Him tending to baby in the night doesn't benefit me at all

[Boredboreboring]

3 DC - age almost 6, 4 and 12 months.

Our 12mo isn't a great sleeper and still wakes up two or three times in the night and takes a while to settle.

DH (who works four night shifts per week) stays up all night gaming all night on his nights off work and tends to baby. This is wrapped up as being something that benefits me as I get some uninterrupted sleep when I have to get up to get the others ready for / to school.

It's started to dawn on me that it isn't benefitting me at all, not when he's then sleeping all morning / into the afternoon and nothing else gets done.

He went to sleep at 6am this morning and I had to get him up at 1pm as he had to be somewhere. If I hadn't woken him he'd sleep all afternoon (he's not at work tonight) and he's lounging on the sofa now almost falling asleep again.

AIBU to think that actually this isn't benefitting me and is a hindrance if anything as when I do need his help/input with something with the other children he's out for the count and I'm juggling all 3 on my own.

I would be better off dealing with 12mo in the night myself wouldn't i? I don't struggle with it, I can get up 2-3 times with him in the night and still get up at a reasonable time in the morning and deal with everything else.

But OP is not getting a full nights sleep. She’s getting 5 hours. DH hands over the baby to ‘go to sleep’ between 4:30 and 6:30 but he’s not actually doing it.

On the other hand it seems DH is getting around 8 hours in the day (8ish until 4pm) and another couple hours top-up (9.30-11.30).

And in those waking hours between 11.30-6:30 he’s doing a couple of night feeds/settles but otherwise nothing else but gaming.

How many mothers get to have 7 hours of just a couple of feeds but quite literally nothing else and then sleep upto 10 hours a day?

You need to ask him to get another job. If he's on permanent nights it's really hard to switch from day to night sleep then go back again. In the meantime ask him to do quiet chores , I do occasional nights and it's awful trying to reset your body clock. The gaming thing isn't great but what's there to do at night everything's closed. OPs problem is his job so you need to sit down and ask him to do a job that isn't 100 percent night shift.

Imagine a world where a mother who settles a baby 2-3 times a night, changes nappies and does a bit of cooking is excused from all other tasks and parenting, gets 10 hours to sleep a day plus 7-8 hours on their hobby.

What a life he's carved out for himself.

And he's had you believing he's doing you a massive favour.

@Boredboreboring you say he's actively looked for shift work where he can work nights, so what is his motivation for that? Has he explained?

Probably also worth remembering she’s only getting 4/5hrs sleep 3 nights a week. He’s getting his 8 hours daily, plus his “top up” naps daily. Sounds like she’s got 4 kids, he’s doing little more than a teenager helping their parents out.

I realise night shifts are hard, toxic, etc, but this is taking the absolute piss.