DH going away, 9 month old baby

[ChunkyFTMMum]

DH is planning on going to an event relating to his hobby. He'll be away for 6 days, requires an overnight flight. It's not for work or a stag go, no other good mate is going (although he'll know people there). He bought the tickets a year ago, when I was pregnant and had no idea how hard this stage would be.

Background:

• Baby is 9 months, wakes between 1-6 times a night (1 is rare, usually 2-3, 6 if he's teething).
• I work full time (I had to go back at 6 months).
• exclusively breastfeeding. I pump at work but baby is glued to me all evening and morning when I'm home
• baby is often extremely overtired in the evenings. I don't know if it's separation anxiety, or he doesn't sleep properly without me around, but he's often a nightmare from 6pm.

He's already been away for work a few times..so I am perfectly able to cope. But it's really really hard work, especially now I'm working full time. It just feels off. He said he'll cancel if I ask him to but then I'm the bad guy and I know he won't like it.

Yes, I can bank this to go away on my own at some point. And I will. But a long weekend with an older child who sleeps through the night and is not as intense is very very different.

It's a fucking hard stage. AIBU to think he should cancel? Wtf do I do? How do I approach this?

I appreciate people saying I should just book annual leave myself but that's just not that simple. I am relatively senior and when I take time off 1) I have to coordinate with the few others my level as we can't all be off and 2) most of the work gets pushed until I get back so I have a hard hard week when I come back from leave.

Which is why they said book a couple of days of annual leave.

Sorry just seen your reply above, but you obviously have your mind made up that he is being unreasonable, so doesn't matter what any of us think

Can you book some time for after he gets back? Even if it’s just a day you can have to rest and recuperate?when you’re burnt out everything feels huge, you need some you time. Or could you at least work from home or leave early or start late?

Tbh it’s always going to be a bad time. I’d rather be left alone with a 9month old for a week than a toddler.

Sounds like you need to look at reducing your hours if you're doing 50 hours a week, not preventing your husband from going to a long anticipated hobby. That isn't going to help you in the long run is it.

Possibly - or not, OP hasn’t said. It certainly seems like the best way forward if she can though. 45 hours a week childcare is a lot and can surely be used to take some of the load off! It’s an opportunity to support her partner in resting and recuperating and then he will have the energy to return that favour. It sounds like it’s a hard time for both of them right now!

OP, people are being so rude to you and completely missing the point. I think you just need to be honest with him. That you don't want to tell him not to go but you're feeling really hurt he's choosing to go knowing he's leaving you with a mountain of hard work and effort..don't be angry, just say it calmly and neutrally and see what he responds.. maybe he thinks it's no different to going away for work in which case you can tell him it really is

OP has returned full time after 6 months and has been ill twice and is exhausted. DC is aged 9 months and poor sleeper. OP doing most of the night parenting. No family support nearby. He’s had a month away in total for work trips since DC born.

He’s U to take a week for himself for a hobby.

@Jimmyneutronsforehead So my career should take a hit so that my DH can do his hobby? I can't "reduce" my hours. I can quit and sell the house to get a low paying job. Or he could, you know, not go away for 6 days for his hobby right now?

Of course he should cancel. It sounds like OP is burnt out and exhausted. Things won’t be fixed in a week.
If this was work or something critical OP might cling on with her fingertips . I remember this stage OP. I crashed my car one morning driving to work.
This should make you take stock - can you reduce your work for a few months, can you work flexibly / part time ?? Can DO do more? Can you get DC more settled somehow??

The solution is not for DP for go away in a jaunt for 6 days leaving OP to sink!

Hah yes op how unreasonable of you to have a job that gets in the way of your husbands hobby

YABU.

You CAN’t do it all with every baby OP. Just because some women are superwomen / have easy babies , it doesn’t mean that everyone can manage a full time high level career with a baby.

@ChunkyFTMMum YANBU OP. You wrote "He said he'll cancel if I ask him to ..." so ask him and don't feel bad about doing so because what you're having to manage now isn't what you thought you would be when your DH booked the trip. If you get any push-back ask him to sit down and imagine - I mean, really think about - how he would cope with your baby alone for six evenings, nights and mornings if you disappeared for that period of time. Too often women are made to feel like they should cope just because they're mothers, but that's simply unreasonable when you're also working 50hrs pw. I hope your DH gives the situation the thought it deserves and does the right thing by you and your DC. 🤗

I don’t think you’re unreasonable to ask him not to go, I don’t know why you should have to suck it up and have a difficult week so he can go and do a non-essential hobby. He’ll have plenty of other years to go to his hobby conference, this year he needs to be at home with his wife and baby. I’m sure if you had to, you would find a way to cope, but you shouldn’t have to just so he can go on a jolly. In your shoes I’d be asking him to cancel the trip, and be really annoyed he hadn’t suggested it himself seeing how much I was struggling.

