To hate it when people say “my husband/partner/boyfriend doesn’t do the night feeds because he works”

[ForestFae]

Every time I see or hear this phrase, I rage. Usually said by some poor sleep deprived new mum who’s looking after the baby/ies all day long. Why is looking after a baby not considered valuable work? Why are men getting away with using this rubbish excuse?

@ForestFae

I'm not upset. I dont think you're doing anything I'm not.

Its you who seems upset that I'm doing more work than you are.

Your way might be different but it's not better.

There will be no difference in outcome.

On the being away from you front, I find it a bit sad that you dont envision your kids being away from you on a regular basis until they are adult.

My kids go on camps and sleep overs. They have a great time. Its so good for them to spend time with their peers away from their parents

Shit, wait till you see what menopause does to you…trying to make senior level decisions on around 4 hours sleep combined with day time brain fog 🤦‍♀️ Or all those pale stale male pension fund managers with sleep apnea who only use their CPAP for requisite min 6 hours ( in other words only get 6 hours of proper sleep) , or people who are just plain insomniacs, or travelling with jet lag and strange hotel beds

by your rules the country would grind to a halt pretty quickly or employment would be restricted to 25-40 year old childless, healthy people who can sleep anywhere.

once you get to menopause I suspect most women don’t get more than 5 hours on a good night of unbroken sleep in one hit…for me I can be awake for 2-3 hours in middle of night. As men and women get older we all find we wake to take a wee…

ah, the naïve joys of youth when you’d go to bed and sleep 8 hours - they are a short lived luxury for most.

Im quite surprised how many days I could go on 4 hours sleep per night between travelling abroad, menopause, jetlag - I’d go 3 nights in a row very effectively , after a 4th night I’d know it and have to consciously stay active, and then usually would crash that night anyway. It only became very difficult after a 5th crap night which was rare. what I could not cope with was 3-4 hours sleep EVERY night, recovering from c-section, trying to breast feed a baby who would take an hour to feed, sleep maybe 2 hours, then want feeding again, and with PND…nope…that’s not anything short of torture.

so reckon a father doing maybe one shift or 2 a week on night duty is not going to cause most men a complete breakdown in ability to function. If they go to bed with baby they’ll still get 6-8 hours sleep anyway- broken, but still sleep. A lot of those men probably have done that a few years before when they were single lads out on the town.

no one is asking these blokes to stay up all night. Nor asking them to do it every night. It is about them getting up in night a couple of times, maybe 2- 3 times per week to spread the pain for both parents. Who the hell would want to live with a chronically sleep deprived wife anyway? Not a recipe for a harmonious and stress free home life.

You’re not. You have the same amount of time as I do. You’re splitting in between two things, I’m spending it on one thing. You don’t however, have more hours than I do.

Everyone chooses what they personally think is better for their own family. That’s not an insult to people who choose a different way.

Thats nice for your kids. I personally don’t let my kids stay at homes of people who aren’t family. Neither is right or wrong, it’s a personal choice.

no one is asking these blokes to stay up all night. Nor asking them to do it every night. It is about them getting up in night a couple of times, maybe 2- 3 times per week to spread the pain for both parents. Who the hell would want to live with a chronically sleep deprived wife anyway? Not a recipe for a harmonious and stress free home life.

exactly!

I’m sure you value the way you bring up your kids. I value the way I bring up mine. We have the freedom to do so.

And yet you start a thread criticising other people’s parenting decisions.

I’m criticising the fact many men seem to think their job is superior to the job women do of raising their children, and how many men seem to have kids without thinking they should actually do anything. The bar for men is low.

@ForestFae

I am. Doing 2 things is harder than doing 1 thing. Doing the dishes and the hoovering is more work than just doing the dishes.

I'm not insulted. Why would I be? I dont think your way is better. I think mine is

🤷‍♀️

But in that analogy, you’d only be doing half the dishes since you spent the other half of your time hoovering. You cannot have more hours in the day. There are only 24. It you spend x amount of them working, that’s time you’re not spending with your kids - which is okay, as I’ve said repeatedly - but don’t argue it’s the same amount of work with your kids, it’s just not.

You clearly have a chip on your shoulder. You think you’re more hard done by because you work, even though while working you outsource the part of the role that SAHMs do all the time.

There will be no difference in outcome

This I agree with. None of this matters to the child in the long run. In fact, once the child is fed, clothed, loved, kept safe, emotionally nurtured somewhat and educated, very little of what we do makes much of an impact in the long run. Our children will be who they will be. They’ll leave us behind and get on with their lives, as they should (and as I venture all of us are).

