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?

This is all kinds of ridiculous. You’re making something that is already hard harder by faffing and fussing and being obsessed with fairness. Let him sleep on the night , you don’t need company for nappy changes, then in the morning he can take over for a bit. Being tired is life with a baby; it will pass but you two sound like you’re both trying to win the ‘it’s harder being me’ competition which is really pathetic tbh!

He's got to function at work presumably? I'm assuming that you're still on maternity leave?
So yes, given that he's not required to physically feed the baby, there's no reason for him to be getting up multiple times in the night. You do the through the night stuff, he takes the baby from 6, sounds perfectly reasonable to me.

Expecting him to be up in the night AND have baby from six, and then go to work and be effective and functional is very unreasonable

You're both tired and picking at each other, time for a reset.

Seems pointless for him to change nappies in the night when you can just change them at feed time.

Personally, id express a bottle and he can either do the last night time feed and you go to bed early, or he can do the one before he goes to work and you lie in.

My DH would sleep elsewhere and then take the early morning shift. Could you do this as it maximises sleep for everybody.

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

^ I agree. Either he sleeps through nappies and gets up or he does some of the nappies himself so you split who sleeps in. The former makes most sense ATM. .

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.

Not a big chunk, no, but still fractured sleep. He needs to not get up in the night and then do the early shift so you can sleep. Otherwise you will spiral into competitive tiredness and that can be fatal for a relationship. Acknowledge that right now you are in the eye of the storm regards lack of sleep but it WILL pass.

At this young age most nappies are dirty so do need to be changed. I think some PP have forgotten you can have eg 5 nappy changes a night!

OP herself says she's only changing once a night now.

A young baby is exhausting. Trust me though it will get better. You need to manage the sleep arrangements. I did all the nights as my DH was working full time hours and I did t want him going to work shattered. Our arrangement was I would go to bed around 8 am. DH would stay up until 11 pm and do a feed. Then after that it was me as DH would be up at 6:30 for work. I would get around 5 hours sleep before all the night madness. This worked for us. At the weekends we would do a night shift each. ( baby would take a bottle).
try and sit down and think of an arrangement that works for both of you. It does get better

I have a 5 week old and newborn nappies fill up quick. Even if she doesn't do a poo I have to change at least once a night and it makes a splat when it hits the floor, so it is full. If I don't change her then I see her stiring and she will wake up.

I'm breastfeeding so do all the night feeds, my own bedtimes have ended up being around 10pm and she wakes 2-3 times a night.

I also have 3 other children and get up with them in the morning.

I think the 1st one is the hardest for sleep deprivation. It's like breaking a horse in. My sleep has been broken in so I can wake up at any time and get going if I have to - useful for when you need to leave for the airport at strange times.

In these early weeks you have to stop trying to chase lost sleep, you will never get it, just surrender to the routine for a bit.

To give even more context (and clarify again), I do not ask him to wake up during the nappy changes. There’s always one as my LO always fills his nappy, which my partner chooses to sit up with me for. Sometimes I’ll ask him to finish up if I need to grab a drink or pop to the loo, but that’s it. We went to bed ~10:30pm last night and he was up ~15 minutes at most, so he’d had ~7 hours. I was up ~2 hours, so I had around 5.5 hours at best. I can function on that, but the issue today was that I’d only been asleep for about 30 minutes since 4am before I was woken up again, so come 9pm when he goes to football I’ll be knackered. I don’t ever nap in the day because I can’t put my LO down in his crib and I’m not comfortable co-sleeping with him at such a young age. He’s only 10 weeks, he’s still learning, but he is happy to be put down at night. I’m not trying to be spiteful, I just want him to understand how difficult it can be to function on broken sleep every night. I thought it was unreasonable that he wouldn’t get up this morning. His job is very flexible, he never turns up on time and often leaves early. He can quite easily spend the morning working, then go get a haircut, meet a friend for coffee, etc. It’s not high-pressure.

I think your bigger issue is not being able to put your baby down.

The person feeding a very young baby HAS to wake up so why would the other parent wake up also to change the nappy?

