Maternity leave is "mundane but not hard"

[victorioussponges]

The above came from DH. AIBU to disagree with him, and if not, can you please help me articulate why?

We have a 5 week old EBF DD. We are so relieved and overjoyed that she's here but it's been a bit of a whirlwind - DD ultimately came several weeks early via EMCS after my pregnancy became high risk. We're now finding our feet at home but there have been some challenges - e.g. she seems to have developed reflux and needs to be held constantly.

DH was always keen to take as much paternity leave as possible. He loves spending time with DD and is really not enjoying his job. So I'm taking nine months and he's taking the last three, and I'll try to top up on my side with annual and unpaid leave.

He was also always upfront that he thinks whomever is on leave needs to pick up the bulk of the housework as well as looking after DD. I agreed in principle but had some reservations. DH has never been great at everyday chores - e.g. noticing when the bins/washing machine/dishwasher need to be taken out/put on - and I figured that would only get worse.

Fast forward to now and I'm starting to struggle. DD needs to be held constantly so when DH is working I'm either feeding her or holding her to sleep (and not sleeping myself). When DH finishes and can take her I'm straight onto housework that couldn't get done in the day - hanging washing that's been in the machine all day, getting food for/making dinner, tidying up. I might then have an hour or so to nap before it's onto the night shift with DD. Then the same again the next day. And as anticipated - it's not just a case of pressing go on a full dishwasher - it's first collecting all the bits that DH has left on top of rather than in it...

I was a bit tired/short with DH today and he came out with the above. I tried to explain that it wasn't mundanity as such - it's the relentlessness - but he still said he'd swap straightaway over doing his job. AIBU to feel a bit crap about it but without being able to clearly express why?

Besides, your dh's logic is so flawed it makes me think he must be a bit simple.

Almost everyone I know who has done both parenting leave and work has said work is easier and you get more breaks.

You have (I guess) worked full time in the past. Now you are doing mat leave. You know mat leave (with a difficult newborn, and after EMCS) is way harder.

He's only worked. But he thinks he can compare the two? Please tell me he's not a scientist.

I’m an experienced nanny and had a pretty chilled baby and still I barely got anything done in those first few months when I’d had my own baby. Recovering from a c section, broken/limited sleep, and a baby that doesn’t want to be put down (my baby also cluster fed a lot at the beginning). Just enjoy your baby and keep housework to a bare minimum. I found it got a lot easier as time went on to get more housework done, but still, don’t overdo it- just spend time with your baby and resting as much as you can. Your DH is being a dick saying that to you.
and as others have said - a sling will help a lot, especially with prepping dinner.

Heres the thing. Lots of jobs are 'mundane'. I would find check out work mundane for example. I agree that it isn't particularly difficult....however.

If you were expected to work on the checkout with...

2-4 hours of broken sleep every night

no holiday

No weekend

Were on call 24/7

Were expected to stack shelves/sweep the floor between customers.

A manager (who has never done this job) who pops in for every now and then and tells you it isn't hard.

Being aware that if you don't serve your customer properly they might get ill or die.

Your customer wants something but only communicate by screaming in your face.

...I think a mundane task can become very very hard yes.

I agree you should hand baby over to him on his day off as its easy right? Take yourself to bed and say you will.only be disturbed if baby needs to be fed.

The thing is when he is on paternity leave, you will still be doing the housework as he won't think of it.

I can't believe he thinks being home with a 5 week old is not hard! Your problem goes beyond the words he used

This is spot on! Plus, recovering from major abdominal surgery

A couple of things; firstly your DH is completely minimising the fact that you've had major abdominal surgery and need to rest and allow yourself to heal.

Why does he think women aren't allowed to drive for six weeks (usually) after a CS? If the (relatively minor) movements of pushing the clutch down and moving the gear stick are problematic post-CS, bending down to pick up his dirty laundry/empty the dishwasher is most definitely something HE should be doing.

Secondly; if he was shit at housework before the baby came along, he's going to need a major mind-reset now.

I would send him to the kitchen to put his stuff that's on top of the dishwasher into it, stating "loading the dishwasher is mundane, but not hard", send him to the bathroom to clean it, stating "it's mundane, but not hard" etc until he gets the message.

When he's at work it should be your responsibility rest of time it should be 50/50

At 5 weeks post section I was still very unwell. DH had no expectations of anything but an alive baby when he got back from work.

You're in a physically demanding role. Being a mother to a newborn is tiring and depriving.

Give him the baby for 2 days in a row. If you're bottle feeding he can do everything, if BF he disturbs you for feeds only. Give him extra chores if you BF.

