Told DH he can't opt out of being a Dad

[ftm03]

DH runs his own company, the past few weeks parenting our 5 month old has been on me as he's working a lot to get a project done but I am exhausted.

DD has had a cold and cough so sleep has been limited. I'll add that I do 100% of the housework and laundry, dog walking and appointments etc.

DD goes to bed at 6, I've tried to stretch it to 7 but she refuses daytime naps and ends up screaming where she's overtired.

Last night, DH went to bed at 10 and I stayed up to watch something until 11, I know I should sleep when baby sleeps but it's my only alone time from 6:30am, when everyone is in bed.

I went to bed at 11, changed DD's nappy but she'd wet through so I had to wipe her down properly and put her in clean pjs and sleeping bag. 15 minutes later she had done a poo so I changed her again. It took another 45 minutes to settle her. At 4am she was really fussing, I woke DH and asked him to please do her a bottle and check her nappy as I was so tired.

He was annoyed and said he's tired and can't keep up as he'll start making mistakes at work.

This morning as he was leaving I said this comment wasn't fair, 99% of the parenting and housework etc is on me and I'm really tired and he can't opt out of being a Dad because it's 4am and he's tired, he's left for work in a mood with me.

What do we do here? I'm genuinely knackered. AIBU for waking him to do one bottle/nappy?!

YANBU
he needs to help you at least from time time
especially if he also has time for hobbies

Who’s going to get up at night when you are both back to work??

I'll have a proper read through responses later. Thanks everyone.

Christ some women have extremely low expectations of what is acceptable!

No you were not being unreasonable it is not acceptable to see a partner physically breaking whilst swaning off on hobbies and not having to lift a finger at home for housework!

When at home your DP helps out equally that includes night shift! Both DS's were bf my DH still did night time nappy changes and settling! He's giving poor excuses!
The only time I think it's acceptable for a bloke to say I need to not be sleep deprived during the working week is being a pilot, surgeon, lorry/bus/train driver. But wven then at the weekend/time off they take their fair share of nights.

You’ve been taking on everything up to now and it’s not surprising you’ve reached your limit. However, if you’ve been doing this uncomplainingly for months and then woken someone up at 4am to vent about it (that’s how it will feel to them) that will cause bad feeling all round. You are right that he can’t opt out but that wasn’t the time for the discussion! Earlier in the day maybe “I’d like a bit of time to myself and if baby wakes up, can you see to them?” - most reasonable people would respond positively to this, especially if they know deep down they’ve been a bit crap.

You guys need to get in a routine and negotiate - and you need to promise yourself you won’t let it get this bad again before speaking up. Try and find a way that you and he are a team, not adversaries. And I totally understand the staying up late to finally get some peace but that is a luxury at the moment, you must prioritise sleep for your physical and mental health.

All the best to you OP it’s a really tough time, eventually you will have time to yourself and a full nights sleep, it doesn’t seem possible at the moment, but you really will!

My baby didn’t sleep, my dh didn’t help ( I work full time and went back after mat leave). He wasn’t much better with dc2 so I said I would leave him if he couldn’t convince me he was a different man, a man who deserved me and our beauty children. So he did and with dc3 he got up at nights.
All the male apologists on the thread telling you he earns the money so you should shut the fuck up should be ashamed. Like you I worked and I expected my husband to contribute to caring for the family he made with me. That’s normal and healthy. Call a friend and make yourself a ‘football’ date, where you walk out at 7 twice a week and go to theirs, and just sleep if you need.

I agree.

That time for yourself isn’t a luxury for him, with playing and coaching football. why should it be a luxury for the op? She supports him to have his time, he doesn’t support her, that’s a shitty relationship.

Absolutely ridiculous waking somebody up at 4 am who has work the next day.

Maybe if it was all wakings all of the time, but this sounds more like a one-off, as-and-when? Most people can cope perfectly well with a night of disturbed sleep every now and then.

