To think that your husband gets up in the night

[JennDi]

As the title says.

Interested to see how many husbands get up if their baby / child wakes up during the night (once they are older than two months)

YANBU - my husbands shares the nights and gets up regularly / or at least some of the time

YABU - my husband doesn’t do any of the night waking

In the early days, I completely understand this. You're definitely in it together and both up during the night. However, after a few months I don't think it makes sense anymore to both be getting up. Perhaps, I'm being unfair though. I had a relatively easy baby in the sense that they woke up had a nappy change, milk and went back to sleep. There were only a few short lived phases of being kept up through the night; sleep regressions, teething, coughs and colds etc.

Mine has from day 1. We made that clear when planning children and he was more than keen to share absolutely everything. He is 2 of a night owl than me anyway.

Both babies were breastfed, so I did the feeding obviously but he did the nappies at his own insistence and he did half the pacing the floors when needed.

Once they stopped feeding we shared it equally, alternating either every day or after an hour in with the non-sleeping baby.

We both work FT.

Our second was pretty good so I didn't really need DH for the overnight feeds, but he insisted on doing the nappy so it wasn't all on me. I came to really appreciate it as he'd change her while I woke up, got to the loo etc so once the feed was done I could just put the baby down and doze off.

I’m breastfeeding so he doesn’t go the night feeds but I’ve voted YANBU because he does everything he can and if I weren’t BFing I know he’d get up. He always does the early morning so I can get an extra bit of sleep when baby wakes up at 5am.

edit to add - i’d actively discourage him from getting up in the night given he can’t feed him because I want him to be able to get up early in the morning and be well rested in the day.

I'd def agree him doing the 5am start amounts to a night wake of sorts!

I don’t under couples who are happy for their partner to never chip in with some nights. Maybe they just have better sleepers.

I mean, I can think of plenty of reasons but ultimately as long as everyone is happy, I don't think it's helpful to focus on what other couples do or don't do.

All families are different and what works for one would be a nightmare for others.

Yes, dh definitely did nights with me. With the one that was bottle fed, he warmed every single night bottle except 1 night (he went out with friends, I remember it because I was annoyed he came home and passed out and couldn’t do the bottles). With my bf one, there wasn’t much for him to do in terms of feeds, but for the first few months, he did the early evening (8pm to midnight/1am) so I could get a solid block of sleep.

Now that they are older, we both do whatever during the nights, but just depends on who they want. They more often as for me during the night and that’s fine. But obviously if I was tired or unwell, Dh would do everything. He also does the dog who is more of a pain at night than the dc. I don’t ever do the dog. Not once. So I can’t fault him there.

My husband and I used to have it so he slept sunday-thursday nights and I'd take Friday and Saturday nights to sleep. He'd often do extra if he could see I was asleep, particularly with my second as well had two under two and I struggled so badly with PND.

Both my kids struggled to take a bottle for the first year so he used to get up with the kids, bring baby to me and I'd wake up enough to pop a boob out/latch on. He'd watch the baby while they fed, burp/change them afterwards and put them back to bed.

On days where i was doing the night feeds solo and could sleep in with baby he would sneak off to work and leave me with a thermos of coffee and a croissant or something by my bedside.

He's an absolute gem.

We bottle fed both our DC. DH got up to make every bottle, I'd feed and change nappies. Now DC are older we take it more or less in turns if we're needed in the night although my DD usually specifically wants me but that's not DHs fault. I'm a SAHM but when DH is home everything is equal.

My husband never did nights but that was because I breastfed all my babies until they stopped night waking so it was largely pointless. If they were poorly he got up with me so he could do the fetching and cleaning while I did boob and cuddles

When they were 0-6 months, I was breastfeeding so would do the bulk of the night waking, but DH would always get up at around 5am (or nearest wakeup after that) and take the kids so that 2 or 3 hours of uninterrupted sleep/time to shower until he left for work around 8am.

He liked to take the babies out for an early morning/sunrise walk in the sling, which was a really nice way to start the day and helped him to bond with the babies.

Now they are 2 and 4, and mainly sleep through the night but there is the odd bad dream/extremely early start/bed wetting or illness incident, and DH and I share those wake-ups pretty much equally.

My husband got up WITH me every time. We didn't do any of the overnight baby care alone, we shared everything. Even breastfeeding, he would sit and chat with me to help keep me awake and motivated.

I wouldn't want it any other way.

I can count on probably 1 hand the number of times that my partner got up with DD, and she was a bad sleeper until the age of 4.
It's why I stuck at 1 child.

On Mat leave it was me in the week and dh at weekends. Once back to work it tended to be him in the earlier part of the night and me more towards morning time - largely taken in turns.

Thankfully both slept relatively well but it is important that both parents get a lie in at the weekend, both can do bedtime and both can do night wakings. I have friends who claim their husbands ‘can’t’ and I don’t accept that!

Nope, some people's partners don't get up AND they didn't have child(ren) who slept.

Nearly killed me off but I did learn one thing the first time round, not to repeat it.

Breastfeeding here, so I'm up as part of all the wakes.

Early days I'd sleep in the evening and husband would have him, even if he was screaming blue murder I'd be none the wiser with my earplugs in. We later found that we'd all manage better if I slept next to them on the sofa - DS would sleep on DH then.

Now we're in a phase of shared evening settles and taking turns with morning wakes, though I do night feeds.

I did bugger off midway through the night once when I had COVID and he was waking hourly. Came back to find them tucked up together.

DS has never been the best sleeper in terms of wakes, but not the worst either. However frequently he wakes, it's just for food then back to sleep 99% of the time. With a few notable exceptions, no settling required.

Once I was back at work (very short mat leaves) we did 'one night on/one night off'.

Whoever was 'on' did all the night waking for that night. It was nice to think that the next night you would be able to sleep.

The point is I don’t understand people who are happy for wakes to only ever be mum!

Then mum goes back to work and shock horror a 1 year old didn’t suddenly settle for dad and mum was working full time and still up in the night all the time.

While I was breastfeeding DS at night and he was in our room, i would do all the wake ups. It was annoying enough being tired from BF without getting into the "who's most tired" competition, he couldn't help anyway so there was no point him being tired in solidarity.
Luckily as soon as DS moved into his own room he stopped waking for feeds so now my partner does all the night wakes (though DS is a good sleeper so most of the time he sleeps through). My partner also does all the night wakes for our older DD.
I gave up my sleep during both pregnancies and BF during the first 9 months with each child, I figure I have until DS is at least 2 before it's equalled out 😂

I went to bed early around 9 . Dh did the 11:30 bottle I did the 3:30 one and then it was morning when they needed the next one. When they got older he would give them a dreamfeed at 11 and I would go to bed earlier again and get up in the morning with them. Suited both our natural body clocks perfectly.
They were both brilliant sleepers though so we were very lucky.

I breastfed so it was always me.

YANBU