To want partner to help we with the baby at night

[poppyflower1803]

So I have a three month old, she's usually a very content baby but is currently going through the sleep regression. We went from sleeping through the night, maybe waking once for a feed to waking every 2 hours. I am shattered as he has been working full time 6 days a week during her sleep regression weeks. We have an agreement that as he has a long commute by car and I'm breastfeeding (she still can't take a bottle no matter how hard I try!) that I will get up at night with her while he sleeps.

Well today marks the first day of a week long holiday for him, meaning he doesn't have to be up!
Yippee I thought as that meant I would have some help overnight (I was wrong). She's woken every two hours, at one point I was up for two hours trying to get her to go to sleep at 2am and again now have been up for at least an hour rocking her trying to get her to sleep.

My partner has slept through the night mainly, only picking her up when she cries as I've gone to wash my hands after changing her nappy, then very quickly handing her back and going back to sleep. He woke up at 5:30 with us this morning, went on his phone for a bit then went back to sleep again. I even said to him, I find it a bit unfair that I have to be up all night while you can sleep when you don't have work the next day. He just shrugged, turned around and went back to sleep.

Anyway, I'm losing my marbles with sleep deprivation, was looking forward to a week of having only half the work load and being able to catch up on some sleep but it's not looking likely..

He has been this since she was born mainly, and I've had multiple chats about how I find it hard to do it all and nothing ever seems to change. He also is finding it hard to settle her at the moment, so just hands her to me as it's the quickest and less painful way for both of us to calm her down making it easy for him to not have to do anything.

AIBU to expect my partner to help me during the night when he doesn't have to go to work?

That’s really hard, but is she waking to be fed?

OP you need to be a bit firmer! Hand him the baby (once she's fed) and go to sleep yourself!

What is it you want him to do? It’s difficult with a bf baby for him to do much so you need to be really specific about what it is exactly that you want him to do eg she has finished feeding I need you to walk around with het until she is asleep.

After she's awake an hour and you know she's not hungry wake him and say "she's fed but not settled, I've rocked her the last 30 mins it's your turn now, take her downstairs". You kind of have to be first string if you're breast feeding but if she's not settling after that's where he can take his turn.

He should be changing baby's nappy then handing them over to you for a feed IMO. YANBU.

My kids got to watch loads of inappropriate tv bonding with dh at 2am/3am etc when they were small.

YANBU. Not even a little bit. Insist if you have to. Do you have a spare room? Maybe sleep in there leave baby in w your partner. Wear earplugs. Tell him to bring her through when she needs a feed. Once fed, give her back to him.

i hear you - this stage is so hard :( I really resented my husband at this stage I have to say! But the baby did want me mostly

I caved and co slept for a few months - shoved the bed against the wall and me and my daughter slept together - meant when she woke she could have her milk and I was dozing! Wasn’t getting amazing quality sleep but it was so much better and being so close to me my daughter didn’t wake as much!

sometimes I could hear my husband watching tv or something in the next room and I was trapped in the bedroom with the baby and used to feel so angry about it

i used to jump into bed sometimes at 5.30/6 when he was done with work and sleep for a hour or so while he sat with the baby just to catch a little sleep by myself

just hang in there though - it does get bette really soon:

while he’s off this week try get him to do more in the day maybe and you try grab some naps (maybe get him to take your baby for a few walks or something?)

Absolutely unacceptable, he needs to get his arse up. Dh worked long brutal hours and he never once left me to do every night wake up. My DD watched election night with DH at 6 weeks old, he’s a politics nut and he was trying to indoctrinate her early.

Feed her then hand her to him and say you’re going back to bed. When DH had time off at that age he’d do the evening once she’d been fed and the early morning, same at weekends and even when working he’d do the evenings until 11ish. He’s still get a good enough chunk of sleep to go to work on and yes he’d be tired compared to before but that’s being a parent

You created this child together, you were both parents, still being absolutely reasonable to expect the other parent to do their job… Parenting!

However your BF seems to think that’s not his job, it’s yours.

You could consider going away for a couple days, or maybe just one night, if you’re not breast-feeding.

