AIBU to expect some housework done during my partner's mat leave?

[Cljw]

My partner is on mat leave, I work full time. Then when i get home, i have to tidy up after her and the mess that has been made throughout the day, do the washing and cooking etc. (Woe is me, i know) but when i voice my feelings regarding this, i get the 'im looking after our child, i dont have time to do any of that.' So AIBU to ask her to do some housework?

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I think maybe pay someone between you to do the house work, learn to have different standards for a while or just agree to live in seperate houses til the baby goes to nursery and you're both sharing the childcare equally.

But apparently they are so quick to do if it's the mum at home with the baby doing them? yet if the OP were to do them it would take all evening?

And yes in ordinary circumstances they should be shared but she may be running on zero sleep and still recovering from childbirth, in which case she might not have any energy at all to help so OP should pick up the slack.

Not 16 years ago, I couldn’t. I was physically attached to a hospital grade pump. None of these discrete slip it in your bra numbers. I had to fully strip my top half.

Same! Velcro baby and cluster fed for ages, every 5-16 minutes through the night according to my very precise and sleep deprived diary from the newborn stage 😂 DH still does most of the cooking and I still do almost all the childcare.

I always managed to do the dishwasher but mine would only nap on me/in the sling for months, there was no leaving him napping in another room and cracking on with two hands free. Totally depends on your baby and my DH is amazing. I always told him if he was ever unhappy we would look at changing things though but he prefers it as he works a lot and it suits him. Also he's the clean freak in our relationship and he likes things done a certain way.

I could have used a bouncer but I was in my head about not using containers. If I hopefully have another, I will definitely use a bouncer!

As usual, a complaint from a man with zero relevant details: how old is the baby, how well does the baby sleep and eat, how easy is the baby to put down, how many times is your wife up in the night, how much mess is there actually (ie is it taking you ten minutes to deal with or an hour), how is your wife’s mental health.

If you struggle with the first (as I did) it’s not very likely you’re going to have 5 kids!!!!

Not sure what your point is. The fact that babies in large families don't get much attention doesn't mean it is ideal.

I am currently on mat leave and it’s very difficult to get much done as my little one is a Velcro baby, will only contact nap and screams as soon as he is put down. However, I do try and get something done if he’s happy in his bouncer. So it’s not as black and white as you might think. I do use a carrier to get something done but there’s also a lot that I can’t get done.

Edited to say I also have a 2 year old at home.

I was before the time of the wearables as well - or they'd just started to cover on but we're ridiculously expensive and rare. So I made my own. I cut some holes in an old sports bra that fitted the flanges through and the control box was small enough to just have next to me, or in a pocket or whatever. Tbf though, if wearables didn't exist I might not have thought of it.

Tbf though I didn't do much housework at the same time (I ate dinner, straightened my hair, played computer games etc, but I could have done).

I couldn’t even get drop cup bras in my side and hence needed full access to my boobs and had to hold the flanges onto me. I’d generally have DD napping next to me on the bed to improve the flow and then put the milk in the fridge and have a nap myself. Not sure how on earth I managed to do it for a year. DH was working away for 18 months and didn’t expect me to do anything but keep me and DD alive and well.

That's awesome that you managed that for so long. I think though you must have done more than just babycare if your husband worked away for a month. You'd have needed to cook, do washing up, laundry, basic cleaning etc.

If I got my first down for a nap (got to sleep in the sling and then decanted her to nearby), I'd dedicate one nap to joining her, one nap to chores and the shortest nap for something for me (so a book, computer game etc).

I'm still not sure how I survived the sleep deprivation of the toddler years though - my youngest woke up 10+ times a night, and was BF back to sleep, plus a preschooler, plus work. The idea of one baby and no work seemed positively relaxed by comparison.

Maybe they can’t manage to do a few bits during the day. It’s maternity leave, first and foremost they are on leave to look after the baby and care for themselves. They are not on maternity leave to be your housewife.

I assume they are the one who does the majority of feeding? most if not all of the night wakes? manages appointments for the baby? takes the baby to classes? makes sure they have enough clothes and nappies etc?

There are 168 hours a week. If you work 48 hours a week, commute 2 hours a day and sleep 8 hours a night there are still 54 hours a week left for you to do the house work. All the while I very much suspect your partner is essentially on call for this baby 24/7 and gets significantly less sleep than you do.

Absolutely unrealistic. A first time mum learning how to do everything for a young baby and you want a clean house! Get a fuckin* grip. How many feeds do you do in the night? You sound like a right tosser, grow up twat!!

@Cljw i don’t think you are being unreasonable to expect OH to do some housework throughout the day, i have 5 kids and manage to get all the housework done and cook dinner etc am i tired at the end of the day?-yes but i also like to relax in the evening in a clean tidy living room and not wake up to a sink full of last nights dinner dishes 🤷🏻‍♀️.
slam me all you want its not that hard to squeeze in some housework.

