Arguing about getting up with baby during the night

[Sunflower2023123]

We have a 4 week old baby. I get up for all night feeds during the week as partner works full time and is up and out the door early for work. Partner has a couple of times now offered to get up for feeds (formula fed baby) when it's a Friday night... this always ends up in arguments! Partner never gets up when baby actually stirs, I ALWAYS have to wake him and tell him and he takes ages to the point the baby stirring turns into full on crying and he always tells me to calm down. He does not seem to grasp that we must get up quickly as longer baby is left the more distressed baby gets. This also means the more distressed baby has become the longer it takes to get them back to sleep. Partner is also bad for getting up going to toilet first etc and asking me to hold the baby whilst he does this.

I often wind up getting up to "help" which results in me doing most the work. I also think it's unfair asking me to hold baby etc whilst he sorts himself out, when I get up in the night I don't disturb him at all and I also get up as soon as I realise baby is awake.

AIBU to expect him to get up ASAP with baby and not ask me to help? The whole point is to give me a chance to sleep for one night. I'm at the point I'm tempted to tell him not to bother helping as the arguments aren't worth it and I don't end up sleeping well anyways because I get so worked up after it all.

Urg, I was in your shoes a couple of years ago. My husband is really good and tried very hard to help, but just didn't wake up in time and by the time he did, I was wide awake anyway. Once he woke up, went to the loo and fell asleep again reaching for the baby. We ended up just agreeing that I could do nights so I would and he'd give me as many lie-ins as his work allowed. I do think that women get a bit of a helping hand from hormones with the night waking, I would go from asleep to wide awake in a second if the baby made a noise. I know it feels really unfair, but if he's trying that's the main thing and there will be plenty of times later on where he'll (hopefully) pick up the slack for you too.

Oh yes, and he would do the last feed too - so I'd go to bed at 9ish, he'd stay up till midnight and do the last bottle. His body clock naturally leans later anyway so it worked for us.

My husband is the best husband and dad but is absolutely shite at waking up through night for feeds. Had two babies in 2 years and my advice is - do it yourself it's easier and quicker.
The baby will drop feeds eventually and this to shall pass. X

And get him to be up early with baby when he's off and you can rest and take care of yourself. That's how we work it.
I have slept on my DH side of the bed to see if it's got sound cancelling powers but didn't work for me 😂

I vote for you sleeping somewhere else. Don’t let him get out of doing something because he isn’t doing it correctly. If the baby takes longer to settle he deals with it. Don’t let him come and ask for help either.

Men aren't tuned in to their babies in the same way that mothers are physiologically post-birth, which is why our bodies wake at the first stir of baby and men don't.

It doesn't excuse him needing you to help in the night though if it's his turn. If it's his night to do the feeds, go and set yourself up for a good sleep in another room then he can't rely on you. He probably won't change and will still sort himself first and baby will probably still get distressed but at least you'll be hopefully sleeping elsewhere so he'll have to spend half the night resettling the baby himself. Perhaps he'll learn that way to do baby first if his own sleep is in the balance!

Dh is the same, so I do nights and he gets up in the morning and I sleep, seems to be the most common approach with our friends too.

Absolutely hopeless male behaviour just like my ex husband. I have zero time for this. You need to talk to him. My brother in law has sorted the baby out equally with Dsis since their baby was born both in the week and over the weekend and just gets on with it.
I find men who behave like this an embarrassment tbh.

After my husband’s paternity leave, we agreed I would do the 2 “night” feeds. He stayed up later to do the last feed before bed though (about 10 or 11pm). So I’d be up around 1am and then 4am but husband would get up with baby at 6am/7am. It was brutal even with that extra hour in the morning. Baby now generally sleeps through (from about 11 months) but my husband -like a lot of men- seems to manage not to hear him in the morning. So even when it’s his turn to get up with him at the weekend, I still have to nudge him awake. Same when it was during the night. From what friends have said, they all seem to be like this!