Even then, night wakings should be shared, maybe not 50-50 but at least some of the burden taken off.

So if the DH's job was as a nanny to a 5 month old, he'd need to get a night's sleep in case he made a mistake at work but ....

The bar is so low for some people on MN, it doesn't exist at all. I often get a feeling on here that some posters like the idea of punishing women for having babies.

In the 1960s my parents took one night on, one night off with night feeds because they both needed some sleep in order to function.

A father provides for his kids and it sounds like he is providing. Who is paying the bills?

Gee, I'd imagine the OP';s maternity pay goes towards some of the bills too.

Why do some people act as though a woman at home looking after a young baby should regard her husband as some kind of benefactor? Bizarre.

I worked full time when my son was a baby and my then -husband stayed at home with him.
We split the night time work between us.
Anything up to 3am I would do, anything from 3am on he would do - that way we both got some sleep and I had a solid 4hrs before I had to get up for work at 7am.

You need to come up with a similar plan so that he pulls his weight but also gets sufficient rest to be able to work properly.

So it’s man hate to suggest that if a man has a baby he should expect to have to do at least the occasional night feed, but not woman hate to insist women should do 100% all of them? Interesting take.
Honestly, the things people like you, label as man hating, are absolutely pathetic.

I am flabbergasted by anyone saying she is being unreasonable and should be doing every night because he works.

I'm fairly sure that everyone here would agree that looking after a child/children all day and doing all the housework is just as hard work and she too needs to feel rested. When he is home it should be equal partnership and clearly this isn’t it, even at weekends when he is off on his hobbies (whilst she once again takes it all on). And I say this as someone who is not a SAHM and works a full time 50-60 hour a week job!

Thankfully my husband (a REAL partner!) saw it the same way and when I once told him I felt guilty for him being up one night when he had work the next day when I was on Mat leave told me “I do have work, but you also have to be up all day with baby and that’s just as important.”

Those who are saying that if he doesn’t take some time/his share of night time stuff now that he never will because he will claim she won’t settle for him/wants you are also 100% correct!

This is a big reason why it needs sorting now, OP.

If she doesn't sleep through at 10 months when you are both working, DH will think it's automatically your responsibility to be up with her because that's what currently happens.

The mindset needs to be changed that looking after the baby, including some nights if necessary is both of your responsibility. There should be no default parent when both parents are home.

My DP does a job where he mustn’t be tired . What we did when the children were small was I did the nights when he was working and he took up some slack when he wasn’t working. This generally worked well (harder when I was back at work but still felt obliged to do the night shift if he was working - but he made up for it by taking the children out when he had a day off).

Jesus, Mary, Joseph and the wee donkey, some of you need to give your heads a wobble!

OP’s DH works out of the house 5 days a week, plays football twice a week, and coaches kids football at the weekend, which he can’t possibly give up because that’s his hobby and exercise and “his time” and you are berating OP because she stayed up late so she could have a whole 60 minutes where she wasn’t needed by someone else and as a result asked OH to do ONE night feed?! How will the precious man ever cope?!

OP is on mat leave, recovering from growing and birthing an entire human, and caring for that human. It does not mean that she holds the full responsibility for the baby AND the house 24/7 whilst his nibs gets to swan off to his hobbies and his exercise and never be disturbed from his beauty sleep.

All these posters bleating on about his very important job and his very important sleep as though women frequently don’t have to go to their own important jobs after being awake with their children in the night?! The mind boggles! Women don’t suddenly become machines who can function without sleep or any time where they aren’t being touched by someone else the second they become mothers.

If my DS ever tried to pull the “I have an important job and so need sleep” card if he becomes a father, he would absolutely feel my wrath but I like to think I’m raising him to realise that housework and childcare are not solely the domain of women!

If you get tired enough to make mistakes at work.....what happens?
Your baby gets dropped? You crash the car with your baby in it, or fall down the stairs holding the baby? You scald yourself on the kettle and can't hold your baby for a while so he has to do all of the changes until you heal?

