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?!

some people are so precious about men, it's astounding.

My DH admits his job is a walk in the park in comparison to running the house and looking after young children 24/7.

It should be fair - of course it's not unreasonable to ask the person who is 50 percent responsible for your child if they could do a nappy change.

One of mine still wakes me up throughout the night and he is 2. I then have to get up for my big girl job, then after I've done that return to parenting and night wake ups.

Get a grip people.

Football needs to go for a while. He could do last feed change etc, it’s not forever. He’s no more important than you , you are supposed to be a team

He should be helping you at nights on the weekends. If his life hasn't changed since having a baby then that is what needs looking at as it is selfish to expect you to do everything.

XH drove for a living so never did any nights with baby during the week, but he would do the weekend nights and then we took turns to have a lie in.

If your DH's job needs him to be 100% on it, then I would not be asking him to help during the week. You are on maternity leave, not working, so it doesn't matter if you have a nap during the day or feel tired.

You do also need to go to bed earlier so that you can cope with the baby. Your life has changed as well and maybe you can't get any alone time but your baby is just 5 months old, this won't last forever.

I think that's fair as long as her husband is also doing his fair share of going to bed early so he gets enough sleep on the nights it's his turn to get up in the night?

Oh...

He should be getting up with her at the weekends to give you chance to recover from the lack of sleep in the week - I would not have put up with that football nonsense from dh, no sirree.

He’s being extremely selfish.

Does he share any of the load with you at weekends OP? If not, he needs to - kids football doesn't require a full day of him not being present! What if you wanted to go out by yourself for that amount of time, would you have to take baby with you?

It's also not unreasonable to want an hour of alone time without anyone near you, I need this sometimes now and DS is nearly 7!! Why should you have to go to bed at 7 yet he can just live his life with no amendments at all.

If he's playing football a couple of nights a week then he should halve that and you have one evening free a week too.

But you will start to resent him… 🤔

It’s really hard when children are so little. Honestly dh and I have been together nearly 15 years now and when the dc were babies we had some of our worst moments arguing with each other. It’s so relentless and draining. To be honest a lot of the time I just sucked it up and got on with it (he worked, I stayed at home) and just did everything. Time passed, the kids get older and it gets easier. Our dc are now teens ish and just do their own thing a lot of the time, we look back at some of the rows we used to have and laugh about it now but when you’re in the thick of it you literally feel like you want to kill each other. 🙈😆

Being a SAHM/on mat leave doesn’t mean that you get zero respite and have to do all the drudge. Your job is the baby- during ‘office hours’, everything else should be shared fairly. Should your DH do every wake
up? No, but he can sure as fuck do one if you are doing the other three and have been up twice in 39 minutes.

These posts are bizarre. I am a SAHM to a toddler- DH will always to do a wake up if I am exhausted or need some respite. That’s despite having a ‘big man mumsnet high earner’ job.

However, he’s not selfish. The fact that your DH is still filling his evenings and weekends with football despite the seismic shift oh parenthood demonstrates he is!

Maternity leave doesn’t mean you are the resident skivvy and all childcare is on you. Ignore the posters who think so.

Well you have a problem then. Where’s your down time? Your hobby?

I would not tolerate this at all. What happens as DC get older, and aren’t remotely interested in football? He just won’t interact with them at all over every weekend? And two evenings a week?

This baffles me. Yes I'm old.. but when l had my children.. my husband worked full time and l did the baby stuff/ cooking/ cleaning etc.He played with the children and would change nappies now and again.. obviously he couldn't feed them... until weaned at 7 months.
He did the DIY / emptying bins etc. / Washing the car and motorbike.
I had an old fashioned Washing machine .. no dishwasher or tumble dryer.. no microwave. No cordless vacuum.
No disposal nappies.
Both my daughters were the same while their husbands worked full time but with better modern appliances and disposal nappies.
I just can't get my head around how too much is expected.

Your own fault you were tired for staying up so late

How can parenting be 50/50 in this situation when you are on maternity leave. It's not a holiday as some on here think.

He has work commitments and at the moment you don't.

When you are both full time that's completely different.

