Back to work after maternity leave - night wakings and early morning starts

[Backtoworkstruggles]

I am recently back to work with my DD who is 11M attending nursery 4 days a week. I have her on Fridays. My DH is pretty good at sharing things with her but has a few blind spots e.g. can’t pack the nappy bag without a hand hold, wouldn’t know what to feed her unless I’ve made it.
understandably I have done 95% of night wakings and early starts as he has been back at work. We had a chat saying we would do things more evenly now I am back nearly FT (FT in a month).
anyway that hasn’t happened. He will wake up when she wakes at 5am for a bottle but just lay in bed hearing her scream until it wakes me, sometimes he will be on his phone during this. The minute I stir he jumps out of bed and declares he is making a bottle or ‘what can I do to help?’
this morning I just lost it and screamed because he suggested we both go down together.
I don’t think I ABU but am I missing something ?
I don’t feel like I’m asking the world for him to do maybe 1 morning. I do Fridays as I am off with her (for the next month) but I also do every other day including weekends

sometimes he will be on his phone during this challenge him on this. Wtf is he doing. He basically neglects his child for his phone???

Why isn’t he going to her when she’s crying? Have you asked him?

And don’t do the majority of the nights, there are 7 nights in a week, you do 4 as you have Fridays off and he does 3. Don’t accept him doing less.

Deaf ear on has he? Selfish tosser

Based on your hours, you should do 4 nights a week and he should do 3 nights.
1 weekend day each. 2 working days each from days you both work, and Friday is you.
Another example of weaponised incompetence, pretending he doesn't know something to get out of doing it.
If he is awake, thete is absolutely no excuse for him not getting up.
We broadly did whoever woke first went to baby, I'm a light sleeper so would always wake first. So then on his nights I would put earplugs in. Maybe you should try that?

Arggg pretending to help, does my head in. Either he’s too lazy, or knows and pretends so you can go do it. I would literally tell him that three mornings a week at 5am that’s his bottle to make and those are now his set days.
Itemise list for what to pack in the nappy bag, itemise list for what DD should wear in what weather conditions, what foods DD should eat at what time, and send them to him on WhatsApp and pin it (pin only lasts 30days) and tell him he has 30days to save it on notes. Anything he doesn’t do will be neglect after that.

So my partner works full time Mon- Fri, I work Mon - Wed, after 2years of doing bedtime and night time I had had enough.

Definitely and advocate of he should do 3 bed time through to nights e.g. Thurs- Sat and you do 4, however you chose to split it.

Your initial mistake was doing all night wake ups because he goes to work. He should have had to get used to doing them as you have. Unless he's a surgeon, pilot, drives for a living or operates heavy machinery , disturbed sleep a few nights a week wouldnt have killed him or anyone else. We always split them and dh did Friday, Saturday and Sunday. I would do the last feed so he would get to bed early and then when they woke for the day I'd take over.

There are things you can do to make night feeds easier so if baby is on formula then make it up in your room rather than having to go downstairs to make bottles. I'd be having a sit down chat about fair division of chores. That should be enough for him to step up. I'd also consider taking a step back and taking active steps not to micromanage when he has baby. So if he hasn't packed the baby bag when out he'll just have to go to a supermarket to pick up nappies or a change of clothes. Not ideal but he'll soon learn.

Tbh I would have had this chat much earlier. Being on mat leave shouldn't make you a martyr and everything your responsibility. Once be got through the door he should want to spend time with his baby and take over.

My LO is 20 months and I have been working FT (Mon-Fri full days) since he was 11 months. My partner basically does nothing to help with our LO. I’ll ask him to make dinner sometimes, and ask him to keep an eye on LO if I need to do something for 10 mins on the odd day, but that’s pretty much the extent of his help. I pick/drop LO off at nursery every day, and deal with all sick days etc, nappy changes, bath time, bedtime, buy everything for him, just generally look after him, nighttime wakes, laundry etc. By this point, I’ve just accepted it. I know he won’t ever change and I don’t want to break up our family. Not trying to normalise it; just letting you know you’re definitely not alone! My partner is from a culture/country where the man just works and not much else so he grew up thinking this is normal. To come up with a solution, I’ve said that when we have our next baby, I’d like to only go back part time or not at all (depending on our financial situation at the time), because it’s a lot for me currently and sometimes I feel like I’m reaching my boiling point. Do you think your partner is capable/willing to change? If so, I’d sit down with him and write out exactly what you expect him to help with going forward (literally treat him like a child). If he still doesn’t help at all and you want to keep your family together, I’d start thinking of other solutions like I’ve done. Good luck x

Thanks all! I’m pleased to know I am not missing something.
I think he does have the ability to change and I have asked for us to talk about fair division at lunch today. Sometimes he gets told what a great dad he is from some of our friends because he changes a bloody nappy when we are out for dinner 🙃🙃 so I think his role is massively over inflated in his head!
I think I have just done everything for so long that he is just so used to it. Not an excuse but I am now seeing that he is blind to about 50% of the things I do for her.
im going to make a big list and see if we can split this better. Taking a deep breath and gonna try and not shout anymore 😀

That's a really good idea to put it all down on paper, and then try and divide things up. You may take on responsibility for different things but overall the load needs to be equally shared for childcare, cleaning, cooking etc