Can you split the evenings. With very small babies my husband used to take over from 7:30 through to 1am - and then anything after 1 was my job. It meant that I got a reliable chunk of downtime + sleep - and he was still fresh the next day

Whilst I get your exhausted even now with my 21 and me working 3 days a week I still do all the nights but I made it very clear that partner is parenting and house stuff between wake up e.g. 6.30 and start of work 8.30 and again 5.30 to 20.30 there is no down time till about 9pm

As your little one sleeps so early i get it's hard to go to bed early....I used to just sit waiting for my lg to wake up
So personally I would say after you've put her down you are done for the night, have a bath/shower put on some white noise and try and get some alone time and some rest in

My partner would work and then figure out dinner for the both of us, when I wasn't too tired to eat, or I would eat my main meal at lunchtime

You have weekends to spend time together and that's when he should do night wakings/early shifts and let you have a lye in

My thoughts anyway

Absolutely ridiculous waking somebody up at 4 am who has work the next day.

Also, when the 'baby' part of this is by with (and OP is back at work) there will be times where one of you has to get up at 4am to deal with illnesses, nightmares or even shenanigans. Does he get to opt out then too?

No you’re not and he should do more of the parenting. Yes you’re on maternity leave but that doesn’t mean you’re on duty 24 hours a day. 7 days a week. His football will have to take a back burner for a while, he is still acting like a bloke without commitments.
He is opting out in my opinion, when this project is finished will start another one?

Couple of comments - if your baby is wetting all the way through a nappy to the point that the sleeping bag and bedsheet are wet, you should probably experiment with some different nappies. I had this issue with DD, and thought it was just that she peed a lot. Once someone suggested trying different nappies, I bought a different brand every week until I found one that kept her dry all night. For DD it was a Tesco own brand (helpfully a lot cheaper than Pampers) - it's trial and error because it's often about the body shape of your baby. That would alleviate some of the stress, I suspect.

And I'm with some of the posters that think you're probably both a bit to blame here.

Staying up until 11pm wasn't even an option when DD was 5 months old - I was usually in bed by 9pm, for a baby that slept through to about 5 or 6am. Mothering a 5mo is tiring, you need more sleep than normal, and your body is still recovering post birth. And your baby doesn't nap during the day so you don't get to rest then. If your baby is down by 6 (which is extremely lucky because it's super early) you need to max out the sleep opportunity.

But your DH shouldn't be seeing all night wakings as your job. Or prioritizing his hobby over parenting at the weekend.

I’m not going to into who should be doing what because that’s done to death but after 3 DC if it’s one thing I’ve learnt it’s go to bed when they do or soon after. If your husband won’t help you really need to prioritise your own health any way you can.

I think I would have died of sleep deprivation if not, especially when they go through the 4-5am wide awake and want to play stage- at least if I’ve slept from 8 or 9 it’s not so bad!

She has a job, she's on maternity leave. And I got up at 4.15 am today, I'm working, hit the ground running at 8 am (long commute) when I got to the office. How come this man can't possibly do this even once, because he's such a delicate little flower.

OP YANBU, please get this sorted so you have enough sleep, and get some downtime.

I put my foot down with my DH over his hobbies. As much as it's what he loves to do, he can no longer be off following the team every weekend, (even a home game will dominate most of the day taking travel into account) he can't be off golfing and to the gym whenever he feels like it either.
It was all threatening to crowd me out of my own life as I was always either working or with DS. What about my resentment? I matter too! Didn't sign up to be the general dogsbody and facilitator of his life - we are supposed to be a team!
Anyway, words were had, pennies dropped, and he still does everything he loves to except he's more choosy about what matches or whatever as he knows it's completely unfair to expect everything his way all the time. And it's by no means a special favour to me for me to go off to see my own friends of a weekend sometimes. Fairs fair.
A false peace is poison if it comes at the cost of you being honest about what you need to thrive in the relationship IMO.