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?

Well as a working parent, how about if you stop undervaluing my work with your assumptions about office jobs, and I won't undervalue yours? It wouldn't never have occurred to me to think SAHP didn't work. Its you who have introduced the idea that a working parent has it easier. You're confident and happy in your choices and world views, so why not just leave other women alone and stop 'fuming' at theirs?

It wasn’t me that initially said that, I was responding to a poster who repeatedly demanded I justify my choices while insisting she does “more” than me because she works outside the home. It’s not undervaluing a desk job to say that 2 or so nights a week of broken sleep wouldn’t be impossible.

I’d argue it’s more intense

You've said that a lot and I understand that the feelings one has for one's children are incredibly intense, but what's intense about the regular day to day cleaning, feeding, nurturing etc?
Do you feel at a high pitch of emotion all day? Are you actively rearing your children minute by minute?

If you were working on a supermarket checkout, say, you couldn't just suddenly say you needed a break because things were a bit overwhelming and go and do something else.
If you're looking after your children, you can. You might cut an outing short or make something a bit more simple for the evening meal but no one would criticise or sack you.
Looking after children can be bloody boring, frustrating, sometimes difficult and there's no immediate end to it, but that's like all jobs.
And the benefit is that you're not doing it because of demanding customers or pupils (and their parents) or patients or an obnoxious boss... you're doing it for people you love. Who, when they stop being a pain, won't cut off your income because you've had an off day.

It’s the implication that he doesn’t do them because he works and therefore the mother doesn’t,

Well, I see that as he works at one job and the SAHM works at another.
But why does it still upset you now? If your husband's not saying the arrangement doesn't work for him then crack on and don't worry about what other people are doing.
If you're convinced you're doing the right thing, don't feel guilty. But also appreciate others might feel differently.

Because there’s no let up. You can’t just take a minute to go and clear your head - if I did that in the early days, the room would be trashed (no exaggeration - my kids could unscrew furniture and had to be supervised constantly. They climb too. One of my dc has the nickname Spider-Man because she can climb up pretty much anything) Also, it depends what you do with the kids. I spend most of my time actively doing things with them. I don’t sit around watching TV, we are out and about and every minute is a lesson. It never stops. Now, I enjoy this, but it’s an intense job. My own dad worked a high paid, high powered job for 40+ years. He has a lot to do with my kids now he’s retired and he’s said multiple times that he thinks it’s harder to look after them all day than it is to do his former job, and he was a career oriented man who was always on business trips in various countries, would work late, get up at 4am to travel etc.

Its not about my arrangement, it’s about society not valuing motherhood, particularly western society.

But you would be safe to look after a baby?

Looking after a baby needs care and attention and a mistake due to being sleep deprived can lead to harm.

Both partners need to sleep to be effective, not just the highly paid partner.

But why should they if the other parent is at home the next day?

Most people have said once back at work they split night wakings 50:50 but when 1 parent is at home, why shouldn't they do it? (As long as weekends it's split and other child related jobs are split)

This is what I think, and surely harm to dc is worse than a mistake at most desk jobs

I find it weird that people value each other’s sleep if someone works, but not if they’re caring for dc. It shows that they value the caring work less.

Well, they can because a friend of mine is a surgeon and they managed to care for a baby perfectly well.
Not at the same time as doing full time surgery though; that wouldn't be practical, would it?

Certainly, on the whole, the broken nights caused by on call rotas for training surgeons last a lot longer than night feeds for a baby.

I think a valid point is how long night feeds last for - with my dc, two of them didn’t start to sleep through until nearly 4, and it’s not guaranteed they will sleep through. Night wakings for years is a different ballgame to night wakings for 6-12 months. DC1, while not a good sleeper, didn’t do this so I was really surprised when 2 and 3 did it.

I can honestly see both sides of this. I do agree with the OP that staying home to look after children is most definitely not a walk in park and in that sense can - a lot of the time - feel like work. And I do strongly believe that everyone performs better when well rested - no matter the tasks that are filling their day; and that chronic sleep deprivation is going to affect most people's mental health eventually if not immediately.

