Husband wants me to wake sleeping baby

[Valais]

We live in a building with a shared washing machine and only one weekly laundry slot, which is today (in two hours' time). Our baby is sleeping on me and DH is refusing to go and buy the laundry card from the concierge because it is my "turn". He wants me to pass the baby to him (and likely wake her) so that I can do it. I think he's being ridiculous and said no. AIBU?

This. Not all babies “settle back to sleep quickly”.

Especially ones with reflux. I know
because I had one.

OP - go and get the laundry card, take the laundry, leave him with baby and take your time about the washing. Take a book and snacks.

Your partner is an idiot.

I would pass him the baby (making sure I woke her) then I'd go and pick up the token and I'd head off out for a few hours out somewhere and leave him to deal with the woken up baby

Op hasn't posted for a couple og hours-maybe she's doing laundry!

I had wondered why the fuss about it all 2hrs before the laundry slot-unless it was known that baby would still be sleeping & Op's OH might have to do the laundry when it isn't hs turn😮

Do you live in the UK OP sox I've never heard of such a bonkers washing arrangement. What if you need to go out on your allocated washing or summat?

You'd seriously use a baby as a weapon in an adult's disagreement?

How did you have sex with such a selfish arse to produce said sleeping baby?

He sounds very petty does it bloody matter who does it

I hope you two never have any important problems to solve 🙄

Hi all! Thanks for your comments!

To answer a few questions - I'm in Germany, and in the area I'm in its pretty normal to have a washing slot. I also used to live in Switzerland where we had the same arrangement, so I'm used to it (you DO get used to it).

We both forgot that the card didn't have enough credits on it, hence having to urgently get a new one just before our slot.

It's not laziness with my husband, it's awkwardness. He hates talking to the concierge because the man talks a lot and my husband's German isn't amazing, so he dreads it. But I still think he needs to get a grip because it wasn't worth waking our baby to do (also, just on principle, I know he will just start to let me do everything German-related if I don't insist that he does his bit. The way I see it, his German will only get better if he practises it!).

We don't take "turns" with the laundry card. These were my husband's words, not mine. I thought he was being childish and ridiculous so I wanted to see if other people agreed and show him.

To the people saying put the baby in a sling, my baby HATES slings with a passion. And she is not easy to get back to sleep, which is why I was reluctant to wake her. Parents of reflux babies, you know what I'm talking about!

However, as an update, I did pass her to my husband and she did wake up. We needed a laundry card and he point blank refused to do it.

He's not like this with everything. He pulls his weight in most ways, but things that require German, he doesn't. The reason why I am trying to push the German is that we've been here for two years and he still can't speak it, but he is working from home three times a week and he'll be the one to collect the baby from nursery if the baby is sick, so he needs to get a grip imo and stop avoiding situations where he has to speak German (and he CAN speak it, he just doesn't want to).

If he won't speak the language of where you live, how are you going to continue living there? Are you both English mother tongue?

You will end up having to do everything if he refuses to use German.

I'd just start speaking to him (and the baby when he is around) in 100% German. If he answers in English, ask "pardon me?" In German

This.
Nothing wrong with a father holding the sleeping baby. If baby wakes up, he can rock her back to sleep. And you are capable of doing your turn with the laundry, it’s unfair for one partner to do all the housework while the other one hogs the baby.

Easily rocked back if she stirs….hahaha.

Spot the posters who have no experience of a baby with reflux.

Even if the baby did wake up, which she did not from OPs update…how to settle a baby back to sleep even one with reflux or other high needs is something every new dad should learn how to do and actually do regularly. If you want childcare to be 50/50 you really have to start as you mean to go on for the later years.

Your update makes your husband sound even more pathetic. Sounds like a dead weight.

You need to really push on getting him back into German lessons so he gains in confidence. Family members moved out to Germany, wife fluent, husband learnt initially for six months and then left it almost 10 years before finally learning again. In the mean time wife worked full time and juggled every single bit of child related information and house stuff whilst also being the only one in full time employment because he couldn't do more than the basics. Do not let this happen to you, it's a recipe for resentment. Although on the plus side she spoke only in German to their child and he spoke only in English and the result is a fluidly bilingual child!

