Currently sat here fuming

[jessieb90]

Hi all,

Currently laid here very annoyed and wanted to see whether I'm over reacting or if I should have a convo with my other half in the morning!

My partner and I agreed that one night a week he would do the night shift so I can have a night where I don't have to get out of bed/ "uninterrupted sleep". Our DS is pretty good and usually only wakes up once or twice max so it's not too gruelling at the moment. I do the night shifts every other night of the week as my boyfriend works full time and needs to be able to concentrate but tonight/ this morning, DS has woken up (on his shift) and he's said "you change the nappy, whilst I make the bottle to bring up" - erm no! This is my "night off"! I said started to do it and expressed I wasn't happy which he replied I do that with you - yes sometimes he does but NEVER during the early morning hours feed (maybe with the exception of once or twice) and I only ever fed DS in bed when it's the morning feed (between 6 and 7) once again I never feed in bed during the night feed as it is disruptive!

Anyway, I feel robbed of my "one night off" and am on the verge of angry tears. It's probably because I'm tired but I'm thinking well I'm fuming and wide awake now I may as well have done the fucking night shift!

AIBU and over reacting or should I have a word? He's pretty good with helping overall (maybe give himself a bit more credit than he deserves) so I feel like sometimes I can't complain as I know/ hear of some woman that literally do it ALL by themselves!

Honest thoughts are appreciated!

Maybe next time, you wake your partner to do the early morning hours feed. On a night it won't jeopardise his work. Do it a few times. Perhaps it simply hasn't occurred to him that there's a difference between what he does & what you do. Because he doesn't see it. I'm not making excuses for him, he needs to realise the reality of having a baby.

Presumably the partner going to work outside doesn’t get to nap during the day, so it’s not necessarily unreasonable for him to be sleeping six nights a week. And using the word ”helping” isn’t entirely unreasonable either if he’s working harder than OP during ”working” hours, which he probably is right now unless the child is a very difficult baby.

Unless you ask him to change a nappy every night then YANBU.

As in, if HE has a night completely uninterrupted then the deal is, so should you.

I'd be pointing that out.

YANBU. Nip this in the bud NOW. Tell him you now need your uninterrupted night tomorrow as he didn't stick to the deal last night. Agree on who has which nights of uninterrupted sleep and stick to it (and this includes getting the nappy/bottle yourself otherwise what's the point?)

Make it clear this is a team effort from the start and the baby-rearing isn't just your job. And no, he isn't "helping" you by getting up one night. This baby is 50% his. This is like when men say they are "babysitting" their own children!

You need to be assertive and strong from the get-go if you don't want to end up being a doormat who ends up doing everything child/home related. I've learnt this too little, too late and believe me, the resentment grows.

@Cam77

Presumably the partner going to work outside doesn’t get to nap during the day, so it’s not necessarily unreasonable for him to be sleeping six nights a week. And using the word ”helping” isn’t entirely unreasonable either if he’s working harder than OP during ”working” hours, which he probably is right now unless the child is a very difficult baby.

Unless the nap is at least 4 hours long to encompass a full sleep cycle it isn’t going to do much. I don’t agree that one partner should risk their health by consistently suffering disrupted sleep.

I’m going to challenge this. Single parents do night feeds and work.

Yes but they, like other parents, deserve not to have to, but it is a fact of their life.

When you have 2 parents at home, it is entirely reasonable that they both take the hit of night activities with the DCs. And it is reasonable to make some allowances if one or both have to work outside the home.

Posted too early: what i mean by reasonable is that you try to get as much unbroken sleep as you can. It was a while ago but i checked with DH and we used to do either the latest or the earliest feed (he started work early so he did the early ones, i did the late ones)

We alternated the waking in the night, and I'll admit it now that i seem to need more sleep than he does, and he is better at surviving on smaller chunks, so i know that there are nights when he should have been sleeping but he got up anyway. When i knew he'd had a hard day, i made sure that i took over that night, and so on. You know: both parents doing parent stuff.

You're doing a great job OP, totally understand why you're so angry/sad. The trouble is YOU don't really get a night off. He needs to woman up and do more of his share. YOU incubated your child, its a tough job, it takes the stuffing out of you. Now is his time to grow you especially, 'taking turns' through the nights would be the bare minimum of his 'share' not 1 night off a week. If that keeps up, he'll be waiting a while longer for life to resume as normal.
You are both working - even if you don't see raising a child as work, it is. Imagine paying someone to do all the jobs you do everyday AND keep a baby alive. Yes, so you are working and you've just made a new person too. You both need to sleep so you can do your jobs during the day. One night a week doesn't measure up by my standards.

Fgs men need educating that staying at home with a newborn is a full time job. These kind of posts really piss me off. I see this time and time again where men assume we sit at home watching. Tv all day having a fucking lie in whilst they are out grafting in their full time job. When they come home they need their rest and relaxation as they've been "working" all day. I'm not gonna lie my dh had this mentality a bit but if I could do it all over again I'd be laying down the law even before we even started trying to conceive.

Like another poster said, unless he's a brain surgeon he can get up in the night more. I work full time and have been getting
Up in the night for the last two weeks (for a different reason) every single night and honestly it hasn't really affected my ability to do a day's work in a very frantic job that requires concentration.

