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AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

Original poster

“Oh the baby sleeps so well at night”

142 replies

MsHedgehog · 31/07/2021 07:40

DH has been saying this to his parents as we’re staying with them for a few weeks.

Except our baby is EBF. And DH is a deep sleeper. And a fucking snorer.

So I’m the one who wakes up every fucking night, every fucking time, to deal with every fucking night feed. And as DS goes through the 4 month sleep regression, I’m the one waking up every single damn time. Every two hours it’s been tonight. Every fucking two hours. Two nights ago, it was every single hour!!

So how the fuck is our baby sleeping well through the night when you sleep soundly snoring away, and I’m constantly waking up. Why the fuck do you say such a thing!! Why de minimise my lack of sleep and what I’m fucking dealing with?!

And guys, do you know what was the fucking icing on the cake?

DH came to bed late last night, as he was up working late on his last day before taking annual leave. He came to the bedroom full of beans that he’s now on holiday and I was sat up feeding DS. He saw I wasn’t happy, asked what’s wrong and I told him I’ve just woken up. Didn’t hear me, and I repeated it snappily. So what did my darling husband do when he saw it’s 2am, I’m tired but still up feeding our son...went to bed in a fucking strop because I snapped at him. Instead of suggesting any help whatsoever, because I snapped at him and ruined his good mood, he literally went to bed in a strop! A fucking strop! What the fucking hell?! Who does that?!

Arrggghhhh!!! Fucking hell!

(Needed to rant and cry...and swear! And just get my frustration off before I try and go back to sleep before DS wakes again).

OP posts:
GoldBar · 31/07/2021 09:53

It's called maternity leave for a reason. You have a baby and you're on leave to look after it. If you can't cope with night waking whilst being off work all this time how do you expect your husband.

Shock. You know, it's amazing but some women go back to work before their babies are sleeping through. Yes, they manage to cope with both work and sleepless nights. And some fathers even share the night wake-ups. Who'd have thought it?

Terhou · 31/07/2021 09:55

Ask him if he really believes the baby sleeps well at night, and if not why the hell he said that. If he does believe it, offer to give him a couple of nights where you pour cold water over him to wake him every time the baby wakes so that he can gauge the reality of it.

feelingmehtoday · 31/07/2021 09:55

@ActonSquirrel

Going to work doesn't count? How else are they going to live?

Well exactly. It's called maternity leave for a reason. You have a baby and you're on leave to look after it. If you can't cope with night waking whilst being off work all this time how do you expect your husband.

😳

Wow. DP helps with all our night feeds then goes to a demanding job working 12 hour shifts. Because he recognises that we are both working the next day. The difference being that unlike me, he gets allocated, uninterrupted breaks and has a team of people around him to bounce ideas off and lend a hand. Also, he's just generally not a total arse.

HumbugWhale · 31/07/2021 09:56

@MaMaD1990

Can you try to bottle feed so DH can help? I'm assuming you've told him that baby is actually not a good sleeper and you'd like some recognition of that? I'll never understand how men can sleep through babies crying...it really is a skill (I wish I possessed)!
I slept through our babies crying, I am a very heavy sleeper. Dh often had to wake me up to feed them (to be fair he would hand them to me with a clean nappy already put on so I literally just had to feed them and settle them again). Even now he usually deals with kids waking up in the night because they have wet the bed or something as I just don't hear them. I once slept through a fire alarm and full evacuation of the building at university!
Notaroadrunner · 31/07/2021 09:56

You need to start waking Dh up every night now that he's on holidays and hand baby to him for a nappy change, either before or after you feed - preferably afterwards so you can be seen to lie down and go to sleep while he changes the nappy. Feck him, he hasn't a clue and I'd definitely be correcting him when he tries to make out that baby sleeps through the night by stating that the only person who sleeps through the night is your Dh.

ohthatbloodycat · 31/07/2021 09:56

My babies were breastfed and ex husband worked long hours in London. I didn't see the point in waking him when he couldn't do much for the baby anyway (and he did plenty at the weekend).
So I know I'll be flamed for this, but YABU.

CaptSkippy · 31/07/2021 09:57

@MsHedgehog

I have a question. You said your husband was up untill 2 am. What time does your son go to bed? How many times did he wake up between his bedtime and your husband's bedtime?

Depending on your answers, I don't think your husband can use being a deep sleeper as an excuse if he was already awake for a portion of it. He could have tended to his son before going to bed and give you a few hours sleep at least.

