6 week old baby, partner not helping, don’t know what to do.

[makeupgirlie]

AIBU: We have a 6 week old beautiful baby. My partner has a full time job and I’m obviously with the baby all day every day. My partner will do one feed in the evening when go and shower and then I’m back on the night shift. There are times I have woken him for the 2-3am feed and he seems to get very mad at this. I only wake him when I am struggling with tiredness and just want some help so I’m not falling asleep whilst feeding the baby. He tells me ‘I have a job’ ‘every other mother seems to do it’ ‘I don’t understand why you don’t just nap in the day it’s not hard’ in beginning to get really upset. I don’t know if I’m being unreasonable with asking him for help as he reminds me he works. I told him I think others partners help them and he tells me ‘I’d like to see one who has a job’.
i really don’t know what to do as I’m worried of getting burnt out. I get near to no sleep and if I do it’s like 4 hours a night. I try to nap in the day but for some reason I struggle with day time sleeping.
I'm beginning to feel like I can’t ask for help.

I'm also sorry to hear that your OH is useless, and spiteful with it. So my suggestion is consider yourself a single parent, He's not going to help. You may be able to get him to agree to, say, doing dinners but don't bank on it,.

What I am suggesting is that you read "the contented little baby book" by Gina Ford or something similar. Get baby into a strict routine, and yes they do thrive on it unless they have tummy troubles or something, It breaks down the looking after baby 24/7 into chunks of time when you are interacting with baby, and chunks of time when they are at rest or asleep. This way you know when you can have your lunch in peace or a nap,

Baby is still very young and things will change back and forwards; what are your thoughts on co-sleeping, amazing how well that works. Or at least feeding lying down, i didn't know you could with my first, if only i'd known, it works a treat and once again you get a rest.

All the best, expecting help that isn't coming is more exhausting than getting on with it yourself. if you stop asking for help he'll either come forward or you will know he's not for you,

I don’t think it’s helpful on threads like this when posters with decent husbands post about how they do all the nightfeeds or whatever. It’s irrelevant and a totally different situation. Of course if you have a partner who generally backs you up when he can, you might hang in there mon-Fri knowing he’ll support you when he can. The op NEVER gets that. This father has never changed a nappy or made a bottle. Resentment is a very heavy burden to carry.

My ex was like this he never understood that his day ended at 5pm mine didn't. I had a newborn band a 13 month old. Both waking at different times. I was getting around 2hrs sleep a night. Oh ahd when I was pregnant I was working part time. Plus doing school run by public transport.. but that didn't count. He made me feel worthless and like I didn't matter.

Sorry your situation just reminded me of mine back then. Just my way of saying I understood how you feel. I hope things get better for you.

Why is it any passing female? It’s not their child! It’s his child, he needs to step up and be less lazy

Personally l picked it as a hill to die on. I would just jab him until he got up and he soon learned to get up to do his share

We split the nights into 6 hour chunks. I would sleep 9-3am and then do the day having had 6 hours sleep. Husband changed work hours to 10am-6pm so he could sleep 2/3am to 9am. Following on from that when I went back to work he has done all the night wakings even now and I do anything from 4am. You can't survive in no sleep and you will be a danger to you baby. He needs to understand this Now! If he refuses you need to leave and move back in or closer with parents.

I did do it all by myself. Some just have to. My family is/was a long haul flight away, husbands job kept a roof over our heads and money in the bank so i never woke him.No real friends to speak of (see long hours/shift work) I was used to long days and shift work though, which helped a lot.
Get a cleaner. Do not clean before the cleaner comes. Go out.
Sleep when baby sleeps, if you can. Otherwise just rest.
Ready meals and online shopping
find a routine that works for you.
Babies cry, and thats ok. You can leave baby crying for 5 minutes if you have to.
Drop your cleaning/laundry standards.
Co-sleep with your baby, they sleep, you sleep, sleep deprivation is the killer. I gave in on co-sleeping 6 weeks in and should have just done it from day 1 (did with every subsequent baby)
good luck!

His attitude and expectations are not normal. He is a parent no which means he has a second and third shift every single day just like you.

I would.

But I didn’t have to because he just did it.

I was also working the next day, I was literally being paid to look after our baby all day.

OP, assuming you’re on maternity leave/pay please make that point to him! I’m so sorry he’s not being supportive and I hope you can get through to him x

It’s fine if you wanted to be a martyr. Others don’t have to

I don’t know anyone whose partner has not helped at night. All of my friends have partners who work full time in demanding jobs and they have all split the night into two shifts eg 7 pm - 1 am and 1 am to 7 am. Usually the dad does the first shift while mum goes to bed, ideally in a different room, and mum the second. First baby was formula fed. For our first shift, DH slept on the couch with newborn in Moses basket next to him while I slept downstairs. This way I didn’t hear the baby and could properly sleep. Then he made me a cup of tea, woke me up and we swapped.