@Dustyblue

Oh my, I remember this well. The rage is intense!

He needs to understand what Uninterrupted Sleep means for a start.

One thing that stuffed my 'nights off' was that I could hear the baby waking and every bit of DH trying to feed/settle him, so I'd be awake and stressing the whole time anyway. How far away are you from the action?

I don't totally agree that the one who works gets to sleep every night. Looking after a baby all day on NO SLEEP is WORK!!!

I'd try to stress the importance of the odd stretch of uninterrupted sleep. Apart from recharging you a little bit, it can help prevent longer term sleep issues. My DS is 5 and I still can't sleep for more than a few hours.

Good luck, I feel your pain (and ragey-ness)

Whilst I agree that dad’s should not view doing childcare as “helping”- it’s not- and certainly should be doing their fair share of household chores all through the week and childcare on his days off/when he gets home from work.

However, I don’t entirely agree that if one parent is at home and the other one working that the working parent should be doing equal night wakenings. When I was on mat leave, I could nap when the baby did or sit and have quiet time on the sofa- even when I had a colicky baby, I could rest (not necessarily sleep) if I needed to. It was hard and I was pretty exhausted, but I took the time I needed and housework etc was done as and when, by both of us. At work I 100% need to be on the ball as mistakes could have pretty terrible consequences for my patients. Same for my DH- given he works with both machinery and livestock, mistakes due to tiredness could be extremely dangerous to him and others. I could not, in all conscience, expect him to be up with the baby at night when he was working as I could rest/nap during the day.

When I was on Mat leave (in the early days) my DH would come home from work and ask me 2 questions - Have you managed to have shower or bath today and have you at least had a cup of tea. If the answer to either of these was no - he would immediately take baby from me and send me off to do one or the other (or send me for a bath while he made me a cup of tea). As DS got older I was able to do more - especially during nap times.
On his days off he always got up with DS to let me have a lie-in and when I got up most of the housework was done and the steriliser was on. The only nights he couldn't help with were the ones when he was on night shift as he wasn't physically here but when he got home he made me breakfast and sorted DS before he went to bed.
I returned to work after 6 months so things had to be shared equally

On my first night out after DS was born I was asked if DH was "babysitting". I replied, slightly sarcastically, "no, he is parenting"

Do exactly what he has done to you, to him.
This evening, when your DS wakes, wake him. Tell him he is either doing the nappy or getting the bottle ready but he is not getting away with an uninterrupted nights sleep.
Because you didn't.
He probably won't be impressed but then again, neither were you when he did it to you.

Then sit down with him on Sunday morning and explain why you did what you did.
You need one night out of seven where you don't have to get up to do the nappy, the bottle or any of the nighttime stuff. If you can agree that either Thursday in to Friday or Friday into Saturday or Saturday into Sunday would be your night then he assumes responsibility for EVERYTHING during that night.

YANBU.

You are both working during the day - him at his day job, you looking after a baby.

In the evenings, nights, and early mornings, you need to share the work. This means taking it in turns to change, bathe, feed, whatever.

I have a hard time having sympathy for you mostly because my partner works full time nights I've not had a full night of uninterrupted sleep in about 4 years 😂🤣

I do get where your coming from tho. Say your taking his turn.

Not unreasonable - and we are in a similar position, I do all the night shift (he sometimes 'helps' by finding a dummy but not every night) and I have got to the stage where I need a night uninterrupted.

You are not asking a lot and he should be able to give this to you. And if he doesn't then you need to wake him up every time you are awake.

And I need to do the same with my OH! Hope you got back to sleep.

YANBU. Be clear with him that he needs to do it all.

And he needs to do 2 nights a week with baby if he works 5 days a week.

Yanbu. You work full time as well, looking after a baby. If doing the night shift doesn't include nappies then cool, he can do overnight nappies from now on.

Tell him he has a choice.

One night completely uninterrupted sleep for you
Or
You are happy to do it together if he wants you to. No problem, but obviously if he chooses to share the job, then that is the case for all 7 nights of the week.

His choice.

Thanks everyone.

I agree with all of you, because a man works he's not "expected" to look after their own child.

He's an office worker so one or two more week nights sleep wouldn't make a difference but he is working over time to compensate for the lack of money I'm bringing in because of being on Mat leave.

I'm gonna try to calmly talk to him this morning but I'm still fucking raging!

And one lie in each per weekend, with no interruptions, except for fire.

It might be better to have that on a different day to your no interrupted sleep night, so you get two days of better sleep.

Why doesn't he look after the baby from 8pm till midnight and you go to bed early.

You can then do the night feeds and get a sleep in the day when the baby sleeps.

I've just seen that he works in an office. He is taking the piss.

If he was an air traffic controller or a neurosurgeon I might see his point....

You need more than one night off. The myth of "sleep when the baby sleeps" is utter garbage, and even if you did, it wouldn't makeup the sleep deficit that you have.

He needs to do more.

I agree!.

Also most of the time I can't sleep when baby sleeps as I need to sterilise and clean bottles or do washing to ensure we both have clothes. Not as simple as sleep when baby sleeps - wish it was!

I'm gonna have to have a word - for my sanity and relationship!