I am going to assume that most of these replies have been from men’s rights activists in disguise - otherwise we’ve time travelled back to 1950. Your husband has a job in the week yes, and so do you, looking after your shared child. Childcare outside of the home is paid employment because it is work, it doesn’t stop being work because the child is the OP’s own. The husband should be sharing night wakes full stop. The OP is not unreasonable to want some downtime in the evening. You are not being unreasonable OP and you shouldn’t feel guilty. It isn’t surprising that your husband was grumpy - it’s hard and tiring having a small baby and a big adjustment for both of you. But don’t let his grumpiness tip the scales into you doing everything.

Things will get easier eventually!

I bet he’s not too tired for football though.

I have a 5 month old who only ever naps for 20 minutes at a time, 3 times during the day and I would kill for a 6pm bedtime! Ours doesn’t go down until 9pm so I really do only have an hour to myself before going to bed myself. If your baby is going down at 6pm then you have plenty of time to chill by yourself AND get an early night. I do all night wakings as my DH is the one working. He doesn’t do much childcare M-F (will occasionally have the baby of an evening if I ask him in advance if want to make plans with friends so he can plan work accordingly) but is much more hands on at the weekend. I think you should be doing the night wakings but your DH needs to reassess his priorities at the weekend and help you more then. I promise it makes SUCH a difference and the weeks feel much more manageable

did you have a full time job to go back to?

Because I did - and I still had to continue doing everything you mention on top of that.

It's where the whole 'oh but I work' answer goes out the window for me.

Boo bloody hoo - don't we all

You can still get two or three hours to yourself and be in bed for 8:30/9pm and that would make a difference.

My partner operates heavy machinery 6 days a week and I EBF so I’ve always done all of the wake ups. I do remember it being really difficult after the 4 month regression when he was waking every half an hour in the night, but it honestly did get so much better and I have my evenings back now!

My partner will come in and cook us dinner etc most nights while I put him to bed though and he does the majority of housework/dog walks at weekends so maybe this is something you need to ask him to pick up as id struggle a lot more without that support!

I went back to work when my babies were eight months. They still woke through the night. My husband also worked full-time. We both shared the wakings. I am a hospital consultant so had significant responsibilities.

It was tough at times but I didn’t make mistakes and we managed.

Your husband is being a lazy dick.

He should be taking over when he gets home from work ideally. Could he do babies bedtime routine, even just for the sake of him having some bonding time with just him and the baby. Then you can have a bit of time to chill or do whatever you need to do before bed.

This!!!
I am infuriated too by the responses to these threads. It's crazy that OP should be expected to do all the night wakings every weeknight. That's a recipe for mental illness. Broken sleep is torture. The burden needs to be shared. You BOTH work every day- your work taking care of the baby is probably harder than his job

If you’re planning to go back to work after mat leave, this idea that you should do absolutely everything and he should only have to worry about work and his hobbies just doesn’t work for me. He’s going to expect that to continue when your back at work and how many threads do we see where that becomes as issue.

Sure, your job right now is to do most of the night shift. Especially during the week. But asking for help as a one off shouldn’t annoy him. He’s supposed to love you and your baby and want to help you when you need him.

My DH used to go to bed early and then get up and do any wakings after 5am so I could sleep in. Then we’d split the weekends evenly.

To be fair, my husband is an angel who used to prep my lunch the night before so I could just grab it and eat during the early days when I didn’t know if I was coming or going, but I don’t think for a second you were being unreasonable to ask for help, once, at 4am when he’d slept since 10pm.

Babies are hard, I’m sure you’re doing brilliantly. Have a chat with him later.

I'm so embarrassed for some of the women on here.

The OP isn't even asking her husband to do night wakings, it was on one occasion in 5 months- a relationship is supposed to be a team and from what I'm reading the only person stepping up is the OP. Her husband can put himself second for one night I'm sure

It’s amazing what normal office jobs men can’t possibly be tired for. What happens when women go back to work, or is it ok for us to be tired.

I so sympathise with wanting to stay up, OP - I remember that craving for silence and bodily autonomy and being able to just think my own thoughts sitting still.

This too shall pass.

You weren’t wrong to ask for help but no one is their most helpful or unselfish self at 4am.

Time for a bit of a calm chat about how you can get some alone time to yourself that’s not just at 11pm, and work out together a schedule he can participate in. (Ideally he’ll see for himself that the football needs to temporarily take a back seat).

All these women who’ve been tricked into thinking men can’t do office jobs if they’re tired amaze me.

I do an office job tired every bloody day!