility for feeds etc so I can have a breather from it, and also for the sake of their bonding. However, he just doesn’t. We had a discussion about this last weekend and I explained my feelings on it and he said he knows he needs to do more and he will. But tonight we were watching a movie and time was ticking on and nothing had been mentioned about him doing the feed in a few hours time. So I brought it up and he said “We’ll do it together, I’ll help you prepare it.” Prepare it?! It takes two fucking minutes to prepare (we use formula and hot and cold flasks of boiled water). What about feeding, winding, changing him and then trying to settle him back down, all of which can take up to an hour? I was that insulted I just said forget it and I’ve ended up doing it myself with tears streaming down my face out of anger because I really don’t think I’m asking for much. I’m upset that I didn’t realise he was so selfish before, and am debating moving me and my son into the other room. At least then I wouldn’t be so resentful of my snoring partner. What does everyone think?

He sounds selfish. My ex was like this- his need for sleep trumped everything, and he did no nighttime care as he felt he had a very important job. He is an ex for a reason.

Hugs to you. Hope he is better in other aspects of parenting and life!

I think he's an absolute twat.

I'd have a conversation with him tomorrow telling him how disappointed you are that he let you down, and how you will not be picking up the slack for him next week.

My DH was slightly similar (in his case it was failing to help out with early mornings) and I let it slide. Result was that I got exhausted and resentful. It's all ok now, but it took a crisis point which we should have avoided.

I think your partner is being very selfish, especially as you have explained how you feel. I think you should push on with this, otherwise you might just always end up doing all the nights, which could get incredibly hard during teething/sleep regressions etc. You are entitled to sleep as well. You are both parents now, yet he gets a full nights sleep every night...

You're not unreasonable at all. I would try talking to him again and explain how hurt you are that he doesn't seem to care about your feelings or take his turn one night a week - especially when he knows he'll be getting the next night to catch up on sleep if the baby is out! And the next Friday, just say "good luck", and go to bed with earplugs in!

I've had the exact same issue tonight! My husband is a hgv driver with early morning starts. I suggested that he sleep in the spare room on work nights, as I worried about him being sleep deprived while driving a large vehicle. I totally accept that it's the right thing to do. And it was okay, because he would come through with us when he didn't have work the next day.

However, tonight while I'm sleep deprived and changing a nappy and getting ready to give the baby his bottle, I realised that for however many consecutive nights, a good couple of weeks worth, I realised that I always do the night feed, even if he's there. Listening to him snore beside me made so upset. Like a previous poster said, it's just become the norm that I do anything at night.

Pair that with my husband having an earlier bedtime than the baby, so I have to do all the bedtimes as well, it's just exhausting.

I wish I had the answer.

He just needs to do it. The baby isn’t BF so there’s no excuse at all.

He’s lazy!!! You’re only asking him to do one night a wk, not to mention the break you get as a couple on Saturdays...he’s spoilt

He has learnt that by making it difficult when asked to do something he doesn’t want to do, there is a good chance he will get away with having to do it. It should not have been a debate, you were not asking for help, you were telling him it’s his turn. You need to be strong or he will continue to do this.

I think he should agree to doing feeds one night a week. Does he lack confidence making up feeds, giving bottles, burping baby or something? Seems odd he asked to do it together!

Even my DH did a couple of nights a week of feeds when DD was tiny, and I was breastfeeding! I made up bottles of expressed milk, left them in fridge and taught him how to warm them up.

If he’s worried about getting the formula prep right when he’s sleepy, could you make up the bottles in advance so he just has to warm them up?

He's being very unreasonable, one night feed a much isn't much at all. If he honestly isn't confident at doing the formula then make a point of going through how to do it with him then there's no excuses.

My DH looks after our baby half the night every night since he went back to work 2 weeks ago and he works from home Monday to Friday, I got quite ill post birth and keeps telling me that I need to be looking after myself to look after our son whenever I offer to do more so we both get around 5 hours solid sleep each night.

So the parenting to me seems very uneven in your situation and I think you should calmly put your foot down with your partner otherwise it's not going to get any better.