You're in maternity leave, not an unpaid skivvy!

If he's expecting you to do all the housework (which is not right anyway), he should at least not be creating more work for you; as a minimum he should be putting his dishes into the dishwasher, not leaving them on the side (does he think the dishwasher fairy puts the things into it???).

If he really is expecting you to pick up after him in that way, and refuses to take responsibility for himself, it sounds like you have more than one baby in your house...

I can’t think of any other jobs that entail 24h a day shifts for nine months straight in a new industry commencing immediately after major surgery. Can you?

I think there is potentially two things going on here.

Firstly as PP have stated, your experience of maternity leave is totally dependent on loads of things such as your pregnancy, birth, post partum recovery and how much support you have. I also think parents with relatively easy babies love to promote the idea that maternity leave is easy as they totally underestimate how difficult and different it can be when you have a more fussy baby. Unfortunately society completely buys into the 'maternity leave is a break' narrative so totally unfair expectations are routinely placed on new mothers dealing with really difficult tiny babies at a time when their mental and physical health is at a low point.

I also think there is a problem with the language your partner is using. Being on maternity leave isn't 'difficult' in a technical sense as you don't need lots of training, skills or experience to do it. However that doesn't mean that it is in anyway easy or enjoyable. It is perfectly possible to find something technically difficult but not hard to endure and vice versa so it's all a red herring. Lots of people enjoy having high powered jobs requiring difficult decisions or like undertaking work such as surgery, painting, playing music that not many people could do due to the level of technical difficulty involved. Not many people would enjoy holding a tiny fussy screaming baby for the majority of the day even if virtually everyone has the technical ability to do it.

Its sunday.
Call him out on this nonsense.

He can do 70% of the mundane today. You feed only.(30%)
He does all nappies, changes, winding, clothes washing, dyring& hanging he does cooking and all contact naps if he is feeling spirited. You feed and rest. Grab a shower or go for a small walk after a feed if you want to go wild.

Seriously. Make a proper stand now or you'll be on here in 6 months in real trouble.

Is he expecting you to do all night wakes from here into infinity too?

I have endured a lot. The first 6 months with my comparatively not difficult daughter was one of the hardest. The sleep deprivation, the changes, the overwhelmingness, my body, my feelings... the relentless sleep deprivation.

Your husband is dellusional and he needs to be doing a llot more than cooing at his kid to pull his weight.

You are EBF, so the division of labour is already massively swayed in his favour. Presumably that means you're dealing with all the nighttime wake-ups as well?

His experience of spending time off with the baby has indeed not been that hard because he's not been responsible for feeding her or for keeping the household running at the same time. At 5 weeks old that leaves, what? Changing nappies, bathtime and cuddles? That's mundane but not hard because you've taken the hard bits out

I'm in no way trying to say you shouldn't EBF, just that his opinion isn't justified at all.

I had a job that I didn’t like and maternity leave was a lot harder than my job. I was underpaid, with more work than I could handle, a shitty culture that didn’t recognise the value of what I was doing and I would still rather have been at work than at home on maternity leave.

Nope. Your job is childcare, that's the only thing you should be doing while DH is away on his 9-5 (we pay childcare a full time wage to look after our children so it's a full time job!). Everything else outside of that is 50/50 I'm afraid. He's going to have to suck it and pull his weight. Do your 50%, no more.

@victorioussponges Out of interest, what is it like on weekends? Does he help so you can get on then?

Agree with directing him to tasks and saying i am about to feed the baby. You need to hang clothes/ unload dishwasher "its mundane but its not hard"

I spent the first 6 months with my amazing husband (now amazing husband and father) directing him until he got it. "I am feeding the baby, you get the burp cloth and sort out nappy station now ao you are ready when i am finished"
I would be rich if i had a pound for every "i am..., you are..." sentence i said. It drove me crazy (because wtf has he put me in this annoying position) and eventually him(because its annoying to listen to constantly 🤣 ) but i dont care as it got the results we needed to achieve balance.

What a prick. I’m sorry you’re being made to feel like this OP. Having a baby made the PhD I did look like a walk in the park by comparison. Those first months are unbelievably tough unless you have a unicorn baby who just feeds without any issues and sleeps peacefully the whole time (apparently they exist). I also had an EMC which again made those first weeks really tricky. Thankfully I have an incredibly supportive partner who was there every step of the way. And yeah I basically did the absolute minimum in the way of house chores/cooking/laundry until I was more recovered.

