to expect my DH to get up in the night even though I am BF?

[lizmcfizz]

I'm up 2 or 3 times in the night feeding my 18 week old. DH does not get up at all, even when baby isn't settling. I was up for the third time last night when I saw him put his headphones on and turn over to go to sleep. Not even a 'you ok love?' I feel pissed off or am I being unreasonable?

DH still does bring DS to me in bed a lot of the time, and if he's unsettled because of teething then he takes his turn helping to get him back to sleep.

In the early days - and 18 weeks still counts as that IMO - he would ALWAYS bring DS to me and deal with any nappy changing. The only time he wouldn't was if he had a long drive the next day.

Being up in the night with a baby can be the loneliest thing in the world if they won't settle, and a bit of moral support from your husband/partner can make all the difference.

Sleepless - here's two - colic and dirty nappies.............

YABU - sorry. I never expected DH to get up when I was bfeeding at night, what was the point of both of us being sleep deprived zombies?

Although I did start to express when DS was 6 weeks old and DH religiously did the dreamfeed (10pm feed) until DS was 6 months old. I got to bed at 8pm and slept until 1am/2am (with earplugs in) which was an absolute godsend.

With that disclaimer out the way...would that be a possible consideration?

I fed DS myself and told DH to sleep in the spare room.

That way he had plenty of sleep, could go to work ok and I could make sure he did loads of jobs, made the food etc. in order to keep me going in the day when feeling really tired.

We now take turns to put DS to bed and make tea.

I have a 7 month old DD who I am still feeding at night, and a 3 yr old DS to look after during the day. It is knackering but I don't expect DH to be awake in the night too. If I really need him to help during the night I can always poke him awake, but that doesn't happen that often.

He does however do things like: taking both DC for a long walk to the park at the weekend, taking DS out and doing the supermarket shop on his afternoon off, encouraging me to have naps/lie-ins at the weekend.

You need to find other ways of getting your rest when you're not getting the magic 8 hrs at night.

i agree it is pointless to ask him to get up and watch you breastfeed although i totally remeber that lonely misreable feeling.

think of some things he could do instead, like letting you have layins at the weekend, giving baby ebm one night a week when he doesnt have to get up the next day and def ask him to do housework, cooking, chores etc etc

it took dh a LOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOng time to begin realise what it must be like to look after a baby 24/7 - he simply didnt understand, and I had to be quite specific about what I wanted him to do - then he would do it, because he realised that was his role.

i bet if you ask him about the headphone thing he will say that he thought his voice would disturb feeding or something - again, you have to TELL HIM that if he wakes up in the night and you are sat there feeding looking fed up then a quick word or an encouraging smile might be appreciated.

Honestly - my dh would ahve to be TOLD all of this, and then would do it, but he wont guess if you just keep it all inside

apologies if you have told him all this and he is just being inconsiderate and lazy - but it's worth giving him a chance to show you he isnt those things

I can't see any point in him getting up-at least one person might as well get a good night sleep.

Pisces I think you are knackered and this makes you feel bitter that he is able to sleep through. It's amazing how resentful even one broken night's sleep can make you feel!

Is there any way you could express for one of the feeds, then he could do it? Maybe one around 10pm ish, then you could get an early night and feel a bit more refreshed when the bubba wakes you?

Sorry, not Pisces, I meant OP .

Personally, I would say that if he gets full nights sleep - he is definitely on weekend duties for you to catch up on sleep. It is the least he 'owes' you.

Wow I had no idea that breastfeeding had become yet another excuse for lazy men to let their wives do all the work. No wonder so many women give up early.

I breastfed dd for nearly 15 mos, although regular middle of the night feeds stopped around 8 weeks. I always got up with her first in the night and tried settling her eith a feed, but if it was difficult to get her back to sleep dh would get up too and we'd tackle it as a team.

The reason it made sense fir both of us to be awake was because that moral support of being in it together kept us really tight. If he had woken up, seen me struggling, administered to his own desire not to hear the sound I was struggling to stop and gone back to sleep I think I would have become extremely resentful at the assymetry if the burden we were shouldering.

I went back to work early though, so I never bought into the bullshit about how the worker needs constant mollycoddling. Work is a blessed rest compared to being on your own with kids all day.

OP yanbu to refuse to accept full responsibility fir all night time waking just because you are breastfeeding. Make him do his share. It's his baby too, and you are just as deservingof rest as he.

Depends on the work though doesn't it, and on what else they do?
My OH would offer to help me with the night feeds, but I always wanted him to get enough sleep, and often sent him to sleep elsewhere. Main reasons being a) he works long shifts driving a bus so can't be falling asleep at work, b) if he got enough sleep he could take over at random times later in the day/make the kids dinner/whatever needed doing, while I got a lie down then. And he did (and does) plenty.

Its whatever works for your own dynamic, theres no right or wrong here.

i can imagine your husband being delighted that you chose to work as a team in the middle of the night with a baby that he could do precious little to help with.
I don't think anyone is saying that his sleep is more important than hers,but it seems a bit 'i am suffering so everyone else should do' one can have sympathy without having to actually empathise...

Just to ask skidoodle... what does your DH do?

