Partner asked me to get up with baby in the morning

[fellinlovewithawar]

I currently have a 10 week old and EBF which means I’m the one who does all the wake ups in the night. My partner will wake up and sit with me when I do the nappy change, but will then go back to sleep. He does not ever get up when the baby stirs, nor does he do the nappy changes himself. We have a baby who sleeps fairly well with 2-3 wake ups per night, but I’m still up a good 1-2 hours with him overall. My partner will normally get up with him post 6am so I can get some extra rest in before he goes to work at 7:45am. This isn’t always the case, sometimes our LO will sleep later or I’ll manage to get him back to sleep after a feed. This morning he asked me to get up with him. I’d been up at 1:30am to feed him, again at some point after this to soothe him and then at 4:15 - 5:15. At best, I’d had 30 minutes sleep. I told him I cannot function a whole day with a baby with 30 minutes sleep since 4am. His argument was he woke up during the nappy change, so he reckoned he’d only had 30 minutes more than me. I said right, well don’t you think you could give me 30 minutes more, plus the time I’d been up in the night? In the end he agreed to get up, but then made no attempts to move and honestly, I was too angry to sleep by this point. I explained to him I get that he does often get up at 6am, but I get up throughout the night EVERY night. I have to wake myself up, then struggle to get back to sleep while he can stay in a semi-conscious state.

He's supposed to go to football at 9pm tonight, and often he will play games around 8pm which leaves me putting our baby to bed alone. It’s not usually an issue as he does these morning wake ups, but today I felt like there was just no understanding of how difficult it is to last a whole day on the amount of sleep I’d had this morning. Our baby will not nap in the crib in the daytime, so it’s usually contact naps or occasionally on our bed/in his rocker. I’ve said to my partner that I’m not looking after our baby tonight, so he’ll have to miss football. He said no, and I told him he’d have to as someone needs to look after him. I’ve told him he’s going to have to get our LO up at every wake up and change his nappy if he needs it. I’m tempted to ask him to stay up with me during every breastfeed too just so he understands how exhausting it can be. I don’t get a break like he does, in any sense.

AIBU?

Why tf is he waking up at all to do the nappy change?! Makes 0 sense - I Ebf mine and we had a clear split: I do the night and he does the early morning. That’s it. You’re wasting his sleeping time having him
sit up for 0 reason whatsoever if he’s not even changing the nappy. Or, he gets up and does all the nappies and you alternate mornings.

Why's he getting up for nappies? Let him sleep so he can do the morning.

Sounds like you're exhausted, do nothing except baby care today. Nap together in bed.

My partner will wake up and sit with me when I do the nappy change, but will then go back to sleep.

Why on earth is he doing that?!

It's a very difficult time with a newborn....lack of sleep in the worst!

The only way we coped was me going to bed around 8pm & husband doing feeds (expressed bottle) so I could get a few hours in. He would then go to bed about midnight. I'd be away from 1am onwards.

No point husband being up as he has work. He'd then give me an hour or so when he got home at 6pm.

Good luck.

You probably need to review the division of time here, you do 10pm till 4.30.. he does 4.30 till 7.30.. then bedtimes do alternate evenings. Lokewise saturday or sunday lie ins.
Making him stay up and stay in sounds a bit contentious. Come to a new agreement instead

To be clear since this seems to be the focus, I don’t ask him to get up for nappy changes. He chooses to, often because our LO will cry. Nappy changes take 5-10 minutes at most and I usually only change once per night (unless it’s full/he’s gone for a poo), so it’s not like he’s missing out on a big chunk of his sleep.

Honestly if baby is breastfed totally pointless him waking up to watch you nappy change or even change nappy you are up anyway .maybe him getting a sleep then getting ip at 6 yes is a good idea but just take baby back to bed with you in afternoon for a sleep .making him do nappy change is just pointless try maybe to get baby to take bottle with expressed milk he could feed him before he goes out give you a bit of a chance for sleep .

You need to split the nights, it's silly him getting up to watch you change nappies throughout the night. I remember having a lot of arguments like this when my exh when ours was a baby, sleep deprivation is awful.

You're exhausted. @MultiplaLight is right - have an easy day today and nap as much as you can.

He's exhausted too. Which doesn't excuse him for whinging this morning, but to an outsider it's understandable.

Is he out at work today? If he is, can he take baby for a couple of hours when he gets back while you have a bath and a little sleep?

I wouldn't punish him by making him wake while you breastfeed during the night. That's not kind and it's not going to make your relationship happier. And is there any need for him to be awake during nappy changes? Or could you feed then wake him to change the nappy while you drop back to sleep?

I know it's hard. Lack of sleep is miserable. But try to approach this as a team.