HumbugWhale · 31/07/2021 09:58

Sorry forgot to add my actual point which is that even though I was breastfeeding he always did his share in the night and getting up with them early in the morning so I could catch up a bit.

ivfgottwins · 31/07/2021 09:59

I actually agree with posts about maternity leave - I wouldn't expect a father to do any night feeds in those circumstances. I had twins and did them all on my own - I went back to work full time in a demanding challenging job at 20 weeks and still do them all on my own. Why? Because I cope better on little/no/broken sleep than husband does. He's a grumpy moody tired person I'm more of a deliriously high tired person. I won't change him - he does other things to make up for it. No point in forcing him as just causes additional resentment. When he wonders why our children are more closely bonded to me I'll remind him why

TheLovelinessOfDemons · 31/07/2021 10:00

@ActonSquirrel

Passive aggression is extremely difficult to live with here.

4 months of this and you've said nothing and then blow up like WWIII.

I'd like to be told straight away I'm doing something my partner is unhappy with so i can fix it, not be screamed at after 4 months of them saying nothing.

He is also a first time dad perhaps he really doesn't get it. They don't all.

So many things about first time dads. I was lazy when I was in late pregnancy and 13 days overdue because I lay on the sofa drinking milk and water all day, I didn't come and rescue him when I'd asked him to sit with DS2 (his DC1), apparently it didn't occur to him to put him in his Moses basket and come and get me, so many others.....
MrsTophamHat · 31/07/2021 10:01

Going to work does not count because it is often a break from the relentlessness of having a small baby.

Going to work means getting up, getting showered and leaving the house by yourself. Going to work means adult conversation and hot coffees. Going to work means variety. Going to work is getting to be the person you were before the baby came.

So if you are getting to do all of these things and then whinge about needing a full nights sleep and downtime while your partner deals with a baby who is cluster feeding and all the household stuff completely alone, then that is really selfish. Your life is basically unchanged while your partner life has turned upside down.

Pulling equal weight doesn't have to mean getting up in the night, but might mean doing all the cooking, cleaning, food shopping, taking the baby out for walks so mum can sleep etc. Every family is different.

Neverrains · 31/07/2021 10:01

Well exactly. It's called maternity leave for a reason. You have a baby and you're on leave to look after it. If you can't cope with night waking whilst being off work all this time how do you expect your husband

I went back to work when my babies didn’t sleep through the night. Guess what? I managed the night feeds and working a demanding job.
Women on maternity leave still need sleep. Sleep deprivation is used as a form of torture. She isn’t asking her DH to do every single wake up (she’s breastfeeding after all), just some acknowledgement that actually she is up in the night with the baby while he sleeps, and the odd bit of support.

feelingmehtoday · 31/07/2021 10:02

@ivfgottwins

I actually agree with posts about maternity leave - I wouldn't expect a father to do any night feeds in those circumstances. I had twins and did them all on my own - I went back to work full time in a demanding challenging job at 20 weeks and still do them all on my own. Why? Because I cope better on little/no/broken sleep than husband does. He's a grumpy moody tired person I'm more of a deliriously high tired person. I won't change him - he does other things to make up for it. No point in forcing him as just causes additional resentment. When he wonders why our children are more closely bonded to me I'll remind him why

We are the exact opposite. DP copes far better than I do with sleep deprivation. When it builds up, sleep deprivation actually leads to quite a significant decline in my MH. So I suppose it's about what works best for each family, isn't it.

LavenderAskew · 31/07/2021 10:03

@MrsTophamHat

My DH ised to do all the settling after night feeds even if working. I'd feed and then he would get them back into the cot so that I could sleep.

When we switched to mixed feeding, he would be "on duty" until 3am while I went to bed at 8pm, and then he would lie in until late morning.

Once fully on bottles, we took it in turns.

I am very sceptical that men don't hear babies crying. I think it's more that they know that sound isn't for them so they don't wake up fully, in the same way that your brain tunes out other normal sounds in the night. He needs to understand that that noise is a cue for him to wake up and help

I think you're spot on here. It's so frequently trotted out that men just don't hear isn't it.
FilthyforFirth · 31/07/2021 10:05

I ebf DS2 for 4 months, didnt mean I did all the night stuff myself. Why would I? Half the time I fed him and then handed him back to DH to settle down.

I have never bought into that men need a full nights sleep when they are going to work. I cant be dangerously tired on my own with a small baby all day. Far more of a risk in my opinion.

actorbynight · 31/07/2021 10:05

So yanbu that he's telling people the baby sleeps well.
Yabu complaining that you are the one dealing with every feed when you choose to EBF.