Would you be giving the same advice to the breatfeeding DP of the surgeon about to operate on your dc? The bus driver taking your dc to school, how about pilots? I am not trying to sound snarky, just interested. My DH does a job that could easily cause someone to lose their life if he got a part of it wrong. So that is why I didn't want him to get up with me when I was BF. Yes, it was lonely, but he also had a commute of 1.5 hours each way to get to work and I didn't want him dropping off at the wheel.

all these women complaining about dh's not getting up-i assume if he had a 5am start you'd be up doing his sandwiches,ironing his shirt and waving him off with a packed lunch every day...?
exactly!

When I was breastfeeding DS and then later DD, DH didn't get up often in the night. When DS was tiny and really didn't sleep much at night at all I would sometimes get DH to have him for a bit while I burst into tears etc but what he generally did was to stay up late with him until about midnight or so and I would go to sleep as soon as I could.

DH having to go and have a job where he had to be able to string sensible comversations together and also dirve about 100 miles a day needed unbroken sleep more than a mother who could (a) not get dressed (at all if possible) and could (b) nap during the day.

YANBU to expect a little bit of support, no. Especially with a very small baby. My dh would often do the winding after a feed, or just get me a drink, sort out something for me to watch and then go back to bed. Not all the time, and not when they were past tiny (unless they were sick, or I was) but it really helped me feel like I wasn't alone with it all.

Your baby is 18 weeks old and you have therefore had 18 weeks of disturbed sleep (having previously slept all night I presume). You are very tired and I therefore do NOT think YABU to feel resentful of your dh sleeping peacefully beside you without even a kind word of encouragement even if he can do little else. I'm a bit at some of the posts that seem to imply that the OP is BU just to want a word of encouragement/a little help occasionally. Surely we've all been there and understand how exhausting and lonely it can be?

My dh never got up to ours because I was bf. However, at one stage I had a 2½ year old who'd given up sleeping in the day and a (prem)baby who, in his first winter, seem to be constantly ill with bronchitis and woke me up almost hourly for months. By the time he was 11 months old I weighed 7 stone and felt like the walking dead. I told myself that it was my "job" to get up with ds2 during the night (and have him sleep in his own room so as not to disturb dh), and both ds's on a Saturday and Sunday morning, because my dh worked long hours. I ended up hugely resenting the fact that dh didn't even offer to get up at the weekend/help in anyway and couldn't even see that I was dead on my feet. In the end it was my gp told me that something had to change! If I'm totally honest, however, it was partly my fault for not talking to dh about how I felt (I agree with gingernutlover - sometimes these men just need to be told!!!) so lizmcfizz I would advise what gingernutlover says - talk to him about how you feel before the resentment builds up.

Needless to say when dd was conceived (8 year gap), I told him it wasn't going to happen again (too old to cope for a start!). She slept in the bed with me and when it bothered him he slept in the spare room (which he did frequently!) and he sometimes took her downstairs in the morning at the weekend. Dh and I had a much better relationship for it and he had a closer relationship with dd as a baby than he ever did with the ds's.

Wow, this thread has generated some interesting replies!

YANBU to expect some kind of help/support during the night from your DH. You may be BF, but there are things he could be doing to support you. DS took ages to wind in the early days and DH used to take over from me if I was dead on my feet.

We did settle into a routine quite early on though and slept in separate rooms. I found it easier to deal with DS and not feel resentful looking over at a sleeping DH and he ended up with undisturbed sleep during the week (mostly!). I didn't set out for it to be that way, but it just seemed easier for all concerned.

DH did help out at the weekends by taking over in the mornings etc. Overall I did find that DS really settled much quicker for me than DH and 99.9% of the time wanted to feed, which was pretty much down to me.

He could do plenty to help, why assume that my dh us useless with his own daughter? Not all men are useless shirkers.

Why do you ask what he does and not what I do? Surely that us just as relevant?

i am not saying men are useless shirkers-what i am saying is that last time i checked breastfeeding was neither a two man job or a spectator sport.
My dp is very hands on and has been from the beginning-however,a breastfed baby is going to struggle to get any kind of nightfeed from a man-or was it only mine who didn't get a milk supply?
there are bits of parenthood that you may wish to share-breastfeeding isn't really one that dad can help out with IIRC. Did you clap his gonads between two bricks when in labour so he could share that too?

Good point skidoodle, what does he and what do you do?Does it matter for either of you to be sleep deprived??

OP - YABU to expect your DH to get up in the night Sun - Thurs (assuming he works a normal week and you are on mat leave) however I would expect a supportive comment.

Does he do other things to help out - like let you have a lie in at the weekend, get up at nights at the weekend to help settle the baby?

I think the most important thing for you and your DH is communication, communication, communication. its all too easy for you to think - he's had it easy all day, in the office, talking to adults, no one screaming at him for food / nappy change / the hell of it! Just as he could well be thinking it's alright for you, you don;t have to earn the money / you get to play with the baby all day / do what you want / see friends etc!

If you need more help and support then let him know, don;t expect him to be a mind reader. Can you get a babysitter and get out even if only for a couple of hours, it will do you good to have time together as a couple.