My DH would have about knawed his own arm off rather than wake one of our sleeping babies and fuck “turns”after one of you has grown and birthed a human, it's everyone muck in as best you can. If he's there and not doing anything much then off he pops.

I'm sorry, I can't get past the once a week slot, once a week? Is that per flat, do you get extra if you are a large family. I love mn for things like this, small details of other people's lives that are the same and yet so different.

How does the washing once a week work if you have emergency washing you need to do. I’m thinking of sickness bugs or potty training accidents. I’ve had to wash bedding in the middle of the night on many occasions and couldn’t realistically hand wash - and wouldn’t want to.
I also have to wash school uniform during the week but could get round that by buying more.

We both speak French as we used to speak in Switzerland and he can speak German to about B1 so he's fairly competent already (certainly enough to ask for a laundry card).

To be clear, we weren't arguing over who would do the laundry (chores are well divided between us), but, ridiculously, over who would walk the five yards and ask for the card - my husband, who was sitting doing nothing, or me, who was holding the sleeping baby.

Haha, funny how everyone is obsessed by the once a week slot. Ive been out of the UK for so long that Ive forgotten what it's like to have a washing machine in your own flat. You just get on with it. If there's really an emergency, you'd ask a neighbour for a half hour of their slot, but I've only actually needed to do this once in several years. We just, for example, buy enough sheets, bodysuits etc. so that they will last us the week. Any baby poo-related explosions are just handwashed. It sounds awful, but it's honestly really fine. My neighbours are pretty chill and swap slots if needed. Switzerland was less chill and definitely more regimented - lots of planning was involved there! But it was still fine. I've lived in New York, too, and there's no washing machines in individual flats there either, though tbf you don't have a specific weekly slot (BUT it was REALLY annoying when you prepared to do your own laundry and someone else was hogging the machine for hours - that never happens here and never happened in Switzerland either).

My mind is blown by a washing machine that can do eight loads in 4 hours. That’s a lot of wet washing to have hanging around - does it dry as well?

Also how many people are sharing this washing machine? If everyone only gets 4 hours each per week then there must be a lot of people using it.

How does it not break down? Make and model please. I want one 😋

And the baby will be fine if you wake her.

the baby will be fine to be passed over and likely easily rocked back if she stirs 😂😂😂 If only I could go back in time a couple of years and meet you, my daughter would have been a great sleeper. She wouldn't sleep anywhere except on someone or in the car or pushchair. We tried many times but from birth she wouldn't be put down, sleeping or awake and wouldn't tolerate a sling. I certainly wasn't going to leave her distressed and upset. Totally different to her older brother who would have slept anywhere.

Also, you do realise some babies are different to others? I imagine the OP, who is the mother of the baby knows the baby much better than people who don't know the baby at all.

How on earth do you put up with s DH who is so pretty? Does he do the night time feed every other time, or if bf the nappy change in middle of night?

I think some of the comments here re the language barrier don't understand the struggle some people have with languages. DH (medical researcher with PhD) has lived here for more than 20 yrs and had 1,000s of hrs of language courses but still can not speak anything beyond numbers and about 10 items of food and simple directions such as left, right, ahead. He has just taken a midterm for his latest course 10 weeks in and managed to fail it yet again. This is the 4th time he has taken this course, with 2 different teachers. You can give him a sentence to say in order to do something and in the time it takes for him to get from me to the person he get it mixed up. We've done the whole only speak to him at home in the language and it just means we don't speak to each other because he can not understand me and he can not say things to me. Now because so many people have laughed at him trying to speak with the language he will do anything to avoid having speak it, because people are cruel. Some people are just unable to do some languages in the same way some people just can not do maths or chemistry.

I agree @wombat1a

Some people simply cannot learn a second language. Their brains just don’t have the plasticity to do it no matter how hard they try.