Second baby was ebf but using bottles, so I’d be awake a lot more having to express. Even so, DH still did a first shift using a stash of milk that I’d built up and left in the fridge so that I could get a proper chunk of sleep. Again, we did the sleeping on different floors thing as this was the only way I could properly ‘switch off’ and sleep.

if one of us was really struggling with tiredness and worried it wasn’t safe, we would wake the other up ‘early’.

sleeping downstairs worked well for us because - at times - we were just so exhausted that we needed to have the tv on volume low while feeding baby to help us stay alert and not fall asleep holding baby.

You need more help then this as otherwise you will burn out. A baby is a bit of a marathon, not a sprint. Aside from your partner who needs to step up, do you have anyone that can watch baby for you during the day so you can sleep?

What a prick. At 6 weeks old you’re absolutely in the trenches. Does he help with housework, making dinner or anything? My DH works full time, as do I. When I was on mat leave he would take ds so I could shower, we took it in turns during the night and one night a week one of us slept in the spare room and we took it in turns to get an uninterrupted full nights sleep. He needs to step up big time. I found Nat leave far more tiring than my full time, high pressure career.

@Gothwife , what do you mean Does he help with housework, making dinner or anything?
OP is on ML not the housekeeper, if he lived alone he'd be doing the cleaning and cooking not helping.

Firstly you need to work out whether your DH just doesn’t get it, it’s a rough patch or if this has just brought out his true personality because honestly if it’s the later cut your loses and don’t suffer long term.
however in terms of practical advice my DH has never done a night feed for either of ours. He’s a paramedic with ADHD and neither of those things work well with broken sleep. Both my babies didn’t sleep through the night until 18 months old and I went back to my very senior exec level job at 8 months and 10 months.
Things that stopped me being a zombie: chucking my husband out the bed, breastfeeding and cosleeping. i also have an annoying inability to nap during the day so would often go to bed with the baby. I find I’m fine on broken sleep but need my combined sleep to be at least 7 hours even if that’s broken up into 3/4/5 chunks.

I'm fairly sure this absolute prince has always been a make-weight prick. What a useless sack of flesh he is. Do what you gotta do to get through this and then leave. He's useless, I suspect he always was, I'm sorry this is your post partum experience.

So grateful for all the comments.
I am going to take the advice of most people. Tomorrow is a new day and it’s time for me to give him a wake up call.
I have put my foot down tonight and told him he will be doing the bedtime feed and that’s that. I will then hopefully get 3-4 hours sleep before the next feed.
Tomorrow I will be having a good think about things and reading back through some of these comments.
Thank you for the support. It’s nice to know I’m not going crazy. ❤️

I’m so glad to read this but can you make a plan in case at any point you don’t feel safe?

Someone you can call, etc.

This is a very vulnerable time in a woman’s life.

Can he do the evening feed so you can go to bed early? And the early morning 5/6am?
can he do all night feeds on Friday/Saturday?
Could he batch cook at weekends so that you have a meal every night for a week?
Can he do laundry or cleaning after work?

Does he actually understand the relentless workload and responsibilities of having a newborn? Would he be receptive to discussing it and how he could help, even if not the 0230 feed?

for clarity

not gone too well. He’s gone in a strop saying how all I do is tell him he does everything wrong and making him feel like shit. That he is tired and now he’s walked off. All because I told him I don’t feel like he’s helping at all.
I’m in shock at this reaction really.

Every other mum struggles!!
can you get into habit where you go to bed at 6pm and sleep and he does evening and baby bedtime and dream feed before he goes to bed then you can be back on duty from the 3-4am feed?

I couldn’t sleep in the day either. I’ve never been able to. It was a disaster for me and massively impacted my mental health. And I had a DH who was helping. Do whatever you can to get the help you need, from whoever you can get it from. Your husband needs to accept that he will also have to function in a slightly sleep deprived state. That’s what happens with small babies, even when you’re the one with the job. One person having a mental breakdown while the other sleeps is not an acceptable situation.

I’m so sorry this guy is such a distespectful waste of space.

You do however have an opportunity if he doesn’t work weekends or has any whole days off per week.

All you need to do is make a plan for you, and do it. As in, go out, meet your best friend at 9am, stay out all day, and all night, come home the following night at 9pm (bevause you “need to rest”) He will go totally wild. But all you are doing, is doing to him, what he does to you.

Genuinely, this guy is the worst kind of 1950s meathead. I’m sorry you have to deal with him;

This is a tactic. You told him you need help and he’s acting like he’s the victim.

He’s acting like a child. If taking care of the baby alone is so easy, why can’t he do it even for a few hours?

Thank you!
Honestly i am happy i started this tread. It’s made me realise a lot.
I will be making sure over the weekend I have some me time now.

This is classic, low- effort deflection 😂. You tell him there is a problem, he tells you that the problem is your expectations of him are too high (!). They are categorically not. He just wants to shift blame. It’s a common tactic of men who either cant be arsed or who are missing the necessary empathy module.