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?!

I can't speak from my own experience as I'm a single mum but I do know that one of the couples in my NCT group found the best solution was to split the nights. The husband did all of the feeds and nappies from 8pm to midnight whether he was sleeping or not. Then the wife took over at midnight. I know the wife often took the opportunity to go to bed at 8pm so she could have a few uninterrupted hours. It worked for them and some of the other couples then tried it too.

This is the purpose of maternity leave.

@Outliers to be knackered and have no sleep whilst the DH opts out of parenting?

And is maternity leave 24/7?

He sounds like a pisstaker. First of all, he needs to start doing his share with the baby and housework when he comes home from work. You should not be doing EVERYTHING because you are on maternity leave. You are only on maternity leave for 8 hours of the day. It sounds like you are doing more than 8 hours of baby care and housework.

He also needs to ensure that you are getting adequate sleep. Whether that means taking the baby when he comes home so you can have a sleep, getting up early with the baby so you can sleep or doing night wakings on the weekends. This will not impact his job too much and will ensure that you get the rest you NEED.

At the moment, his other ‘responsibilities’, outside of you, the baby and work, need to go out of the window.

It is NOT ok for one partner to be chronically sleep deprived and the other to get a full night sleep every night. It’s bad for your health, your baby and your relationship. It’s also bad for his relationship with the baby (he needs to learn to settle and bond with baby). Even if his job suffers a little, big deal. Women’s careers suffer when they have a kid too.

Wtf with the responses saying she should tv have woken him! In my mind I think outside work you are both parents. Looking after a baby is exhausting, just as exhausting as most jobs. I see no reason why responsibilities shouldn’t be shared outside of work hours. Unless your DH is a brain surgeon or driving heavy machinery where tiredness could cause death then there isn’t an excuse.

I hope you’re still here Op. It often happens that posters get a lot of one kind of response early on - sometimes a bit unfairly as I think has happened here - and then others come by later with a more balanced view.

I hope you’ve seen the number of posters later on agreeing with you and your need for some sleep. I also think it’s unfair for one person to get six full nights’ sleep and the other only one, or even worse zero, especially when the baby i. question doesn’t nap.

to feel utterly exhausted and wonder why the man you married and had a child with has seemingly opted out of parenting?

cool.

The purpose of my maternity leave was 1. to recover from labour and childbirth and 2. to bond with and care for my baby.

I absolutely didn't sign up to care for a baby alone 24/7. Fathers need to bond with and care for their babies too.

@FeverBeam no to both your questions.

I didn't say they didn't.

So what were you saying is the point of maternity leave then?

Hmmm I’m torn on this one. I think he definitely should be able to do one wake up a night and still function at work. But also I think you could go to bed earlier. If your Dd goes to bed at 6 then that’s a lot of evening time you’re getting! So you could have three hours of chilling and still get extra sleep. Agree he needs to be doing more housework during evenings and weekends though.

100% you did the right thing.

wtf is this narrative that because he works he can’t wake up once to tend to his responsibilities?! Sick of it. A single mum would do it all and go no time off. Fuck me.

Me and DP have been doing shifts recently, I do the wakes for the first part of the night, and he then does the a couple of hours from 4ish so that I’m guaranteed at least a two hour block of sleep. He then gets up with oldest DS at 6.30ish and I sleep until baby wakes. (Our baby is 5 months old as well).

Would set times like that a few nights a week work?

I do go to bed early to help, so I don’t really get any time to myself at the moment (DC doesn’t usually go to bed until gone 8pm and me shortly after) but I know it won’t last. DP stays up late usually but then gets a good chunk of sleep until 4am ish so it’s swings and round abouts, plus he knows he could go to bed earlier if he wants.

To provide capacity for those night feeds.

Paternity leave is poor and shared parental leave is non-existent where I live, but I asked my husband to take a month off work after I went back to look after our son full-time. I told him I would feel better about having to go back to work after 7 months if our baby was being looked after his dad to begin with, and that it would be really good for him to have a chance to bond properly with his son.

At the end of the first day, he said, "We had an excellent day today! Everything went really well. He went down for his naps just fine, he ate a good lunch, we went to the park and then popped round to see my parents. I think I'm going to enjoy this!"

At the end of the second day, he said, "Oh my god, today was AWFUL, he just cried all day, he wouldn't settle, I didn't have a single minute to myself to sit down with a coffee or eat lunch, it was so hard, I'm EXHAUSTED."

The rest of the week wasn't much better.

For the next three weeks he took care of our son full-time and also sorted out a childminder for when we were both back at work and was present for the settling in period.

The following summer he also did two months' full-time childcare over the summer holidays when he was between jobs and the childminder was on holiday and then our son was settling in to his new nursery.

It was a rocky start for him but he is now a brilliant dad who more than pulls his weight.

I can't recommend paternity leave/shared parental leave enough if you want to set your baby's father up as an equal parent for the rest of your parenting journey together. Even if he has no formal entitlement to it and it ends up costing you a bit of money. It's 100% worth it.

If he doesn't want to do it, I'd see that as a red flag.

This is absolutely not on. Any free time he has he should be sharing all parenting duties. So on the Saturday he should give up running the kids football team, and instead stay at home and look after his own kid.

I wish more men were prepared to do this. But even in Sweden, where parents have the right to share time off for childcare, very few men take up the opportunity. All too worried about their career.

Thank goodness women's careers don't matter! sarcastic face

Mine took 4 weeks of paternity leave and I took 12 weeks of maternity leave. This time, DH has said that he wants to take 6 weeks off when our twins are born.

Definitely worth it. Even though we'll be off together, I know he'll be the one taking DS to and from nursery and absolutely doing his fair share with the babies too.

Oh FTM! What a night you've had. You are tired and it's so hard being where you are now.
Your husband doesn't sound very sympathetic which much be hard to take when your nerves are frayed already. I think you might feel unseen and unheard, as if your partner doesn't realise how tough your job is.
Is this a one-off lack of help, or more systemic?
Lots of men feel the responsibility of parenthood as a need to bury themselves in work (and possibly because they also have their noses out of joint because babies take all the attention they had before, and maybe because they don't feel as good at looking after babies as Mum). Then they feel unseen when, to their mind, they are working hard to be good providers which may be what they think men should be.

I imagine that with twins it will be even more important that the dad is fully involved!

We'll be officially outnumbered. 😬😂

What if you haven’t really properly slept for days, and you are utterly exhausted, basically on call 24/7, with no breaks?

It’s like mothers are expected to shut up and put up and exist like robots, with no reprieve, no down time. And gawd forbid if you ask the father to be supportive and, you know, doing some proper parenting, so that his partner doesn’t collapse from exhaustion.

No, don't feel bad. Parenting is hard. It's even harder if you are doing it all. At work he has time to himself, time to have a hot cuppa (whether it's while he works or has a break), time to toilet in peace, eat lunch alone etc etc. As a SAHM you don't get any of that. It's a heavy load.
He is being unreasonable to expect you to do it all.
I'd have a conversation with him and share the load out a bit more. He needs to choose his priorities with the additional football evenings and weekends. I bet if you went out for a whole day and left him in charge, he would see things differently.