What I will say is that I went back to work when the baby was 8 months and still waking once in the night and then up for the day at 5am. I quickly discovered that the idea that a job is somehow more taxing than looking after a baby, in my experience, was completely unfounded! I found the sleep deprivation SO much easier to handle at work than when I had the baby all day. And I’m a teacher in a very busy high school, so it’s quite full on. (Again this was my experience. I never had hour long cuddling my sessions on the sofa like some of my friends did).

The first few months are SO hard with the sleep deprivation. Try not to get into arguments over who’s “more tired” like we did -nobody wins! But it’s rubbish if your not getting the benefit of “skipping” a night feed.

Not fair on a very young baby.

I completely understand OP.

Our DD is nearly 8 months now, but I committed to all night feeds, inc weekends, as it was the quickest and most fool-proof way to make sure the baby got fed quickly and everyone got maximum sleep, me included. My DH works stupidly long hours, so I really didn’t mind.

As it happens, our DD is a fantastic sleeper. From about 3 weeks old she would wake at 10pm and 2am for feeding, and from 8 weeks slept through with just a nightfeed at 10pm. She was in her own nursery from 3 weeks old, so we didn’t disturb her sleep. We have never done the cry it out method, and like you, I have always tended to her immediately before she properly wakes up. The first sign of her communicating her needs, and I
would leap up and tend to her. It’s resulted in a very happy, settled baby who has been sleeping 5pm - 7am since she was 3 months old.

I chose to let my husband sleep, he needs his sleep in order to work the hours he does. We’re all thriving. Best of luck to you

NB
I see baby care as a skill. As a society we see paid work as the only valuable contribution, and see home-making skills as burdens or donkey-work which any old idiot can do. As such, we perceive that our husbands can pick up our skilled work competently at the drop of a hat. I don’t think this is fair to women; our work is skilled and cannot be done by just anyone.

When our baby was born I initially did all night feeds as I was breastfeeding and DH was working. Several months later he took some shared parental leave so we were off together, and I planned that we'd start alternating the night feeds as she was on formula by then. But exactly the same thing happened, he didn't wake as fast (because all those months I was breastfeeding, he'd learned to sleep through the disturbances quite understandably). Then he'd put his dressing gown on and go pee first! Meanwhile I'd be awake in a flash and completely unable to go back to sleep until she was settled.

We ended up talking it through and realised that he struggled way more than me with the sleep disturbance, but he was happy to get up with her when she woke at 5am. I found that I'd much rather do the night feed if it meant I got a lie in. So that's what we did and it worked for us.

I think YANBU at all, but the best way to overcome this is for you not to be present so he learns to wake and respond quickly. That might not be practical but I agree with pp that if you can be in another room on those nights it would work better.

' I'm at the point I'm tempted to tell him not to bother helping as the arguments aren't worth it and I don't end up sleeping well anyways because I get so worked up after it all.'

Psst - that's what he's hoping you'll do and why he's been acting like this.

Go into another room if you can and leave him to it. Lazy prick.

Ughhhh disgusted at the number of posters justifying and condoning DH’s lazy behaviour and telling OP she just needs to do it all herself 😡😡.
All this talk on mumsnet constantly about how men have equal rights as parents; equal parents until they are expected to do any of the hard work, of course, and then it’s “oh men and women are biologically different, that’s just how it is, poor men just aren’t capable”.
OP your Dh is lazy and selfish. Can you try sleeping elsewhere on a Friday night?

Even when DH went back to work we did 'shifts' at night, I'd to to bed quite early (9ish) and he'd do all wakings/feeds until around 2am-ish; it helps I'm an early bird and he's a night owl (and would be up until this time anyway). DS would sleep downstairs and then he'd bring him up when he came to bed, so DS wouldn't be alone whilst sleeping but I could actually get a decent chunk of sleep. It wouldn't work for everyone and I combi-fed, but maybe discuss different things that work for you, really you need to be somewhere you aren't woken by baby.

Best husband and dad but couldn't be arsed to support you and parent his child at night, nice!

Psst - that's what he's hoping you'll do and why he's been acting like this.

Also agree with this.

