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?

My biggest advice - stop calculating everything. 30 mins here, 4 hours there, etc etc… just try and break out of the habit, it’ll drive you insane otherwise!

Having had two children myself, neither of whom has slept through the night save for a handful of times, it’s so much worse for your mental health to be continuously documenting every single minute. Especially if each minute ends up being used as leverage in your relationship.

You’re knackered and it sucks, but let him go to the football and return the favour by giving you an early night in the next couple of days.

The sleep competition does become a huge thing when you are both sleep deprived. I agree with other posters, you need a clear split. For us my partner would stay up until 1am and then I would be on duty from 1am onwards. I went to bed at 8pm so I knew I had a full 5 hours of uninterrupted sleep. Whoever was on duty would be downstairs with baby so we didn't have our sleep disturbed.
Our first baby was was very unsettled and I struggled to get any sleep if she was in our bedroom so we found this was the solution. Baby 2 was easier but we did the same again until proper sleeping pattern established.

If he’s working and you’re not, then he shouldn’t be the one getting up in the night or early in the morning.

On the weekends/annual leave then it should be shared but it’s not fair if he loses sleep if you’re not even working right now.

It would be different if the baby was a very bad sleeper and you were only getting an hour or 2 a night but it sounds like you get a decent amount.

When you go back to work then it should be 50/50.

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

i also don’t get this bit? There is no need for him to wake to be with you. What is he doing when he comes home? I think he needs to be helping more in the evening.

Ok adding to this I appreciate that but why on earth are you doing a nappy change at 10 months at night? It sounds like the brand you are using are either rubbish, don't fit your kid or aren't right? Pampers last 12 hours for us, and yes absolutely the nappy is heavy, but there is no way I would be changing my kid unless they wet themselves which has so far been never at night. Also getting your husband out of bed or him choosing to do so is just mad/bizarre. Every minute is essential lying down.

Yes your husband should be giving you a break at some point. We do it at night and then have a morning lie in each at weekends, but every family is different. And as everyone is tired everyone has arguments about this and what is fair, however few bother posting it on Mumsnet

Absolutely this! Honestly sleep apart some nights if you only have one kid! Why wouldn't you both get breaks!

*10 week

Two babies, both ebf for year or more - so did all nights. Zero point to him waking up during night unless you’re afraid you’ll fall asleep feeding? Get him to sleep in spare room if you have one and then he does every morning (including weekends) and if you can go to bed early at night with baby and let him do all the house bits. Its works for us but I can’t imagine my husband demanding to go out for football with a very small baby if I was exhausted. You’ve both had a child and both your lives have to change, also I promise it gets easier, I’m still feeding a two year old at night and honestly hardly wake up myself. Mind yourself in the moment and take it easy today.

I have a 10 week old who is ebf. She wakes up a few times a night. The main thing I do is not put her to bed until quite late. When she has naturally fallen asleep.. this can be anywhere from 10pm till midnight. I have her in a next to me, and I just roll over and fees her whenever she wakes for milk. I wear silicone earplugs so only wake if she actually cries. I find that she will drift off after each feed until late morning. 10am etc. In this way I am getting around 8 hrs sleep despite my husband doing none of the night feeds or waking at all during the night. I also do not change nappies at night unless she has done a poo and is clearly wanting a change. Or if she has leaked.
I personally think you are starting with a routine too early and it's meaning you aren't getting any sleep whatsoever.
It's not necessary for a newborn baby to go to bed at a set time like 7pm. All that means is you get less sleep as they will wake for the day super early.
I also think in the first few months just don't expect to get out of the house in the morning, don't expect to be able to do as much housework as normal either. Prioritise your sleep.
I never expected my husband to help during the night once he had gone back to work following paternity leave.
I do expect him to take baby downstairs if she wakes early on his days off. But never when he's working.
But that hasn't really been a problem tbh as I've just factored in that I need a longer period of trying to sleep.. like 11 hours. To account for the wake ups.
I have 2 other children too.. this baby is my third. And I still manage to do that. My husband drops the other children off at school on his way to work. So I sleep in with the baby to make up for the night waking.
I basically think you should be putting baby down later and just factoring in that you will need a longer stretch in which to sleep. Making husband get up during the night just for the sake of it is pointless.. it's not really helping you if you ebf.

Jeez these replies 🙄 God forbid a ‘working man’ loses a drop of sleep! Is he an air traffic controller? If not, fuck that. He can do his bit.

Op look, my yardstick is to ask yourself if you have the energy to go and play football? If not, then he’s clearly taking the piss and isn’t pulling his weight.

Sodding off to football or swanning off to get coffee while his exhausted fatigued wife is struggling is a dick move and one that needs nipping in the bud. You don’t have a baby then carry on like you were before. You are supposed to be a team.

OP what you need to do is separate bedrooms - so while one of you is getting up with the baby, the other is getting interrupted rest so they'll be happy to help out.

Your DP is getting disturbed at every wake-up, as are you, neither of you are sleeping enough.

Sleep in separate rooms and "switchover" in the morning around 5am so you get a solid chunk of uninterrupted sleep in the morning too.

It's the only way you'll both cope.

To add to this - I went to sleep at 6pm until 10pm every evening and DP gave baby a bottle. DP slept 10pm-5am, so a solid 7 hours, then he took over at 5am and I got another good chunk of sleep before he went to work.

Feel free to use our schedule... But the main factor for good sleep is separate rooms so you both get time uninterrupted!

This is so untrue.