What I would do ( what i did) is start expressing, feed your baby in the evening, for us @ 7pm, then go to bed. Next time the baby wakes up it's your husbands responsibility to do the next feed. For us this was a 10/11pm dream feed of expressed milk in a bottle. It meant I got a mostly solid sleep for about 6/7 hours.
Not the most sociable however but very much needed.
It's the start of your OH's annual leave. Why don't you try this or a similar approach for a few days and see if it helps

PigeonPink · 31/07/2021 10:05

To be fair though, if the baby is EBF then what do you expect him to do? He can’t feed or anything because you’re the one with the milk. If you decide to EBF then you just have to suck up the fact that you’re responsible for all feeds. If you wanted to mixed feed and he refused then that would be different but it doesn’t sound like that’s the case,

GoldBar · 31/07/2021 10:06

I had twins and did them all on my own - I went back to work full time in a demanding challenging job at 20 weeks and still do them all on my own. Why? Because I cope better on little/no/broken sleep than husband does.

Wow. You really let him do a number on you, didn't you?

This is why maternity leave is such an issue. It entrenches patterns of behaviour which mean that, even when women return to work, they still do the childcare heavy lifting.

I have never seen a man who refused to help with the baby while his partner was on maternity leave then suddenly and magically started sharing the load and doing 50% when she returned to work.

The sleep excuse is rubbish. Very few people cope well with interrupted sleep over a long period of time. You just learn to deal with it.

feelingmehtoday · 31/07/2021 10:06

I have never bought into that men need a full nights sleep when they are going to work. I cant be dangerously tired on my own with a small baby all day. Far more of a risk in my opinion.

Exactly.

Todaytomorrowyesterday · 31/07/2021 10:07

Our first was a terrible sleeper (18 yrs old now still a terrible sleeper) because she was bottle fed we sort of shared it - I’d do the awful 2/3am wake up bottle but he would always wake early before work and allow me to sleep in. Weekends we then took turns. So in theory a nice shared experience….our second was breast feed and if you asked my husband the perfect sleeper!!! She was better than our first but still woke up during the night!!!
She wouldn’t take a bottle so we came up with other ways he could support - getting up to take her in the morning, weekends take girls out for walks so I could rest.
What I would say is my husband just hadn’t ‘thought’ about it and if I’d snap at him he would probably go on the defensive as he’d feel he failed us (just his personality nobody perfect) once we had a more positive chat about what I needed from him all good :)

Neverrains · 31/07/2021 10:08

@FilthyforFirth

I ebf DS2 for 4 months, didnt mean I did all the night stuff myself. Why would I? Half the time I fed him and then handed him back to DH to settle down.

I have never bought into that men need a full nights sleep when they are going to work. I cant be dangerously tired on my own with a small baby all day. Far more of a risk in my opinion.

Yeah this is how we did it too. I did the feeds, DH did and required nappy changes/resettling.
WorkHardPlayHard1 · 31/07/2021 10:10

@MrsTophamHat

Going to work does not count because it is often a break from the relentlessness of having a small baby.

Going to work means getting up, getting showered and leaving the house by yourself. Going to work means adult conversation and hot coffees. Going to work means variety. Going to work is getting to be the person you were before the baby came.

So if you are getting to do all of these things and then whinge about needing a full nights sleep and downtime while your partner deals with a baby who is cluster feeding and all the household stuff completely alone, then that is really selfish. Your life is basically unchanged while your partner life has turned upside down.

Pulling equal weight doesn't have to mean getting up in the night, but might mean doing all the cooking, cleaning, food shopping, taking the baby out for walks so mum can sleep etc. Every family is different.

Ive just taken a screen-shot of your response to show my husband 👏👏👏👏👏
ivfgottwins · 31/07/2021 10:13

@GoldBar

It's Not about "doing a number on me" he was like that before having children - he also works a very early Morning shift from 430am - there is zero point in him helping with night feeds when I can cope on much less sleep and am much less grumpy so less likely to bring the whole atmosphere down at home

I don't subscribe to the whole MN - a father/man must do half of everything and you must force him to do it or leave him view

ivfgottwins · 31/07/2021 10:15

Going to work means getting up, getting showered and leaving the house by yourself. Going to work means adult conversation and hot coffees. Going to work means variety. Going to work is getting to be the person you were before the baby came.

Going to work could also mean performing brain surgery or driving a train 🤷‍♀️

Looking after a baby whilst relentless requires significantly less pressure / responsibility / decision making challenges than many people have at work

feelingmehtoday · 31/07/2021 10:15

@MrsTophamHat

Yes!!! What a response.

And also, I'd like to add that going to work means having a team around you to converse with and seek support from (both practical and morale). Where does that come from when you're alone for long stretches of the day with a newborn baby, and you have no family support locally? It's not even comparable to going to work IMO.