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?

Not mad…just heard of and understand the fourth trimester. Times have changed, we don’t leave our babies without meeting their needs anymore. If babies need to be held (and we know that they do because we understand that they don’t actually understand they are separate to their mums as a newborn because they are in the fourth trimester) then most mums wouldn't not hold them.
and yeah I do think it’s pretty cruel that if you put your baby down and they wake up crying because they want to be held that you wouldn’t pick them up and hold them, feed them,
rock them, put them in a sling, walk them in a pram etc.
but I accept we are from different
generations and that’s the way it was done then. Im glad I’ve had my children in a time when it’s not frowned upon to hold your children when they need it.

I never said that I never picked my children up when they needed it to be fed etc, but after feeding/comforting them they were put back in their cot to sleep. It was not cruel and did them no harm whatsoever. Let’s agree to disagree.

The replies on this seem off to me. Yes he has work, but you have the baby all day. You both have sleep needs. The idea that he should never be disturbed because he has work is archaic.

It strikes me this whole issue totally depends on circumstances. I agree being a SAHM is a full time job. This actually means it should be treated as such. My DH traveled over an hour on the motorway to work leaving the house at 7am then another 20 mins to his destination. As if I was going to expect him to do this 5 days a week on practically no uninterrupted sleep through the night. I would have feared for his life behind the wheel of a car. He was brilliant at the weekends and holidays but my full time job at the baby stage was the baby. Dh full time job was working all hours making money until the nursery years and my return to part time work when we could both sleep through the night.

My DH doesn’t do evening, night or morning.
I’ve been sleeping in max. two hour chunks for four months but I have to ‘fix’ my bad attitude about it.

After a tough couple of weeks with baby DP & I have a new system if it helps OP… I go to bed at 10 or earlier with DS, he usually sleeps 3 hrs ish on his first stint. DP gives him a bottle at 1 for the first wake up & then moves into spare room till he gets up for work at 7/8ish.. so he’s often had a good couple of hours sleep, an hour wake to feed / change / resettle then another solid 5 or 6 hours sleep. I go to bed early then am on duty from 2ish, DS will usually wake 3/4am and then one or two wake ups but I will have had at least 5/6 hours sleep before hand. We both get some sleep, both feel like we are contributing (less resentment from me when I am up multiple times in the night) & we both get a couple of hours in bed together at the start of the night to cuddle so we aren’t apart the whole time, often we both go up at 9 and I will drift off while DP watches TV