These things matter to the parents. It’s not about the kids. It’s about the longevity of a partnership, the quality of the relationship, careers, outcomes for the parents.

I don't really get the rage as if it works for their family, why not.

I BF our DS and it didn't make any sense for DH to get up as well.

@ForestFae

Nope.

I just think you're spending too long doing the dishes. You're doing what I do in more time. The dishes are still clean. and I've done the hoovering. And you've just done the dishes

There's no difference to what you're doing. It's not better. As you keep saying. Just different. But my way is double the work

I dont have a chip , no reason to or think I'm hard done to.

I enjoy my work and wouldnt not work even if you paid me.

I also don't 'outsource'

My kids have 2 parents and a GM. No need to outsource

Haven’t RTFT. I have a different take as I found it easier to handle the night feeds and changes by myself. I even suggested that DH sleep in the spare room for the first few weeks so he didn’t try to help! Even when he slept in our room again, I liked to take the baby downstairs and do everything there- I saw some truly rubbish TV while bfing at 3a.m.!

He was quite willing to help out, but I really enjoyed that night time alone with my babies, tbh, it was special. I remember it clearly, even though the babies are teenagers now. 😂

Who's saying that it's men assuming they don't have to do it?

My DH used to get up to bring our baby to me to be BF in the night, because my carpal tunnel syndrome meant it was hard for me to get her out of the cot. But as soon as I could do it, I told him to stay in bed. For the reasons that several of us have mentioned and which you haven't responded to.
His work meant that he was accountable to many people. He simply couldn't take ten minutes down time if he got a wave of tiredness.
My SAHM job meant that I could switch my brain off, and simply not do things I planned if I was too tired. It made sense to me that he should get the sleep. Especially as I didn't have to get up at 6:30 am. More often than not, the more broken the night, the longer the baby would sleep. So I could often stay in bed until 9 and he'd already been at work for an hour and a half.

As I've said before, being a SAHM is hard work. But it's disingenuous to claim that it's harder than getting up early to get to work on time, where you're constantly 'on' and being monitored and accountable to others. Being a SAHM was the only time when I was my own boss, and that was the best bit.

It's weird because babies don't all miraculously sleep all night by the time the mum returns to work so many people manage to go to work after a broken night.

So.what happens then?

Yes exactly I was going to say this!

I was very broken by having to do all of the night feeds with mine.

When both parents are at work, then of course they should share the night waking. But that's not what the OP is about.

Why do the domestic arrangements of other people bother you so much? Hate is a very strong word.

My husband can't do the night feeds because he doesn't have boobs. As PP have said, leave people to arrangements they are happy with - nobody elses business.

I actually really disagree. Nobody is saying taking care of the baby isn't difficult but it's obviously very different to work in that the mother remains in the home with the baby and is able to sleep while the baby sleeps, rather then having to leave to go to a place of employment with no chance of a nap??

When my second was born I took time off work to care for her and of course I fed her at night? Because she and I could sleep a little later in the morning if tired, or nap during the day, whereas my husband had to go to work and wouldn't have been able to catch up on any lost sleep.

Sometimes I feel that women on Mumsnet like to portray women as constant victims even when they're doing their fair share in a way that makes sense, like this example.

I did the night feeds from Sunday night to Thursday night. Dh did Friday and Saturday night. It worked for us.

But if you are at work all day then you come home and still expect the SaHP to look after the baby when do they get a break?
I do 40 hours over 4 days now and at the end of that all I want is to be with my toddler (so not a baby). I certainly don't object to my DH handing him over. And that's despite the fact DH hasn't had him all day because we both work and DS is in nursery.
My point is ih you haven't seen your baby /toddler /child all day why wouldn't you want to take over when you get home?

That’s not true, I spend most of my days taking my kids to various places and doing activities with them. There’s simply not time to do all of it during the weekend.

I don’t get this - if you screw up at an office job, no one dies or gets injured. if you’re so tired you drop your baby, or fall asleep at the wheel, that’s objectively way worse.

What do men do when you're breast feeding though? Wake up and watch?

If you’re breastfeeding exclusively and not using bottles to all, then this doesn’t apply.

@ForestFae you have an overly simplistic view of office jobs. Sometimes you make decisions sitting in an office that affect real people quite acutely and which can be dangerous.

The week that perimenopause insomnia lead to me making a mistake that could have resulted in the death/serious injury of a group of students (I sent them into a dangerous area by transposing 2 codes) was the week I was down the doctors demanding hrt. Exhaustion can be dangerous in many jobs.