But - I can see the flip-side to this, too. I've never been a SAHM, I've always worked FT and have 2 DC, but I have done a year on maternity leave so that's my only comparison. Whilst it does feel like hard slog at times looking after children at home (on mat leave there were some days DP would come from a 12 hour shift and I'd feel utterly drained and exhausted), you are still in many ways the architect of your own day. By and large you get to choose what you fill your day with. Yes there will be the usual every day tedious tasks such as washing, putting the dishwasher on, food shopping (working parents need to find time to get those done, too), but you can adjust and tweak most of your day to suit how you feel. Don't feel like going to the park? I'll change the plan and stay home and do arts and crafts instead with the kids (as a rough example). At work, I can't say to my boss "sorry I don't feel going to that meeting today, can I just do x and y at my desk instead?"
You're only accountable to yourself as a SAHM and you have a lot of flexibility within your day.

I think that's the main difference. And the fact that you can't get sacked and lose your income if you mess up.

So yeah ... I see both sides. I agree with OP that SAHM need their sleep just as much as anyone does - I do strongly believe that mental health and cognitive functioning is impacted negatively in most people (whether they realise it or not) on lack of sleep. That's risky whether in charge of children or in charge of machinery or patients at work. On the other hand I take the point that the flexibility within your day and not being accountable to a "boss", or feeling the pressure to do well to keep bringing the income home, probably make being a SAHM less pressured in many ways.

Because if you're at work you can't nap! You can't get up late (and if its been a bad night DC will tend to sleep longer). You can't just cancel plans and have a relaxing day. You have to be 'on' for the whole time. It's been said repeatedly! If your at home you have opportunity to take it easy. At work you can't.

It's not undervaluing, it's realistic. I'm a teacher, I'm fully aware of "women's jobs" being undervalued. But it's fully factual that I could easily cope on Mat leave/when I was a SAHP with less sleep. If I get several nights of poor sleep working, I struggle. And that's the same for most people, they struggle more at work with less sleep than they did as a SAHP.

there isn't one universal life we all live that you can see how different people do it and compare. I did all the nights on dc one when I was off because he was a dream. On dc2 I was fucked because I was so exhausted and so was dh for different reasons and together we were destroyed but somehow had dc3 and we're both in much better places and shared the load. I think it's all about respect. I respect how hard dh works so am happy to do the first night feed. He respects how hard I work so he's happy to take over/do the second feed/do whatever I need. Similarly now dc3 is older and wakes less frequently he does the night feeds because his sleep is wrecked anyway. Like who else has the same situation as us that would like to compare our solutions? No one.

My DH is an A&E reg. When he's working I do all the night time duties and my daughter is exclusively breastfed anyway. When not working he'll do the nappies at night. I'm not even going to pretend I have it harder. I'd rather be at home with my baby than managing a full A&E department so no I wouldn't dream of asking DH to do nights too.

That assumes you can nap at home and that broken quality sleep doesn’t affect you, which just isn’t true for many. I found working when tired easier than SAHPing when tired. I can just do my job on autopilot, I can’t do that with kids

I found working when tired easier than SAHPing when tired. I can just do my job on autopilot, I can’t do that with kids

Ahh I think that's maybe the key difference then OP. I most definitely cannot do my paid job on autopilot. It involves making decisions about often quite risky situations and responding to what I'm presented with at any given moment in a timely manner in order to keep others and myself safe. My own and others' safety and well-being literally depends on me being on the ball for the vast majority of my working day, with occasional less intense moments where I can take my foot of the pedal and do the "office job" (😁) part of typing up patient records etc. but even then I need to ensure what I'm typing is accurate!

I can just do my job on autopilot, I can’t do that with kids

Very job specific! DH and I are teachers. When working part-time my days at home with the DC after a bad night were infinitely preferable to a day at work with 30 of other people's DC.

@ForestFae

Which just makes this thread even more rediculous. You, 1 person, had an easy job so you think everyone else has the same.

No. Lots of people find they actually need to decent sleep to be productive at work and find parenting easier. But you think your opinion is more valid then anyone else's and are judging them for it.

