To expect DH to help with the baby?

[pleasechange]

Well I really don't think I am BU but would like some comments

Have a 5 mth old DS who isn't a great sleeper. A lot of the time he's awake every hour in the night. I'm constantly the one who's getting up in the night. DH's excuse is that he's out to work every day, so fair enough, I leave him to sleep and keep DS as quiet as I can in the night (although this excuse obviously doesn't hold water at weekends, when DH still doesn't help out).

DH has been off work all week (to use up hols) but still hasn't helped out in the night. When I ask him (around 3,4ish when I'm shattered), he'll comfort DS to sleep for that one time, buy then the rest of the 'shift' is left to me again. I am bf, but I only spend about 20 mins bf in total at night, compared to the many hours awake.

Then this morning, when DS obviously wants to get out of bed at 8am, shouting etc, I am the one to get him up, leaving DH lying in bed (with his eyes closed pretending to sleep). Ye3terday he slept until 11am when I got him up - he said he felt ill with a cold but I've had it too, all week.

I am exhausted and really fed up that DH sees all this as my job (he does help during the day and in the evenings, it's just nightimes that are the problem). Also he wonders why I'm not intersted in sex these days - I tell him I'm shattered but he has no idea

I am a big MN lurker, and everytime I see a post from Xenia it makes me want to spit.

To the OP - I agree with some of the constructive advice you have received from MNers that arent just interested in showing off how much they earn. Good luck, and I hope you get a well earned lie in some time soon!

Feel free to spit. I just think if you have the economic power in the relationship then like Mr Gordon Ramsey, if the rumours are true, (and look out for tomorrow's newspapers) you feel you can get away with more.

But whether you have an equal relaitonship between a husband and a non working wife I agree is not entirely down to who earns the most but also down to whether the woman allows that behaviour to occur and learning means to make the man feel good about what he does with the children and feels praised for his skills as well as ensuring often enough he is left entirely alone with the baby and learns to get on with it.

I'm not sure Xenia, that you can pin all lazy arse male behaviour to economics. Men act the way they do because we let them.

However, Xenia has given the best advice on this thread:

"The best solutoin is often to pick up the baby once it's fed, dump it next to the man and then go into the spare room and lock the door (locking the door being key to this process) and then not coming out for 2 hours. Any breastfed baby can survive after a feed for 2 hours without its mother."

Xenia you are being smug and a show off.

I earned 40 times the national average last year. I just dont feel the need to make that the answer to every thread. It makes me lucky, it doesnt give me the right to preach to women that havent had the opportunities I have had.

For some women (and men) taking the economic power in a relationship is not plausible so suggesting it is not advice, it is smuggery.

I agree with you Scared. Xenia - you're solution to everything is 'get a better job, work full time, earn above the national average'.

kettle pot black!crowing on about the gazillions above national average you earn

that is smug

Thanks ScottishMum (!) I am aware of the fact it looks hypocritical. The reason I posted in that manner was to show that I disgreed with the judging despite that. I dont plan to crow about the fact on every thread I get the chance from now on I can promise you.

Anyways, Ive said my thing. Im going back to lurking.

I don't have much to be smug about, nasty divorce, single, parents both died in the last year/few years. The things that make things difficult for people are pretty generic whatever they earn and we're all intrinsically equal but I do believe that if women earn more money it helps at home in achieving a fair balance of power particularly with men who take the view I keep you all so I can do as I like. Obviously the wise thing is not to marry men like that. Check out before you marry that his mother doesn't do everything for him at home and talk about who will fine childcare, who will do the washing etc before you get too involved with someone and then just ensure you don't enable the sexist behvaiour once you're married.

If he does 3 hours out at golf on Saturday make mighty sure every single Sunday you're out for 3 hours doing what you choose and always always ensure you stick to that kind of thing or you can end up a virtual slave and also constantly moaning at someone to such an extent he might well leave. Not very nice cycles that people can get into.

xenia - human life is so much more complex than 'you do X and I will do Y'....having a baby is a life shattering experience, and I really think that it takes at least 2 years for couples to go from 'having a baby' to 'being a family'

And in that transitionary phase I don't think that the mother working full time, part time, being the bread winner etc... makes a darn bit of difference.

I'd say to couples who are in this tricky phase be kind to each other, be friends and keep a sense of humour.

Relationships should not be boiled down to a simple economic equation.

Xenia - since your divorce have you had a relationship with a bloke? Can you see yourself getting married again?

Xenia, I am presuming you were always the main breadwinner in your family. Did you still find the first two years of your firstborn's life really tough? I don't think anything can prepare for how it affects a relationship.

My advice to anyone dating is to watch how his father treats his mother. People have a scary habit of turning into their parents.

I also mainly lurk on MN, I love it when Xenia pops up, and I wouldn't mind if when my dds are older she is dishing out the same advice.

And my dh moaned at me last night when I COULDN'T get up with ds, who hasn't slept through in 7 months. I bit his head off, and dh was all sweetness today.

I mean I bit dh's head off, not ds's.

I'm sorry I've probably killed your thread and will go back to lurking now.

Scared what is your job?

The first two years with a new baby are always very hard. She was born when we'd been married for 13 months so it wasn't like we'd had years of being used to together being child free but even so it's very hard on all parents mostly because of lack of sleep. I did find the biggest shock is having the first but having the new baby, a one year old and 3 year old and both working full time was probably the hardest phase though although it's lovely now that they are so close in age, get so much out of each other, all 3 at university stage together etc. Lots to be said for doing it that way.

Avoid sexist men. Try to work out early on if they will be intolerable sexist. Don't be one thing when courting one (his servant etc) and then change after as that's deceptive. Little Miss I will do anything for you domestically and sexually until you marry me and impregnate me and then I'll change is not a fair model. I remember we did discuss things like who would work if we couldn't find childcare for example before we were married. He showed me his ironing system for shirts. (He had his own house). If someone instead has an ironing system which is throw the stuff on the floor and his mother cleans it up you probably know what you're getting into and then you've made your bed so have to lie on it.

Most younger men are pretty non sexist though these days unless you've chosen very badly.

(Not sure about personal questions - yes I've had a few boyfriends since I divorced and I think I would like to remarry, yes. Whereas my sister who actively chose to have children alone in her 30s doesn't want a man. People just differ)

Allnew- get him to agree before the middle of the night.

Set up an arrangement our is basically, alternate lie in when DH or I aren't working. And whoever gets a lie in does the nightshift. When DS2 was really bad I used to sleep downstairs with earplugs in so I didnt wake up.

Also whenever DH gets into letting me organise the kid stuff, I just back off and make him do something, or get his input.

He also has always looked after the kids one day on his own a week when I am working at college. It's meant that he is totally responsible on that I day and learns his own way of doing things. (if you do leave the baby, do NOT organise everything before hand, let him think up all the food/nappy bags etc, he wouldn't do it for you, would he?

Goodness, I think the problem is the relationship. Its nothing to do with money or whether you are working or not. What Xenia suggests of exploiting the man is every bit as bad and abusive.

One of the marriage vows is to honour, love and cherish. Many marriages fail because of that vow being broken as much as the more obvious breaking of wedding vows like adultery. A loving relationship is about achieving a balance and both the man and the woman valuing each other.

Also it often takes someone outside the relationship to make the man think. For example when my son was 10 months old his sleep was terrible. It took our GP to tell my husband that if I did not get at least five hours sleep I would end up extremely ill. (In fact I had already made myself ill)

My GP was even more blunt saying that a mother had to get up during the day and look after the baby even though she had had no sleep the night before. Its no difference to a man having to go to work.