At the point that it's being suggested that a new mum expressing milk every three hours on top of feeds should be doing housework while expressing, we're entering cloud cuckoo land territory.

I had to express with my first, as we had trouble establishing feeding. I sat on the sofa with my head propped up with pillows as I'd often fall asleep.

I was so tired during this time that I was practically hallucinating. I'd often wake in a panic that I'd accidently suffocated the baby.

My dh was a fully functioning adult when I met him, lived alone, cooked, cleaned and did his own laundry. When we had our first dc, he was still able to do those things. He didn’t expect his life to suddenly get easier when we had a baby. He didn’t think that he had acquired a domestic slave when I was recovering from giving birth and waking every two hours to feed a baby.

He did everything he could to support me and the baby, and never assumed if the house was a mess that it was because I was lazy or taking advantage. We’ve always had each others backs.

When we had a second dc, he made sure the oldest had lots of attention from him. The house took a hit in the first few weeks because we were both more focused on the dc.

If there was work to be done when he came home, he got stuck in. If he wanted to sit in front of the tv when the dc went to sleep, he encouraged me to cuddle up and do the same. I bloody love the bones of that man.

Fair enough we're all different. I'm not suggesting that anyone should be doing chores at the same time, more than someone could do chores at the same time because there's no reason you have to sit down still when expressing. Same for breastfeeding if you use a sling. That way whether a feed takes ten minutes or an hour it doesn't matter, because you can just get on with life in the meantime.

Baby is happy as it gets fed, you still catch the bus/go shopping/start dinner/do what you want and need to.

It's more that a lot of women it seem to think babies trap them on the sofa, but it doesn't have to. Sometimes it's nice being trapped on the sofa, but even better is the option to make a sandwich, or get a drink. And maybe if that dishwasher really needs putting on for whatever reason, or it's bugging you, it might be better to do it whilst expressing if baby is awake and in a bouncer, so you nap when baby does.

He worked away every week from Sunday night to Friday night for 18 months.

At weekends he did housework while DD slept (because he didn’t have the exhaustion from the week) and entertained her so I could batch cook for the week. He’d change the bedding and clean the bathrooms. I still had to wake up every 3 hours to express, but he did any wake ups I wasn’t already awake for. He hated being away and understood how utterly exhausting I found motherhood, so his weekends were spent making the week easier for me and spending time with DD.

I did a wash for me and a wash for DD most weeks. But we both had enough clothes (babygros in her case) to not need to do that, which was a godsend when I had mastitis so regularly. Dishes went in the dishwasher and as only me there it took me 3-4 days to build a load. I definitely did no more that 15 mins of household tasks in the average day. And DH didn’t expect me to.

She’s an only child partly because I wasn’t going to go through that again.

there's no reason you have to sit down still when expressing. Same for breastfeeding if you use a sling. That way whether a feed takes ten minutes or an hour it doesn't matter, because you can just get on with life in the meantime.

I had KK cup boobs when feeding. I had to strip to the waist every 3 hours to express (no in-bra pumps then). Adding the weight of DD to my chest via a sling would have seen my spine in agony, and she would most likely have suffocated. This is partly the reason I couldn’t breastfeed conventionally - even the hospital midwives were flummoxed.

I was so envious of mums that could just pop out a boob and latch their child on. For me it was a full time job of its own.

Ask her how she is and how you can help. There, you're welcome. Now do it.

You know what, we need to petition that they change the name, it's not maternity LEAVE, it's maternity WORK, 24 HOURS A DAY.

Crikey! Those are quite large and must have been tricky. I definitely was fortunate how feeding on the go worked. It totally took the work out of it for me. During the day anyway.

I didn't even want to breastfeed, but baby wouldn't take a bottle from birth but took to boob (I expressed but in the hope she'd eventually take a bottle. She didn't). So I was determined that if I was breastfeeding, and it all had to be on me, that I wasn't going to feel trapped. We made it work.

Yes - she also works full time and then some (especially with nights). Pay for a cleaner?

Do you realise, OP, that by adding a baby to your household you added both a round-the-clock commitment to supervise it but also a huge set of additional small multi-step tasks associated with going anywhere or doing anything, a set of tasks connected to managing all the equipment and clothing required, and a third set of tasks around reading up on and delivering activities and a healthy daily life for it?
But at the same time, all the previous tasks you had as adults living in a house are still there.

Weirdly, it is not uncommon for men to think the equation is "I used to work for money and do some housework, and so did she - but now she isn't doing the working so she has spare time and should do all my housework to make up for it, if she isn't doing full-time housework hours then I'm working more than her and being taken for a mug" and somehow totally disregard the actual baby and baby-admin, actually trying to reduce their own load of expected-hours-of-action at a time when in fact they have jointly committed as a couple to take on an additional large time-and-effort burden?

Don't do that.