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.

I think expecting a few hours to yourself every evening when your dh comes in is too much. You’ve both been working all day - him at work, you with the baby, when he comes home you should both just share the baby duties between you - otherwise when does your dh get a break after work? Where’s his few hours off?

He sleeps all night. That's his time off sorted, right there. The OP works all day and all night too. So she gets a break and he facilitates this because he's not a selfish arse and he's not down the mines all day hacking away at the coalface.

The person who gets to sleep all night and is not recovering from a CS is not the person who needs time off from the sheer relentlessness of it all when a baby is born. This is because he is not experiencing pain associated with the CS or exhaustion from not sleeping.

But when the person who works full time is at work they can’t have any quiet time to snooze on the sofa or have a bit of time to themselves during the day. The person at home with a baby - if they don’t have older children as well - can generally squeeze even an hour or so during the day to themselves to do what they like. That’s the difference.

I think my first DC was about 9 months before I had something like 6 hours out of the house! And this was when I left her with my mum to go on a hen do (just the day bit). DH was working.

And a few hours in an evening regularly is high expectations. I think DH watching the baby whilst I had a shower was more the reality.

Surely the reality is at this stage the baby is still sleeping a lot, so whilst it's only small windows of time you should try and see this as your rest time and prioritise doing what will make you feel most relaxed - whether that's a bath, sit down, cleaning.. if that's what helps you. But generally seeing it as a 'swap over' situation is a bit unhealthy.

I think DH giving you 1-2 nights off a week is great. My DH used to do that once a week when he was off work the following day and it was wonderful. But really if he's working all day it's a different level of needing to function properly than being at home with the baby. Which is still incredibly difficult and harder in lots of ways, but you can not get dressed, sit and rest between seeing to the baby and have a nap if the baby does during the day. He needs to be switched on for work.

You're probably at the most difficult point sleep deprivation wise and so maybe you're being a little clouded by this... it's understandable. It's very hard and I was an sleep deprived angry mess until DCs started sleeping through!!