You are tired, exhausted and I think you need to try to get some recovery time in today. If baby naps then lay on the sofa or bed and try to nap too.
Then when you are not so exhausted talk to your DP about how to split things up so that you are not so exhausted. But telling him to sit with you whilst you do stuff in the night is pointless. Telling him last minute that you want him to miss an arranged event seems a bit off although understandable.
However having him do bedtime routine is very reasonable. In fact you could go to bed early eg 8pm and have him mind baby for a couple hours and then he can bring baby at 10pm for a final feed, do nappy and then put baby in cot. There's also mornings he could be woken when you've done the early morning feed, take baby out of bedroom, change nappy, play with baby etc whilst you get another hour sleep before he goes to work.
I do remember feeling a bit resentful in those early weeks, but the problem is EBF and if he's back at work, he does need the sleep more than you and no one else can do the feed. so you just have to try to catnap when you can and get him to do other bits where it makes sense

Two people up seems pointless. What worked for us was my husband doing either the 11pm or 2-3am feed with expressed milk (or formula) so we both got some unbroken sleep.

I had a friend who insisted that her DH wake and and do each nappy change in the night, since she was apparently doing the hard work of BF 🤔. It was insanity, she was on mat leave while he was working full time... I've no idea why she felt the need to wake him up each time as well, it honestly felt abusive...

In summary, your DH shouldn't be doing nappy changes at night if you're awake with the baby anyhow...although obiously getting up early sometimes if the baby is awake and not needing to be fed would be a nice thing to do.

No need to change a nappy at night at all unless baby has done a poo or is unhappy.

Don't create work for yourself

Whys he getting up with you to do the nappy. Silly to waste sleep time.

Are you on maternity? Is he working full time?

Pointless you both being awake, such a waste. If he gets up some mornings with the baby that's a good help if he's working full time.

YABU, and totally unrealistic telling him he needs to do all the night wakes. Or are you going to go to work instead while he does that?

Is there somehing in the air just now? What is with all the unfair sleep threads ? 30 mins since 4am ( so presumably a fair bit before) that sounds ok to me. Throw a toddler into the mix and you might have a point. Honestly you will be fine, let him go to his football.

Don't start with competitive tiredness, we've all been there and no good comes of it. I had a non sleeper and often felt absolutely sick with tiredness, it's grim, I think a lot of us on this thread get it.

Have a really, really easy day today, do nothing but watch tv and feed the baby. Make a plan together with DH later about how you can work together to both get more sleep. It won't be like this forever OP.

You're both exhausted, try to give each other a break.

Let him go to his football this evening, nothing to gain from forbidding it (especially as he'll probably go anyway)

Come up with a plan that means that you can get to bed earlier and he has baby for a few hours, maybe doing a bottle feed (ebm or formula).

You need to find a way for you both to maximise your sleep.

DH rarely woke up when our kids cried. I just did everything.

HOWEVER, I knew I was going to be a SAHM so didn't mind all child and house stuff coming under my umbrella.

What's the plan for you returning to work OP? If you're going back (especially FT) I don't think you're unreasonable to want to set your stall out early and have some sort of fair division of child/housework. Not sure exactly what that'd look like because what is currently happening seems daft and pointless with neither of you sleeping much. BUT, in my mind, if you're going back to work, mat leave doesn't mean that he gets to opt out of child stuff.

Does he pull his weight in the house?

The nappy thing is madness. Don’t bother unless they’ve pooed and if they have then take them somewhere else to change them.

DH did evenings and gave DC a bottle at 11/12 so I could sleep. It seemed to work well.

Let him go to football and then have a conversation about how to make things better for you all.

And I agree nappies don't need changing unless they've pooed or you've tried absolutely everything else and they're still upset.

I wouldn't change a nappy as a matter rof course overnight.

you are both very tired - let him go to football, no point having a fight about that, then work out a new system.

Do not double up - he doesn’t need to get up for changes. Don’t change nappies at night unless you have to.

Perhaps you do nights until 6 except at the weekend, when he does it. Or he does until midnight so you get some sleep early on. Expressing or intro-ing some formula feeds will help.

Tell him to stay put and you'll do all the night stuff and he take the baby first thing. Tell him you need him rested so he can give you a bit of rest back. Zero sense in him just spectating a happy change, only to use it against you and claim he's tired too.

Tell him to get some earplugs if they baby is waking him.

YABU - let him go to football, and then have a sensible and calm discussion about how you divide the night. Whilst I’m on Mat leave I’m doing all nights in the week-my DH has to work all day and no point us both being knackered. He does more at weekends.

DH would do most bathtimes and getting ready for bed when DS was EBF as that was his bonding time with DS after getting back from work.

And in the early days he also woke up in the night and helped with nappy changes etc as DS took forever to feed and then settle (think he thought I had a third boob!). So it meant I could get some sleep between feeds. He wanted to support an exhausted wife. Once the length of feeds and number of feeds settled to a more manageable amount, I did pretty much everything at night as DS settled much quicker. But those early weeks were brutal. We did also have the who was most tired ‘arguments’ so were not always supportive of each other.

DS used to sleep very well from about 6-8am so we would both be asleep when DH went off to work so evenings were when DH could take on parenting duties whilst I had a rest.