Life with a newborn and partner, I need help!

[Newmum199207]

Long story short, my partner and I are first time parents to my gorgeous son who is now a month old. Past couple of weeks things have been getting extremely tense between my partner and I with sleep schedules and having a bit of time to ourselves. I currently look after him all day during the week (apart from when he gets home which he is supposed to give me a few hours to myself, this doesn't always happen.) and I take him all night during the week. We then are "supposed" to share responsibility on the weekend during the day and he takes him at night.

Well this is no longer the case, he is making me feel like a really shit person for wanting to have a few hours in the evening to myself and for wanting to have at least one night where I can sleep with out being disturbed. Today (Saturday) I went out for 6 hours which he knew I had planned for a week to just have a bit of time to myself and actually get out the damn house. He practically bit my head off when I get back (I was 6 hours) and said I had been too long and that it was selfish as I knew he had a bad night with our son last night, moaning he only had 5 hours sleep. I really felt like snapping back and saying welcome to my world! It's not fucking easy! He also knows that I am looking after our son in the evening and all night that night to so am I really being unreasonable for having one Saturday afternoon to myself???

I even agreed with him yesterday I will no longer have the weekends nights to myself and we can each have 1 night where we get to sleep with out looking after him, (Friday night is mine, Saturday night is his) like I don't know how else I can make it fair seeing as I have him pretty much 24/7 in the week?

He doesn't understand that I too need a break from him, he seems to think because he is out at work earning (which don't get me wrong, I really appreciate it) that looking after our son isn't hard. Am I being a dick here? Am I really being that unreasonable? I just want us to stop fighting over this. I feel like I'm constantly walking on egg shells and it's so out of character for him. I totally get being a new parent is hard, but there has to be a way around this.

well personally I think there is v little chance to have time off in the v early days and expecting a few hours off each evening is a lot. Can you not just chill together with the baby evenings and weekends in the same room. when is family time happening if not ?
But the early days are hard so I understand your feelings but you are a family unit now so me time is v restricted at this point.
Congratulations on your little boy x

We do spend family time together during the weekends :) when I say a few hours I literally mean 2-3 hours, just enough time to have a bath, house work and a nap.

I don't think there are many new mums who get 6 hours off after a month.

It shouldn't have to be that way but that seems to be the reality of our society.

You are both new parents, you are both facing a massive, seismic change in your life. It will take you noth time to get used to it and your only a month in.

So my advise is be kind to each other and stop making this a competition of who has the hardest life.

To be frank, with a 4 week old then either partner wanting 6h free time out of the home is unreasonable. I know you don't want to hear that. I would equally berate a father of a 4 week old expecting to have 6h free time out the house.

That just isnt how parenting works. That doesnt mean it's not hard work - it fucking is. But you have only one child here. Imagine if you have 2, 3 or more? Life with a singleton baby isnt the hardest it gets. But its massively different to life before children. You just have to adapt, as does your partner. It takes time.

This is absolutely something you want to hold your ground on, because it will set the pattern.

Insist on fairness or accept a life of resentment.

I’m a mum of 3 with youngest currently 3 weeks old (so currently living the newborn life).

Sharing nights over the weekend seems fair (you need time to catch up). However I think that expecting a few hours off every weeknight evening, and 6 hours off on a weekend day is a lot of time to yourself at this stage (when that time could otherwise be used for all 3 of you to have family bonding time).

Handing the baby over for an hour when your husband gets home so you can go for a walk, have a bath or whatever could be healthy, but if you are expecting all evening every evening ‘off’ plus some time at the weekend then you guys are not having any time to bond as a three.

I think your expectations are rather high here. With a four week old, time to yourself is lovely but would usually consist of half an hour for a quick bite to eat and a shower, not 2-3 hours to catch up on housework and relax.

Also yes, it is hard to work outside of the home on 5 hours of sleep. I do it regularly (my child is older) but it’s not easy, just like it’s not easy to be the parent at home with the kids all day.

To be honest you both sound naive to the situation - you have a newborn- they are demanding and it’s relentless but you should be supporting and helping eachother not be desperate to get away from the child. If you need sleep than take a rest but I think a whole day and night off from a newborn as a mother on mat leave is a bit much.

2-3 hours every evening? That’s very unreasonable. Also 6 hours is a long time away from a 4 week old. I’d be pissed off with my husband if he wanted all that time away from us. First newborn is the easy but where you all get to snuggle up on the sofa in the evenings watching tv and spending time together before you get dragged into routines.