The worst case scenario of looking after a newborn baby badly is that the baby dies.

The worst case scenario of being sleep deprived at work (for your family at least) is redundancy and needing to get a new job.

Both me and my DP split parental leave, so we both had a spell as the "working" parent and the baby caring parent. It was so obvious that it's more important to be well rested looking after a baby. It's too important a job not to be.

Obviously it's more important that you are well rested looking after a vulnerable life than going to work.

He has hobbies. I’m sorry but he now has a baby so hobbies are not his priority right now.
My husband would get up, change baby if needed and then bring baby to me to be fed and then burp and return baby to cot.

you said he has flexible work so he can pull his weight at home by prepping meals etc. no more haircuts when he could have baby and you could nap.

do you have anyone that come over and baby can sleep on them and you go have a nap in the day?

Hmm - I’ve had two kids and never managed to nap during the day? It’s wonderful back whenever you had children that you could easily sleep during the day (how?!) but most will find that difficult to incorporate while minding children and doing household tasks so maybe think a little about your privilege in being able to sleep during the day rather than putting down other women who can’t snooze throughout the day!

My husband did this with me for the first two weeks while he was on paternity leave just for a bit of moral support and sometimes sat with me while I fed for a little while just for some company. But not once he had gone back to work nor would I have expected him too. Fortunately he works for himself so would take the baby in the morning for a few hours so I could sleep. It’s silly him ops partner just for nappy changes, even if he does it off his own back, sleep and then he can help in the morning.

So tell him not to get up with you during nappy changes. You must be able to grab a drink or pop to the loo during the day when he isn’t around. Then he can help in the morning, he’s also managing to do a job on broken sleep. Unfortunately it will never be 50/50 especially if your bf but this does seem slightly petty I’m afraid.

Not everyone finds napping restorative. I have napped a handful of times as an adult and wake up each time feeling groggy and almost unwell. I also find it almost impossible to nap in the first place, no matter how exhausted I am. My body just seems wired to sleep at night and there isn't much I can do about that.

I also had a velcro baby that wouldn't be put down for daytime naps. They just never seemed to have the capacity to sleep independently in the daytime like they would at night. Believe me, I tried absolutely everything because I was desperate for some time to just rest and get stuff done but the reality was the baby would only sleep if lying on me or being pushed outside in a pushchair. If you have never had a baby like this then I know it's really difficult to comprehend and for so long I would believe that I was simply doing something wrong but years later I can see that the baby was also just wired that way. Some of us just have innate preferences when it comes to sleep and it can be very difficult to break these, especially when dealing with a tiny, little baby that can't be reasoned with.

The BS on this thread about a working person being completely unable to cope with disrupted sleep whilst the new mother on mat leave is expected to exhaust herself is depressing and misogynistic. It's usually peddled by people that had relatively easy babies, could nap in the daytime and generally don't understand the level of exhaustion that some babies cause.

Totally agree with this. I’m back in my office job now and despite being incredibly busy and high stress it is much, much easier to do on broken sleep than looking after my baby all day. A mum on maternity leave is still working, in a very important and relentless job.

Divide and concur - babies need lots of attention and every time your doing something together someone is missing sleep time the other one can ‘cash in’ later!
we had clear split … hubbie did evenings and early mornings before work.
we have always had an ‘on duty’ mentality - things like holidays too … your ‘on duty’ for an hour or you keep him busy, I’m resting! We then swap instead of both feeling like we are constantly ‘on duty’.
after work he would take over for me to shower etc, he would then do ‘night shift’ from 8pm to midnight I would take over midnight to 6am, he would then take over until he went to work.
another thing I did was expressed and got by son used to taking a bottle so hubbie could give him a top up feed if needed.

Why does he have to wake up if you're breastfeeding? the baby needs you, that's why they wake up.. to be fed.
You have a newborn, it's exhausting but it does get better. Try not to over think it.
he sounds like a nice chap, I'm sure he'll help you plenty of times as you experience parenthood together.

Op YABU but that's completely understandable - you're exhausted! You do need to find a way to rest during the day - I would prioritise stopping the 'contact napping'.

When mine were babies I did all the night wakings with them and got up in the morning with them - I wasn’t earning and we relied on DP’s income so him getting enough sleep to function at work was important. I remember the sleep deprivation very well - but it’s different going to baby groups/getting the shopping/being at home doing housework, to having to be alert at work. These days don’t last forever, look after yourself, take it as easy as you can in the daytime and be kind to your DH too.

Op you sound so tired.

One thing we did which helped was that at weekends we had one morning each. So on Saturday I did the first feed at about 6:30, handed the baby to dh and he left the room and left me sleeping until the next feed, about 3 hours.

On Sunday I took the baby out of the room at 6:30 and went downstairs, he then slept for a couple of hours.

Those lie ins at the weekend were so helpful, because we found it was the relentlessness of 7 days a week early mornings that was the last straw. If we knew we had one day when we could snuggle back into bed and sleep, that helped a lot.

I have an 8 week old and a toddler. DH sleeps in the spare room during the week because he has a high pressure job and he has to work. I am fine with this as I EBF so there’s just no need for him to help me overnight. Baby wakes 2-3 times. DH gets up with the toddler at 7am and gets him ready for pre-school while I doze with the baby.

Weekends he will be in with me and often help with nappy changes overnight.

I don’t think there’s any need for you both to be sleep deprived it makes no sense. Have you thought about sleeping separately and then your DH can take the mornings after he has had a good nights sleep? Don’t forget that your DH also has to go out and work.