Ughhhh disgusted at the number of posters justifying and condoning DH’s lazy behaviour and telling OP she just needs to do it all herself

And this. Reality is its not even just about it then being all down to the mum to do, but it means they don't appreciate that it's also tiring and draining looking after a baby all day. If they don't understand and value that they're unlikely to pull their weight as the child grows up either, ew.

My husband is the same. He would sleep through her fussing, so I would wake and have to shake him. He would then go to the loo and make the bottle before coming back to pick her up. So I would be fully awake and them take ages to fall back asleep. So now I do the night waking and he gets up with her in the morning both days whilst I lie in. I also have a nap whilst she does most afternoons.

You’re not being unreasonable to be annoyed (it’s annoying) but equally he’s probably not really able to help it. Women who’ve recently given birth go through hormonal and brain structure changes that make them sleep more lightly and feel much more alert to their baby’s needs. The first signs of baby stirring probably wake you up but don’t wake him.

I’m in the unusual position of having experienced both sides of this as my wife had our first baby and I’ve had our second, and I slept through a lot of the first ones’s night murmurings and was less attuned to his cues and moods than my wife was. This time around little murmurs from the baby wake me up while she blithely sleeps on, and I can tell much better what all her little noises and signals mean.

It’s just your post natal body and brain unfortunately

Personally I did all the night feeds because 1/ breastfeeding 2/ when we did use a bottle of expressed milk DH was useless eg doing what yours does and waiting too long or asking me to assist so there was no point.

what worked for us was him doing an evening eg 9-12 shift or early morning 6am shift.

It depends on your situation. My dh is a night owl and I wake early. With our 3rd baby he did the last feed at midnight and again at 3am. He then slept till 8am whilst I did the next feed. He then dropped our kids to school and preschool and went back to bed for an hour or two if he needed it whilst on paternity leave. I would go to bed at 10pm and be up at around 6am. That suited me fine and we did that routinefor 12 weeks by which point baby slept through. Her crib was a next to me and it was on his side so actually he often heared her before I did.

With our first two he did all night feeds on a Friday, Saturday and Sunday. At first he couldn't hear them and I would wake up too and get annoyed about it. I then moved the crib besides him on his days and things improved.I refused to do them all and he could see I was on my knees so stepped up.

Sleep in another room and just leave him to it. If he wants to make the baby take longer to go back to sleep that's fine - he gets the consequences of his own actions. It won't harm the baby being left to cry for a few mins anyway otherwise second+ kids would all be stuffed.

Not suggesting that he shouldn’t do night feeds or baby care btw, just that when he does you might need to accept that he’ll be a bit slower / less intuitive in his responses to your baby and you might have to grit your teeth and leave him to it even if you might do it slightly better / differently yourself.

Perhaps go sleep in another room on the nights he has her?

TBH it’s quite good for both parents to learn to look after babies (future equality, nice bond with baby for you both), but doing this means you’ll have to sit back and let him do it his own way sometimes because things that come naturally to you (or that you learn quicker because you’re with the baby more) will come more slowly to him. As someone once wisely said, don’t become the expert in the baby

When my baby was small like yours - we had the following routine:

DH would do the last feed (10.30pm).

I did night feed and morning feed.

We alternated morning feed on weekends.

I think that the person who works full time doesn’t do the night feeds and it’s better to work out how you can both have regular stretches of sleep.

Its new, it’s tough, it doesn’t ever feel like enough sleep but it does get better.

Wow, your post is uncanny, you're describing DH exactly 12 & 10 years ago, even down to the going to the toilet whilst the baby reached a crescendo. Absolutely infuriating!!!

I apologise for not giving context / the arse end of my daily routine. My lazy bastard husband usually does the 11pm feed and gets up for work at 3.30am for his 12 hour shift. On his days off he again does the 11pm feed and gets up at the crack of dawn with our 2 year old between 4.30 and 5am, and I usually stay in bed. He also works 12 hour nights, so funnily enough I do the night feeds then, so perhaps it's just what's easiest for our house... I forget that MN needs a thorough and detailed response to justify why your DH isn't a prick.
OP do what works for you, again I find it easier and quicker especially in the early days to do it myself on my husbands days off and have the time to catch up in the morning.