Both my newborns have just slept and fed, and I mean slept 18+ hours a day, so we've always just watched stuff together on sofa in evenings and taken care of them together as they really don't require much from you at this stage! DD2 is 3 weeks old and this is definitely the easy bit IMO. Cash in those breaks when you really need them (when the sleeping stops! )

Why didn't you tell him "welcome to my world" about the 6 hours after a crappy night? Snapping wouldn't have been ideal but saying - "Yes. That's how it is for me every day, every week. That's why I need this time." would have been a great response. Your partner needs time to himself (not just at work) as well, though.

2-3 hours every evening doesn't sound super reasonable to me but it depends what both your days are like. When mine were babies 2 - 3 hours was pretty much the whole evening. Partner home at 7, both of us tired as anything and wanting to fall into bed by 10. But if your partner gets home at 4:30 then maybe it's not so unreasonable.

The first few years with young children are really hard. The lack of sleep is a killer and you may both be feeling hard done by. sleep. It's really common and it's easy for resentment and lack of compassion to seep in on both sides.

Do you think you can find time to sit down and talk about the fact you're both struggling with this change and to try and look at low key ways you can take the strain off and give you both enough sleep and a little leisure time as well as time to be together? Acknowledge that it's hard but it's a phase and part of the journey.

I agree with you OP, I think he’s being unreasonable. We had 3 weeks together and then when my husband went back to work, I did the nights and he did the nights on weekends. He gave me time in the evening to have a nap, bath etc. I also went out for a bit to at the weekend on my own (just food shopping or a walk, etc., just to have some alone time as the baby was otherwise glued to me). He went on a stag do (just in London for the evening where we live), and that was completely fine for me as I felt supported the rest of the time. A few months later I went out for a leaving do and he reciprocated. We had a good balance, yes we were tired, but supported each other. Luckily we had a great sleeper and at 8 weeks we could all sleep through the night. We now both have a great bond with our baby and still happily share time together and apart and it works really well for us.

He’s being very selfish.

I haven’t had a break in 5 years (3 under 5). I’ve had the odd afternoon to myself when DH takes them to his mums on the weekend occasionally and some ‘quiet time’ at work but other than that it’s pretty full on!

My DS is 16 months old and my DH has probably done a total of 3 nights and that's when I've been ill (I currently have covid) so that number will increase.
Don't get me wrong, he will have him on a Thursday evening for 2 hours while I go to slimming world and he will take him to his mums over the weekend for about 3-4 hours to give me time to do housework etc and if I arrange a date with the girls he will have him (twice a year maybe).
DH has a physically demanding job so I feel I don't want to 'put on him' but at the same time it would be nice to help out a little bit more. Then again I'm used to it now I suppose.
Im currently isolating in the spare room whilst DH has him but damn I miss my baby ☹️
At a month old I don't think I could have left him for 6h tbf
Everyone is different

The early days are hard. It really isn’t all sitting on the sofa watching box sets as some posts would have you believe.

I do think as someone has said six hours is a bit excessive but it is nice to have a bit of time every day to chill. Mine was early morning - would give him to DH at around 630/7 and get a couple of hours before DH started work at 830. Whatever works for you.

At that stage we spent the evening together after dh came from work and l went to bed super early at about 9and dh kept baby in living area. Then about 12 he brought him down and went to sleep himself. Those 3 hours without hearing little sounds was a life saver for me. I did full nights as dh had a demanding job in a medical field where he couldn't afford to make a mistake. If l got out of the house for one hour l was happy. 6 seems a lot with such a tiny baby. There is an unnatural tiredness that comes from disturbed nights but it's important to try and keep together in it. Maybe shorter breaks and as said more time just together going for a walk or sitting in the garden.

The thing with this is: he can't have it both ways.

Either caring for a newborn by yourself is incredibly easy, in which case he should have no problem doing it so that the two of you each get equal leisure/rest time.

Or, it's pretty difficult...in which case he should understand that you therefore need to work as a team, and give each other breaks.

I would say it definitely gets easier the older they get as they need you less and you don’t have the nights etc to do so that’s a positive at least. You are very much in the thick of it at a month in. By 2 or 3 months my life became a whole lot easier, he stopped even needing a late feed before bed so once he went down at 7 or 8pm we both kind of went back to doing what we’d done pre kids, I’d go for a bath then watch my stuff on tv and he’d take the dog out and watch YouTube videos when he got back.
We did get a really easy one though to be fair so that had taken a huge stress away but even now when I’ve been watching him all day (nearly a year), he’ll come in from work, go for a shower, sit down to go on his phone and in the nicest possible way I’m like I just want to be able to run away for 2 seconds without him needing me. Like you, I think he still views it as I’m at home with my feet up drinking cups of tea while a baby plays in the background. I very much take on the roll of automatically having to take the baby everywhere, mainly because I do have to most hours of the week, whereas he would think nothing of going for a haircut or something without needing to check I can take him.