He needs to learn the hard way that he hast to parent whether he likes it or not

Cosleep if you aren't already and don't have any contraindicators

Feed her now then hand him to dad, and go back to bed. He'll manage just fine

That's not going to work DH gets up with baby then has to wait for feed to be done then change and settle .

nether of you are getting a free ride if your both up in the night both going to be fit for nothing in the day grab time during the day

If you are BF then I don't see that she will settle for him if she's wanting to feed. Can you persist with the bottle even if it's for the last feed of the day?

Are you able to sleep during the day?

Is the baby asleep a lot in the day? They may just not be tired enough to sleep all night.

It's very annoying when people blame breastfeeding for this type of behaviour!! I have ebf 3 DC and DH has ALWAYS helped at night. If she's actually feeding every 2 hours (mine went through phases of this), he'd let me feed and then take the baby to settle OR we'd wait for the hunger frenzy to pass and then he'd take the baby in the early hours so I could get a chunk of sleep and he was confident the baby had fed. Even when he had work the next day! All I can say is, your partner is very lazy and selfish and I doubt introducing a bottle would help as he probably wouldn't give one of those either. If you can co-sleep I'd do that, including for naps. Do you have a spare room? I'd have just handed him the baby at 5.30am if you do and said 'i need to sleep - I'm going in the spare room, she won't need feeding until 8am at the earliest so you need to cope until then' and left.

YANBU!!!!!
I have bf two babies with this sleeping pattern. Me and DH would take it in turns. Once bf I would hand them over to DH to change nappy/rock back to sleep etc. The next time they woke it would be my turn so DH would get some sleep.

OP did you have the conversation that as he is on annual leave you will split nights and which ones were his etc, or did you just expect him to do it?

As others have said, wake him up and hand him the baby and go to sleep, be firm, don't be a martyr

Agree with this 100%. If baby feeds and settles, there isn’t any point in both of you being miserable and tired. However, if she needs rocking/lots of burping/walking around then that’s his job. Our youngest is 20mo and that’s still the rule in our house. I go in and do a five minute feed maximum if she wakes and DH takes over and settles her to sleep (only takes a few minutes, otherwise she’d feed for hours).

Also, if he’s slept all night and you’ve been up god knows how many times, it’s his job to get up with the baby and give you at least a few hours sleep!

At that stage l would go to bed at 9pm and dh would keep baby with him in living room. Whenever they woke next eg 12 he would bring them to me and pop into bed himself. Those 3 hours of no responsibility for baby were like gold to me. Same in the morning if dh had no work he took baby up to kitchen and l slept late. I did the middle of the night stuff. My best sleep was when baby wasn't in the actual room.
Try, when you are not actually wrecked to have a conversation about what's fair. That lack of sleep is a killer and rest is important for your milk supply too.

We have had a conversation that when he doesn't have to get up for work in the morning, then it would be good for him to help during the night if I need it. Obviously if all she needs is fed then back to sleep then unfortunately that falls on me everytime 😅 but it's times when he knows that I have been up for a couple hours trying to get her to sleep that I would have expected him to at least help me. He wakes up, as she's noisy but just turns around and goes to sleep! Think I need a firm conversation again like others have mentioned.

Unfortunately do not have a spare room to use but do have a sofa in the living room 😅 I definitely need a few hours of uninterrupted sleep. Hoping if I talk to him, I may get some this week. He's not very confident with settling her anymore which I think is one of the reasons why the workload is fallen heavy on me. I have talked about him spending a couple hours with her this week without me. Basically feed her and come back home in two hours when she needs feeding again. Give him a bit more confidence. He's quite hands on during the day, changing nappies, letting me eat, bringing me food etc, it's just night time I get left alone.

I'm EBF as she won't take a bottle, best I have is a couple hours out the house, but I am definitely going to try that during the day. So far she has never left my side and I've always been on call to help him/take over 😅

I love dh and he loves me. We adore our dc. but there is no way I'm willingly volunteering to get out of bed to take over - he needs to ask. When I wake up in the middle of the night I have no idea if he's been up 10 mins or 2 hours. Defo don't wait for him to offer, wake him, it's his turn. Similarly if I'm up and it's his turn I'll explicitly tell him. I'm not expecting him to keep track of how many times I'm up or how long I've been up.

The problem is, I ask him to help me, and he just turns around in bed and goes back to sleep. :( if he did what I asked him to we wouldn't be having this problem.

Thought totally get what you're saying, it would be different if I was just assuming he knows to help!