Also please ignore the sneering and goady comments about how you should just ‘get on with it’ etc. They can get to fuck. Just because women have been breaking their backs with domestic labour for thousands of years doesn’t mean you have to accept your DH being an unsupportive and lazy arse.

Until they have spent all day every day caring for someone else’s needs above their own, they will never understand. For me it’s not about the “difficulty”. Is it difficult to make bottles and change nappies and do a bit of housework? Technically No. But it becomes relentless and unforgiving when you are running on 4 hours broken sleep, you haven’t eaten, the baby is crying again and this is your life for the foreseeable future with no end in sight. Doing it for a day is not the same. Doing it for a week is not the same. Anyone can do anything when there is an end point. My husband used to do the odd day when he was off and I would go to bed exhausted, he was happy to. But he would never touch the housework or pick up after himself and the baby.

one thing that really helped me with first baby was baby wearing. Baby would sleep or be content in the carrier / sling while I cooked, cleaned, vacuumed etc. it meant everything started to get done which made me feel better.

You are recovering from a major operation.

Usually people don't do anything at all for weeks 1-3 or 4 so I expect he has been doing everything until then and you are just starting to ease into things like holding heavy weights - thank goodness you can carry that baby now but after 3 weeks of rest that in itself will be tiring.

Your dh and other baby support must be exhausted though as they have been doing everything while you recovered from a major operation. I mean, when I had my appendix removed someone else cooked and cleaned and did the washing for the first two weeks. After that, I did light cooking, no cleaning.

Wait ... what's that you say? Noone thought you needed a month to recuperate without doing anything while they did everything? Well no wonder you are knackered!!!! I hope if he ever has major abdominal surgery he is back to the housework and heavy lifting within days.

At least you are not also breastfeeding because that would mean you needed an additional 400-1000 calories a day.

Gosh, you'd be spending 20-25% of your total energy just on that. A bit like recovering from a major op but running a half marathon every day.

Thank god you are not also doing that.

Oh wait ..........

In other words op, please tell your dh that you are amazing just to be getting up, feeding that baby, pressing go on the washing machine and sitting back down. Maybe to recreate your early experience, when it's his turn to have baby he could schedule a major surgery and get up early to run a half marathon. See how full of beans he feels with his mundane but not hard pat leave then.

And men wonder why their sex lives tank.

Just tell him that this comment informs you he is not actually paying attention to you at all and it looks 'not hard' because he isn't looking.

I wonder if reading 'What mothers do, especially when it looks like nothing' might help, but if he can't see that recovering from birth and bf a reflux baby while not allowing the surroundings to deteriorate to a level that will depress you because nobody else is doing it is relentless and isolating, he wouldn't read it anyway.

He will probably find the 3 months pretty easy because he will cut corners that you wouldn't, and for good reason. My husband left our baby of about a year with someone who was doing a one off clean at the house while he went to the DIY store with a mate. She was a nice woman but we had literally never met her before and he left ds there with her because it would have been an effort to get ds ready to go to the shop, and because vagina=childcare. So make sure you do a lot of talking in the run up to him taking over.

He should be doing everything possible right now to ensure you get an equal amount of rest to protect your mental and physical health.

If he can’t do half the night feeds, he should be picking up the household chores: making sure the laundry is done, groceries in, meals prepped. Dh made me a packed lunch every morning when he made his own so it was one less thing for me to think about.

He doesn’t enjoy his job? Boo hoo. Time to grow up and put on his big boy trousers. Either look for another job, or work harder at this one to get more challenges and responsibilities. He’s not a kid anymore.

We also split parental leave 9months and 3months. DH learned a thing or two about the challenges of childcare. Up until then he moaned about how it was "his turn" to be off work and looked forward to all of the projects he would do while baby napped. Hilarious 😂

I do think it can be very hard. The newborn stage can be relentless for virtually all babies, but if you have a refluxy baby who doesn't like to be put down then it takes much much longer to get better. You are doing essential caring and bonding with your baby. Aside from perhaps the odd load of washing with baby in a sling etc, chores can wait until DH is back to share the load. He will learn when his own time comes round, so don't let him dictate how you spend your mat leave

Your baby is 5 weeks old, this is such early days and DH should really keep his comments to himself. I EBF for the first 3
months of DC1 and it almost broke
me. This is prime time for you to get a cleaner in if you can afford one. I remember DH one day saying to me he was sick of microwave meals and wanted something “fresh” like it was a fucking restaurant and I almost killed him! He did and said some thoughtless things when DC1 was little but was basically super dad with DC2. It’s a learning curve for both of you but I think you need to make it clear that 5 weeks post partum after a c-section you cannot be doing house jobs and EBF a tiny baby.