AIBU to expect that DP will do some housework while he's on parental leave

[Etherealhedgehog]

5 month old DD is a joy but currently naps only on me or in the pram, and night sleep is not great (hello never-ending sleep regression!). We're taking steps to try and improve matters but want to be gentle so it will take time. This plus COVID plus the fact that we're in a one-bed rental and trying to buy our first flat means that my maternity leave is a bit of a slog, with no time to recharge or get stuff done in the day. I'm living for the weekends, when it's still a slog but at least there are two of us to share the load.

I'm going back to work at 9 months and DP will be taking three months of SPL subsequent to that - something that was really important to both of us.

Earlier DP joked about 'imagine how amazing it will be if by the time I'm on parental leave we're in our own flat and she's finally napping in the cot.' Funnily enough I didn't guffaw with laughter, because this is probably exactly what will happen and it feels desperately unfair (obviously I still hope it happens - life's unfair, I know). I then said I hope he understood that if DD is napping X hours a day in the cot by then, a good chunk of that time should be spent doing housework/life admin etc, it's not just for watching Netflix and gaming.

He took great offence at this and said that while yes OF COURSE he would do some housework etc in that time, he thinks my stance is anti-feminist. That if you believe that looking after a baby is a full-time job then you should be in favour of whichever parent is doing it using nap time primarily for downtime, so that the other tasks (all housework, life admin etc) are split equally between both partners on evenings and weekends.

Apparently if I was getting three hours of baby free naptime atm, he would be all in favour of me spending it all watching Netflix and leaving the laundry and dishes to be done by one or the other of us after he finishes work. I reckon that's easy for him to say given that's not our reality right now (I should add that napping when the baby naps I see differently and am all in favour of - if there's an opportunity to catch up on needed sleep then go for it!)

So....

YABU - looking after a baby is hard. Chill out all you want whenever they're sleeping. The chores can wait til your partner gets home.

YANBU - if one partner is working 9-5 in an office it's reasonable to expect the other partner is working approximately those hours at home. By all means take some of that naptime every day to chill and recharge, but a good chunk of it should be used to get necessary housework and life admin done, giving both of you more time to enjoy evenings and weekends

How much have you been doing around the house? He should be doing a similar amount. My friends husband got the hump for his parental leave as he had to do housework -for clarity she had spent the previous 6 months doing that

His “anti-feminist” comment was quite humorous. But l don’t think he was joking was he?

it gets laid on so thick to some men, that looking after the child is a full time job, and they shouldn't also be expecting their partner to do the housework

Does it?

Hmmm I can see both sides.
As long as you’re happy for him to come home from work & ask why you’ve been chilling instead of doing housework then you can do the same to him. I would absolutely hate if my DH did that. I’m at the end of my maternity leave. I do housework during naps sometimes but not others. If he came home and ask me why this wasn’t cleaned or dinner wasn’t ready or this or that I’d blow my lid. Take each day as it comes and don’t dictate to him how he spends his time if you don’t want him to do the same.

Really good point made by another poster, you're in a one-bedroom flat and there's only one child. I can't see how much housework there can be that couldn't be readily fitted in by one adult over the course of the day during the working week, regardless of whether it's you or your partner. This sort of artificial division of time I find really puzzling. While baby is lying on mat kicking its legs or playing with something in its hands then you get on with jobs, you don't have to wait for the baby to be asleep to do things. And if you can't put the baby down, you need to get on that

"I’m actually mostly on his side for this. I really think a lot of maternity leave should be spent on the sofa cuddling the baby or relaxing rather than doing chores."

This can surely only apply to

• first babies
• people with partners willing to go along with this nonsense
• those who have other support (like family members) also willing to go along with this nonsense

-the rich who can afford people to do everything else for them or those willing to live in a shit tip -those who think a baby should be permanently in arms; one of mine in particular would have been very cranky if not left to lie on a mat on the floor a lot of the time.

They one at home should do the cleaning. The other one should help.

Looking after a child isn't a full time job I hate that saying. My job is my job.

Even your 50s housewife managed to do all the housework whilst looking after the children. yes, its tricky when they are little and clingy, and when they dont sleep at night very well, but as someone upthread said - all this sitting and cuddling on the sofa isnt going to cut it when you have number 2, and have to do the school run

Hi @theleafandnotthetree, thanks for your fairly rude response. Yes, it was my first child and yes, my husband agreed and did most of the housework while I was hanging out with the baby.

Now I’m back at work (but WFH) it is very easy for me to do loads of laundry / empty the dishwasher while on lunch so I do pretty much all the housework while he is looking after the baby.

So for us it has worked both ways and having a lockdown baby meant we had absolutely no help so I was spending all my time with the baby.

@Etherealhedgehog

Thanks all, really helpful. I think the point about equal downtime is basically what i was trying to propose but that's a much clearer way of putting it.

@irregularegular absolutely agree - I would expect him to spend as much time as possible playing/out seeing people with the baby etc. I'm counting that as part of the 'work' of childcare even though once this shit situation is over it will hopefully feel less like work. I'm talking specifically about what happens when she's sleeping (assuming that is, eventually, in the cot!)

If your DC is going to be 9 months old life is definitely easier than with a new-born unless they're mobile!

And there's nothing wrong with doing some housework when they're happily playing.

@ShirleyPhallus

Hi *@theleafandnotthetree*, thanks for your fairly rude response. Yes, it was my first child and yes, my husband agreed and did most of the housework while I was hanging out with the baby.

Now I’m back at work (but WFH) it is very easy for me to do loads of laundry / empty the dishwasher while on lunch so I do pretty much all the housework while he is looking after the baby.

So for us it has worked both ways and having a lockdown baby meant we had absolutely no help so I was spending all my time with the baby.