The non feeding parent usually is needing to work a paying job and get a reasonable night of sleep.
Fair enough from 6:00 - 7:00 am for you both to agree that your husband can take the fed baby out of the room to change the nappy and keep pacified in another room until he needs to go to work.
Your husband could also care for your baby for spells of time while he is at home through out the day so you can get some sleep.
Some evenings, before husband's bed time, you could go to bed very early and ask husband to wake you for feeding. Then from about ten pm it is reasonable that you, alone, wake and feed the baby until the morning.

Op, you will need to catch up on sleep yourself by sleeping while the baby sleeps for some hours during the day.

You need to get a rocking moses basket, its the only thing my 5 week old will sleep in for long periods. I also have a bouncer but she will only sleep in it for about 15 min in the sitting room.

Also, swaddle the baby so they don't startle themselves.

Its hard to nap when they nap, I can't do it anymore so I understand that. I end up laying there or wanting to do something else. I need night time sleep sometimes I end up going to bed at 9.

Is there somewhere else for your dh to sleep for a while?

I set up the bedroom for night waking, so I have a glass of water on the side, my phone, a box set on the TV and the moses basket next to the bed.

Theres no point both you being up at this point though, one of you sleeping makes much more sense.

'I told him I cannot function a whole day with a baby with 30 minutes sleep since 4am.'

I've heard it all now! He's going to work, you are at home all ruddy day and can easily catch up with a nap during the day.

I have had two children and an afternoon nap recharges hour batteries and refreshes you.

It seems that women today are not able to just get on with it and can't cope.

It's hard to sleep when they sleep in the day, even if I am exhausted I can't nap when they nap, it's like I'm too wired.
At work you at least get a lunch break. Breastfeeding can be relentless and as OP said her LO doesn't sleep properly during the day which I can believe as my 5 week old does this sometimes aswell, will sleep only during a feed and moan when being put down repeat until bedtime.

We are also expected to keep the home running during the breastfeeding gaps so often there is no time to sleep.

I would expect a partner to get up in the morning especially if they have evening hobbies and don't come back home until 8 or 9pm.

It's not a competitive race to the bottom to see who's the most tired.

I think he should sleep in another room, then get up early to give you a couple of hours undisturbed. That's what we did.

There's literally no benefit to him being woken up by nappy changes and feeding. He sleeps, then gets up and takes baby from say 5 am.

At this stage I was going to bed at 8-9pm not 10pm. He let me sleep til about 1am when I took over. My husband also slept some nights in the spare room; that doesn’t mean I had baby all night (we moved the cot into the spare room to swap over responsibilities, or just swapped beds) but it gives a very clear division of labour. I also exclusively breastfed.

You sound exhausted, can you afford to get external help maybe one or two half days a week so you get time to totally relax/catch up on sleep?
alternatively if he wants to do football and you are exhausted, he can get a nanny for those evenings ( and pay for it)

Definitely go to bed a lot earlier. I'd be going like 8.30/9pm and have DP look after baby.
Agree a time in the morning eg 6am that he'll get up and take baby after feed.
Get a couple of extra hours that way and then you can function.

My baby is 10 weeks old too.. but on formula now. I EBF my first child and it became almost bitter between myself and DH as I was up all night and exhausted.
Now there is a clear 'rota' if that makes sense and we are all much happier.
It's a bit more difficult as you are EBF, and my baby is on formula..
But can you possibly pump before bed and your husband can give a bottle of pumped milk overnight?

You need to have a talk about this, as it will just become bitter and a competition as to who is more tired or who is up more in the night... believe me.. been there and done that

I just wanted to add that this friction is completely normal… we also had lots of arguments about sleep and all sorts of pathetic tiny things got blown out of proportion. You’ll get through it, you need to both acknowledge that it’s super tough right now

This is exactly what we did too

Sorry, but getting any sleep after 4am was a bonus in our house! 5 hours sleep with a newborn is pretty good, especially if it a chunk of it is unbroken. It is hard, but this isn't about a game or competition of who is more tired. Go to bed earlier, do the nights and husband can take baby in the evenings and mornings before he works. Tbh it was rare for either of us to get more than 4 hours when DD was newborn, sometimes I'd be up from 4am until very late at night as she was a velcro baby with reflux (and undiagnosed cmpa) who couldn't be put down. It will get better. I do think yanbu about hobbies, though. Leisure time should be equal, and at this stage, everything is about the newborn.