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AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

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Original poster

To get DH to do a couple of night feeds even though he works?

73 replies

SundayTwizzle · 30/09/2021 12:46

And I'm on mat leave?

I'm permanently exhausted from doing multiple wake ups at night (DD is 6 weeks but her night sleep seems to be getting worse not better). We agreed I would do the night feeds as I could catch up on sleep during the day however it turns out we have an unputdownable baby so I cant even get a shower most days let alone take a nap.

Would it be really unfair to ask him to do a few even though he has to go to work the next day and drive?

OP posts:

romdowa · 30/09/2021 12:47

Could he not cover the evenings when he gets home so that you can get a few hours sleep ?

Cuddlyrottweiler · 30/09/2021 12:49

Can he do all the wakeup on Saturday night?
Or you go to bed at 8 and he keeps the baby till 12 then you do the rest of the night?

Fluffypastelslippers · 30/09/2021 12:49

This is very much dependent on his job/travel/hours.

vastgrandupgrade · 30/09/2021 12:49

Shifts, so you both get a block of sleep

smallybells · 30/09/2021 12:52

How far does he drive / what shifts does he do / what is his job / what time does he need to leave?

If your DH has an office job with a 15 min commute and is home at 6pm each day it's really different to him having a 2 hour commute and not being home until 8pm - it'll depend on what's reasonable!

Would it make sense if he could cover perhaps an early evening block until day 11pm or midnight, so at least you get a block of sleep? Are you able to nap when your baby naps at all?

Fingers crossed this is just a stage!

BurntO · 30/09/2021 12:53

Depends on his job. Anything that requires a high level of concentration for his own or others safety then I think it is safer not to. Apart from that YANBU.
My OH would cover to 2am and I’d go to bed as soon as he got in from work to catch up on sleep.

Twounderfive83 · 30/09/2021 12:54

YANBU. I've never understood this mentality. My DH did a night feed every night once my DC were formula fed.

DanielRicciardosSmile · 30/09/2021 12:55

Without knowing his job its difficult to say. Working 9-5 in an office, probably YANBU. Working 7-7 with heavy machinery/driving long hours then probably YABU.

Imatwinmum · 30/09/2021 12:55

Of course he should.

We have twins (formula fed).

I do baby duty 9-2ish, while he sleeps, then he does 2-7. We average 6-7 hours sleep each.

I am reasonable for keeping two babies alive all day. There’s no way he’d let me do it all and I would never respect him if he did.

It’s perfectly possible for you both to get a decent amount of sleep to function well if you share the nights, no matter what anyone on here will tell you!

PissedOffNeighbour22 · 30/09/2021 12:56

Not unreasonable at all. I'm sure helping out with the odd feed won't affect him.

For some reason my DP felt he needed to get up to help with every night feed. He works long shifts so was knackered. He never complained though.
I barely slept as I can't nap or sleep in the day so I never caught up on any and was more tired than he was most of the time.

He did get to a certain point where he slept through the crying.

ReeseWitherfork · 30/09/2021 12:56

I'd just get him to take late night feeds or early morning feeds, not the 1-4am ones.

Poptart4 · 30/09/2021 12:56

YANBU

He should at least be doing every Friday and Saturday night assuming he doesn't work weekends.

SylvanasWindrunner · 30/09/2021 13:01

There are various ways to do things. What are his working hours?

We found it worked best if DH just took DD early morning, although I was breastfeeding so not quite the same. But he would take her for three hours or so from say 5 and I would sleep.

A friend with a bad sleeper did shifts, so her DH had baby from say 7pm-11pm while she slept, then she took over, then DH again at 5 or so.

DH can cope with less sleep than I can but I do better with broken sleep - he only needs 5/6 hours but is much better with them in one chunk and I need about 7/8, but can spread them around, so we just found a way that played to both our strengths (and weaknesses!)

SylvanasWindrunner · 30/09/2021 13:03

Also hand baby over the second he is home and go for a sleep!

leakymcleakleak · 30/09/2021 13:06

What we did when things were bad was, we'd all 'go to bed' about 7.30, DH would hold DD upright, and I would sleep generally from 8.30/9.. He'd wake me and hand over whenever he needed to: sometimes he'd keep her till 1am, sometimes she'd wake for a feed around 11. Depending on how the night went - sometimes I literally was up all night with her - he'd take her for a bit in the morning too.

I think you need to ensure you're both having a 'minimum' block of sleep, I really found there was a huge difference, if I could get one 4 hour block and then a couple of 90 minute/2 hours either in the day or the night it was survivable.

MakingM · 30/09/2021 13:14

@romdowa

Could he not cover the evenings when he gets home so that you can get a few hours sleep ?

If he has to go to work, I’d ask him to cover the evenings and weekend days so I could catch up on sleep and I’d keep on doing the nights. It’s hard. Hope it passes for you soon!

idontlikealdi · 30/09/2021 13:19

When dts were that age I went to bed at 8, DH dealt with them until after their last feed at 11. I then took over and gut another block of sleep from 5-7.30, he did the 7 am bottles before work.

Meant we both hit a decent chunk of sleep and he was driving other people's kids around in a mini bus to fixtures so needed to function and not crash the bus.

Whoever was 'off' shift slept in the spare room.

SeaToSki · 30/09/2021 13:20

@Cuddlyrottweiler

Can he do all the wakeup on Saturday night? Or you go to bed at 8 and he keeps the baby till 12 then you do the rest of the night?

This

Bunny2021 · 30/09/2021 13:23

I go to bed 9:30/10 PM. My husband does feeds up to 1/2 AM. I then take over the night until 6/7 AM where he takes the baby so I can get an hour or two.

Mymapuddlington · 30/09/2021 13:25

You work as well, majority of the day and night you’re doing everything.
Depending on his work hours can you sleep in the early evening and be ready to take over from him at midnight? It does get better, promise

MrsMiddleMother · 30/09/2021 13:33

I would get some sleep around 8pm, husband would have baby from then until about 12/1 then I'd get up with baby whenever they woke up after that. My husband would naturally stay up fairly late and as long as I had a chunk of sleep I was good to go

User7312019 · 30/09/2021 13:37

YANBU pick a night feed or two for him to do. My husband split all night feeds from the start with our first. With our second I’m breastfeeding but I still express a bottle so I can pick one feed for him to do and he’s just on standby in the night for which feed that will be

timeisnotaline · 30/09/2021 13:38

What happens in peoples houses after 8pm that they can just go to bed? That was poorly worded but we’d have got the big one to bed, one of us would be holding baby and one cleaning up dinner and the days mess. If I’d just have gone to bed then it wouldn’t be cleaned up, and usually I was feeding baby so had to be the one up and dh clean up… just trying to understand how others make it work? I know my baby never slept so that’s a big complication but still, it sounds like many houses are spick and span at 8pm!

To answer the ops question, you’re still human and need sleep, so if you’re not getting it without dp helping it’s his baby too and he has to do a night shift. Mine will be doing some sort of 2h block - hard to do longer when you’re bf (my babies haven’t really slept for any longer periods than that so I will have to rely on dh)

Alicesays · 30/09/2021 13:39

We did shifts for night feeds. I got to sleep from 10am-2am and DH from 2am onwards. 4 hours of continuous sleep is enough to function, just! YANBU, he may have to go to work but you both need to survive.

bubblebath62636 · 30/09/2021 13:41

As PP said it depends on his job etc.

For example DH is a train driver, DD now sleeps through but he used to do the night feeds on his day off. He obviously couldn't do them when he had a 4am start the next day.

It's all about compromise, what hours does he work and what does he do?

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