It is somewhat job specific, but I don’t think a couple of nights of broken sleep would render most people unable to do their desk job. No one is saying the working partner should do it all, just share the load somewhat

I’ve done several desk jobs. I don’t think MOST desk jobs are harder than looking after several children, I think they’re hard in different ways, but I don’t think they’re so significantly difficult that the partner doing one should get to shirk all the night feeds.

ForestFae I'm afraid I disagree with you but if you're convinced that what you do is more "intense" than other jobs because you spend all your time "actively doing things" with your children then carry on believing that.
I didn't "sit around watching TV" either, but I must confess that "every minute" wasn't "a lesson". Sometimes they'd actually manage to interact with each other without my intense attention.
And since mine are grown up and happy and successful, I've got proof that my method worked for mine.
As I'm sure yours will for you and for most people, regardless of intensity and whethet every minute is spent concentrating on them or not

I still don't understand why you "rage" on behalf of other women who, from the evidence of this thread, are managing their lives pretty well and don't particularly need your intervention.
If you feel you can't work outside the home and bring up your children, don't.
If you're genuinely worried about mothers who do, campaign for better rights for them.

My own dad worked a high paid, high powered job for 40+ years. He has a lot to do with my kids now he’s retired and he’s said multiple times that he thinks it’s harder to look after them all day than it is to do his former job

Yes, I'm not surprised he says that to you.
On the evidence of this thread, he'd have his ears chewed off if he suggested anything different

I agree with you OP re sharing the load and night wakings - I've agreed with that from the start and in my subsequent posts. DP and I do just that as we both work in equally as intense jobs where mistakes could be extremely risky.

But - I can absolutely see the other side too, whereby the flexibility within your day and the lesser degree of accountability means that you can afford to drop the odd ball, or tweak the plan, and no one gets injured or loses their household income. That isn't true of some paid jobs, and that's the point people are making I think.

Unfortunately that's true of both mine and DP's jobs and our little one (14 months) still wakes repeatedly through the night. So we are essentially winging each day between us and hoping for a miracle. 😫

If they’re interacting with each other, I’m planning what to do next or setting up the next activity while also supervising because my DC get carried away very easily and will take things too far. It’s not like I don’t let them do things, they’re very independent more so than kids their own age as they’re raised climbing trees, doing chores, and spending most of the time outside, but everything we do involves some level of thought.

Because society isn’t geared up to properly support families and everything often gets dumped on women without any actual support in place. For example, it was the norm to raise kids with multiple other family members, now it’s assumed that the mother (usually) has to do everything by herself, AND work in many cases, AND keep a tidy house, AND maintain a social life etc. Employers are inflexible when it comes to families, house prices are a mess…this is just one aspect of mothers work and family lives in general being undervalued. I could rant about how western society doesn’t support the family all day, but that’s a general overview of why I get annoyed by it. It’s less about individual families diving the labour and more about general trends.

Lol! He said it without any prompting from me, and without knowing my views on this. He was referencing that when I was little, he didn’t do very much hands on child rearing because of his career and he left most of it to my mum, and how he didn’t actually appreciate how full on it was until he retired and spent lots of time with his dgc

I breastfed my daughter so he wouldn't have been able to feed anyway, she barely slept for 18 months, we left the bedroom so my partner could get a full night's sleep.

He is a farmer operating heavy machinery, it would put his life or anyone else on the farm or road at risk if he was over tired.

There just isn't a right or wrong answer to this. It's family specific and what works for one family might not work for another.

It's important to work out what's best for the individuals involved. Most will come to a natural arrangement that suits their specific circumstances. No point criticising others for doing it differently to you.

I did the majority of the night time wakings when mine were babies as I breast fed each for 2 years. No point us both being up and when they were babies generally that's why they were awake - to be fed. Eldest was a dream and slept through from about 7 weeks old. Youngest was a different story and hated sleep until he was about 3. He still has nightmares now, although not often thankfully and he comes through to us but that means we are all awake. I struggle far more now with lack of sleep than I did when I was younger.