The more predictable your baby is, the easier it will be. I ended up doing all of the nights during the week while he was working, although I know lots of friends didn’t. He was supposed to do the 11pm feed before bed but would fall asleep most of the time and it was less hassle just to go and do it myself so I’d do it but at my most tired points I think I did cry one of the times at the fact he was just away to bed like we didn’t have a baby. At the weekend he always did a Friday night so I could have a proper lie in then Saturday was meant to be him but was sometimes me then back to me again on the Sunday. The comparison between my set up end some of my friends always used to make me so jealous. My friend’s husband worked from home so she’d always be away out walking the dog, out running etc and would ask if I’d done stuff like that but it used to bug me a bit because I was like eh I can’t, I have this baby attached to me 🙈 Her husband works from home and is available any time to help then has an extra day off too while mine is still out til 7 or 8pm some nights and is working 6 days this week 😩 I think it’s definitely best just not to compare though.

Once you know a rough routine you’ll be able to sit down when you’re both calm to decide who’s doing which feeds and if you could both have a set time each week where you’re free to go out alone.

it really does get better and goes in so quickly x

I wouldn’t worry about sleep schedules with a 4 week old. They barely know they’ve been born. Try and go with the flow and things might be easier. Don’t fight what your baby needs, you won’t win.

Did he know you were going out for 6 hours? Would you be okay with him doing that on a weekend day? I think expecting him to take over for 2 or 3 hours an evening isn’t fair if it’s every evening. Yes you’ve been parenting all day but he’s been working. If you find it tiring then expecting him to work and do most of the evening means he’s doing more than you are.

Keep talking and try to avoid the tiredness Olympics, it’s a zero sum game. Both of your lives have changed, presumably that’s what you wanted and expected when you chose to have a baby. Support each other and you’ll get through it.

I do think you’re being unreasonable and expecting a lot of time to yourself! Also why would you want all that time when you’re baby is still so tiny?

I’ve got an almost 3 year old and a 6 month old. The only time I get is 30 mins or so for a shower every night. I get no other ‘me’ time!

You're expecting too much time to yourself. Now that you're new parents 'a few hours' is bloody ages!

The time for long chunks of time to yourself comes much later I’ve found. When they’re newborn you’re looking at short breaks only. My partner would take her for a walk in pram after I’d fed her sometimes, for half an hour or so to let me wash / get my breakfast etc. or in the evenings if she was crying a lot he’d take her for a walk round block in sling so I could get some tea cooked, or something. We generally also both got up at night for moral support to each other if nothing else - I was still healing from c section so he’d pick her up and bring her to me, I’d feed her then we’d put her back. It was hard, really hard and relentless. We were both knackered - but that is life with a newborn. Try and keep civil towards each other and be kind to yourselves. You’ll get through this tough patch.

I think a month old is too soon to leave a baby for 6 hours. Newborns need their mother. And it's unreasonable to expect your husband to look after the baby all evening every evening after a full day at work, as well as a whole weekend day and both weekend nights. You seem to be expecting him to look after the baby more or less all the time he isn't working.

Why don't you do shared parental leave - go back to work and let him stay off?

Or otherwise, half an hour for a bath on the evening plus an hour out of the house on Saturday and Sunday is about all the time you can expect at this stage. Obviously he should be doing things around the house as well.

I think a lot of the responses are unfair. If looking after a baby was easy your partner wouldn't have found it so hard to deal with it for six hours, would he ? He can't have it both ways. Either it's easy (and if it is he can do it without complaining) or it's not (and then he must acknowledge that you're doing the lion's share of it and should have some time off).

I am a working single parent and I find work a thousand times easier. At work I can grab a coffee and know I'll have the next ten minutes to myself. At work I get to have adult interactions. I know when stuff is scheduled, when it starts and when it ends. With a baby you never know if you'll have two hours of napping or if they're going to wake up in a minute screaming bloody murder. I found that made it really hard to relax and sleep not knowing if I had five minutes or two hours.

You both need to cool down, then sit down and talk about what's fair or not.

And I don't think taking six hours for yourself was wrong. You don't stop being a human being with needs of your own when you have a baby.

That said, you both should have some free time that is neither work nor baby. Maybe your partner can have baby when he returns for 1h30 and then you pick it back up for 1h30. Maybe you can agree to have some evenings where you just spend time all three of you.

I do think your partner should deal with night wakings on friday and saturday, he can sleep later in the day (a luxury YOU don't get I might add !)