To be fair, some of us didn't have help when not in Lockdown!

I had no nearby family so both had to be done and some stuff did not wait for evenings or weekends.

@Nanny0gg

A 9m earlier than a newborn? Really?
Since when can a newborn untidy faster than you can tidy, and try to kill themselves for a start.

Easier, rather...

I found nine months easier simply because I was finally getting some sleep.

@ShirleyPhallus

Hi *@theleafandnotthetree*, thanks for your fairly rude response. Yes, it was my first child and yes, my husband agreed and did most of the housework while I was hanging out with the baby.

Now I’m back at work (but WFH) it is very easy for me to do loads of laundry / empty the dishwasher while on lunch so I do pretty much all the housework while he is looking after the baby.

So for us it has worked both ways and having a lockdown baby meant we had absolutely no help so I was spending all my time with the baby.

What on earth help would two involved parents with one baby need? Im sorry but some of this is a bit feeble.

@DrSbaitso

Both of mine slept worse at 9m than as a newborn. Yawns. So many yawns.

What on earth help would two involved parents with one baby need? Im sorry but some of this is a bit feeble.

Oh for fuck’s sake. I didn’t say we needed any help. Another poster said that there was no way that only one parent could do everything while the other looked after the baby “without family help”. My point was that we didn’t have any.

But actually, having a lockdown baby has been pretty shit with our entire families never having even met her all together. Even having a hug with my mum or giving the baby to my parents for a few hours didn’t happen until she was about 5 months old. So, yeah, you might take for granted that people don’t need any actual help and that it’s “feeble” but having literally no one around you and having no family or friends to be with has been a real challenge

(Cue the inevitable “I have no friends and worked 22 hours a day from when my babies were 5 days old and had quadruplets and was still absolutely fine so you’re a wimp” posts)

@Nellythemouse - just the basics - dishes, laundry, once a week we clean the bathroom, kitchen and hoover. Don't worry, neither of us is going to be dusting skirting boards or anything like that! The life admin could well be significant - as well as trying to buy a place, we'll need to do a last minute scramble for childcare in whatever area we end up in and are meant to be getting married halfway through his leave (postponed from last year - fingers crossed

@Quartz2208 - right now we both get the dishes and laundry done through the day/when he's finished work, as we're able to (I do stuff in five minute bursts while she's on the baby gym or similar). We do the rest on the weekend between us. We've always been very good at sharing work fairly (with the exception of the mental labour, as he does admit), so I expect that will continue. Was just genuinely interested AIBU as he seemed to feel so strongly that spare time in his hypothetical SPL day was downtime on principle

Thanks everyone, lots to think about. Those who have pointed out that she might still be a rubbish napper, making the whole thing hypothetical - good point, it's definitely not something to lose sleep over now. And yep, clearly we need to work hard to avoid the 'whose day was crapper' trap. Basically, I think I am feeling a bit sorry for myself because the current situation feels pretty crap, and hearing DP 'joke' about how much better it might be for him really rubbed me up the wrong way - I do think it was pretty insensitive given that he knows how hard we're both finding it right now. And yeah, the feminism thing was pretty irritating (I think he's thinking about the very real issue with women doing more of the domestic labour in households where both partners work outside the home, and somehow conflating it with this, which is not the same). I am pretty confident that he will do his fair share, whatever that looks like at the time (with some downtime in the day if he gets that luxury, of course) - I just genuinely wondered AIBU as he chose to take our fairly pointless argument down the 'it's the principle!' route.

Thanks to all those who have explained all the ways in which 9-12 might prove to be much harder than what we are currently doing - as a FTM, it's hard to imagine that anything is harder than what you're already in/have done (though to be clear, I'm not in the newborn stage, I'm in the frustrated, not yet crawling, very shouty, shit sleeper, post-newborn stage). I have had a couple of friends go on about what a lovely stage post 9 months is, which hasn't helped with feeling sorry for myself for getting the crap bit - but comparison is the theft of joy and all that. And I guess it will vary with the baby

And to be clear, I'm not expecting him to get particular things done OR to be doing chores whilst chasing around an awake baby - this is literally just about how time should be spent when she is (hypothetically) napping. I suspect for us it will boil down to doing whatever enables us to have approximately equal downtime, but it's impossible to say what that will look like right now.

Tbh you may well be jumping the gun here. My DD didn't reliably nap in a cot until she was 1. Most of her naps prior to that where on top of me or outdoors in the pram on our way to/from places.

post 9 months is lovely in the sense that you start to get a proper little person with a proper little personality would can start to move and communicate.

But it is also hard because they move and they are weaning so need feeding.

His hypothetical downtime will probably be spent trying not to wake said child whilst preparing food and cleaning up the mess they have made. If he thinks it is going to be easier he is in for a surprise

I wouldn’t worry about it yet. 9month old babies are hard work to look after and don’t necessarily sleep when you want/need them to.

Post 9 months is lovely. They just never stop moving and trying to kill themselves. But it's very interesting!

You sound really tired OP, and I bet so is he. Everything is worse when you are tired. You are arguing about hypothetical chores in a hypothetical flat when your baby hypothetically sleeps and both getting very upset.
I really think it would be better to focus on the here and now. If you can get her sleek g at night (and therefore you too) then the lack of daytime naps won’t seem as bad. Have you tried sleep school? I don’t know what they are called in UK but here you go stay overnight and they help you figure out why the baby doesn’t sleep.

My eldest was a terrible daytime napper right up until she gave up napping. The baby books may say she should be having 2 long naps a day at 9-12 months but no one told my eldest this.
But we managed to get nights to a liveable point. Partly by taking shifts on who got up to her and partly by trying everything under the sun to get her to sleep better. And that made the cat napping days so much easier to cope with

The disturbed night counts for longer working hours