How much does your other half get up with kids?

[Newmum995]

AIBU for getting annoyed at my DH not helping with the kids in the night?
I am still on maternity leave from our DD, dur back in 3 months and neither her nor our DS (3yo) sleep through the night and i am EXHAUSTED!
I understand he works full time and will (usually) get up with them at 7am to allow me a bit extra, but this isn't always the case. And we have had a massive argument about me asking him to go at 5am after 3/4 wakings and me just needing some sleep.
He says he has to work (WFH) so can't help and it's all my job on maternity, but it bugs me. I don't get to nap cause my toddler doesn't so I'm just constantly wrecked.
I understand I'm the main caregiver but AIBU for asking for a little help in the night??

We had two awful sleepers and we tried to split it the best we could. I think the routine we got into was I would go to bed once the children were asleep and he’d do all the wake ups before about 2am and then I would do afterwards. He struggled to wake up at night when they woke up so that worked best for us and he’d stay up til 2 and then go to bed.

Every day, I'm peri and knackered all the time

Imo if you're on maternity leave you take care of the kids solely 9am-5pm weekdays - and all time outside of work the care is split 50/50.

Both me and DP have done parental leave (so he's also had time off with the baby) and we were both happy with this arrangement. It's not fair on the at home parent to basically be "working" 24/7 while the other parent does 40 hours a week. How is that fair?

I'm currently on mat leave and we've ended up with DH doing all the wakeups with the toddler and me doing baby wakeups as I'm also breastfeeding. Once I'm not breastfeeding we'll probably do half the night each or something

My two-year has never slept through, so we take turns to cosleep with him and one of us is in our room for a solid night sleep. I have a physical job and my husband has a sedentary wfh job so he offered to do two nights him and one night me as he saw how tired I was getting. Been doing that for about a year, so two nights he's doing the wake ups and wakes in morning with him, we get up at 7am on our nights "off" and the one who had the night sleep gets kiddo up dressed and fed etc.

We miss sleeping in the same bed but this is survival time isn't it, we're also 37 and 38 so we're not springy anymore 😆

It seems odd that because he's working, he gets all of the sleep and you get nothing. Unless he is a lorry driver or a surgeon, he can probably work effectively on say, 70% sleep. You're unlikely to be able to parent your children effectively on no sleep.

Obviously your situation is manifestly unfair, but what's worse is that your husband, who is meant to love you, can just watch you struggle and still take everything for himself.

When we had two DC of that age and I wasn't working, he would get up with the older child if they woke but I always got up with the baby. Although I was breastfeeding so we didn't have much choice.

To add I took an extra year off as it was cheaper than paying nursery, and my husband still did majority of wake ups then because he rightly saw how tiring it is to spend the day with a baby and infant, and how draining.

OK if he needs all the sleep because he's working, what's his plan in three months? 50%? I bet it's not.

I had a terrible sleeper and I did all the nights until she stopped BFing at 14 months and he did almost all of them after. Because he's a good man.

It was always 50/50 even when I was on maternity leave.

We did similar with our 2 terrible sleepers - I went to bed and he gave 1 bottle for the (approx m)11 pm wake up and then I did the one or 2 wake ups after midnight - it made me feel so much better as if I was really tired I could sleep from 8 pm to 1 or 2 am ( nearly a full night for me)

Pretty much 50:50 in our house. But then we bottle fed so it was possible for DH to do the night feeds and we were also quite stringent on the routine and night wakings beyond 6 months old were relatively rare so it was never a massive deal in our house.

IMO mat leave means you do everything for baby during the working day where if you were working they would be at nursery. So 8am-6pm ish. It doesn’t mean you do everything all the time and outside of working hours I’d expect a 50:50 split so that you and DH have equal downtime as much as is practically possible- you might have to do feeds if you’re breastfeeding but everything else should be shared including night wakes. If he needs a core chunk of sleep to function at work then I’d go to bed early and expect him to do until ~11pm and then take over again at 5am to allow you to get another hour or 2.

Yanbu. DS' dad - not once, which is why he's an ex.

Does your dh take over at the weekends?

He gets up with her in the morning when he’s not working but never does any night wakes. To be fair though when he does get up with her I can then sleep in for as long as I want so I can properly catch up.

I think you need to find a system that works better for you, sit him down and explain how much of a toll it’s taking on you.

Never. And it’s too late once the kids are here, no one thinks that their partner will be that shit but here we are.

This is what we did too. My LO is now sleeping through but only when in bed with me so I am sticking with it for now. Took her 18 months to sleep through

This really sums it up for me. That he just wants to get as much labour out of you as possible is a massive red flag. Get him to do the whole weekend, day and night, and see how he copes.

I do all the night time stuff between the hours of 10pm and 5am , my children are early early risers and terrible sleepera so most days he’s up at 5am and I stay in bed til 6:30am