You want us to tell it like it is. Yes, it's unfair your husband will be away enjoying himself for a week. At the same time, it doesn't make sense to deny him a planned trip and you will get through this if he goes. You don't want him to go, so if you want him to cancel the trip - tell him. The consensus is you will be unreasonable but you can't win them all!

It's more that you have to make a choice, either go for the career - but accept that you will be exhausted and possibly not showing your best self at work

or take a little bit of a step-back, because babies DO impact your life.

Unless you decide to employ take a nanny/ night-nanny.

It's all well and good to speak about equality, but when it's about pregnancy/ child birth/ and breast-feeding, it's obviously 100% on the mother. Dad taking paternity leave, even when it exists, is not always terribly helpful.

@Loopytiles thank you, really appreciate it.

If the baby was 9 weeks old I would agree with you that he should cancel but at 9 months old you are really being unreasonable! Get ready meals in or cook and freeze meals before your partner leaves. Worst case, take annual leave or you can use parental carers leave I think it is 5 days a year. Drop the baby at nursery and relax so you aren’t tired for the evenings.

Though honestly the fact that your child is at nursery all day makes it so much easier. It is much harder for SAHM who have to manage the kid all day with no respite. It isn’t going to be that difficult and I don’t see how different it would be if he was attending a stag do or a work event. This was obviously important to him and you had a years notice! You could also hire a night nanny absolute worst case, use care.com or childcare.co.uk.

Yes it all seems a bit unfair but you should have objected when he bought the tickets. Make sure it is the last time he goes out to play with his friends. You will cope because you have no choice. I had a 5 year old a 3 year that didn't like sleep and a 3 week old when Husband went away with work. I had just had a traumatic pregnancy and all of the children had just had chicken pox. Great fun getting the children out of the house for the school bus and to playschool.

I would be feeling exactly the way you feel. Similar happened to me (years and years ago). I didn't consider myself entitled to tell another adult what to do, but I did speak my mind. I told DH that if he chose to go away that weekend, knowing what he knew about DD and me (I was exhausted and just out of hospital for something neither of us understood the gravity of at the time, but which was already bad enough), DD was teething and only in nursery 2 mornings a week (I was a SAHM, we also lived abroad and had only been there under a year by that point), that would tell me everything I needed to know about his priorities and his relationship with me, and that I would draw my own conclusions and act accordingly.

With hindsight - FYI as I have no idea whether it's relevant to your DH - he had zero connection with DD as a baby. He just didn't feel it at all. She was a drain on his physical and mental resources and while he felt duty towards her, he wasn't attached to her in the way I was having been pregnant with her and breastfeeding her. (That's all changed now, tables couldn't be more reversed).

As for me - he didn't go. He heard me, he thought about it, did a pros-cons debate and stayed at home. It was the right decision. Letting your partner down when they're asking for your help to keep their head above water but you'd rather go out and have fun, is a big deal that can't be ignored.

This thread is wild.

So OP should stop feeding, cosleep, sleep train, think about single mothers and now quit her job?! Insane.

I can't tell if you're deliberately misinterpreting what I'm saying because you seem very bitter towards your husband, or whether you genuinely have misunderstood what I have said.

No you wouldn't be taking a career hit so your husband can have a hobby. Your husband has got 1 trip booked and had it booked for a year.

You'd be reducing your hours so then you also had time to do things out of work and being a mum, or time to plan in advance for meal prepping or caretaking when one of you would like to take a break. You'd be making the pace more sustainable.

Your husband going away is just a small part of the bigger picture but you're not willing to listen to any one who doesn't say wow your husband is so thoughtless of course he should cancel his trip.

If you want him to cancel his trip, talk to him. You're so focused on this trip that you're not open to any suggestions to make life more manageable.

I don't think he should go - but honestly you need to sort the sleep. He really isn't sleep trained if he's waking that often. All babies teethe but it doesn't need to mean this or constant breast feeding. You poor thing you must be utterly shattered. But it really isn't the norm to be up that much with a 9 month old.

@YearlySubscriptionRenewal I have made my choice. This is about his choice to go away for 6 days, completely unnecessarily. This is not about maternity leave, career, etc. He made a choice to make a baby with me you know.