Does your partner help with night feeds?

[mum19821985]

Just curious, how much does your partner help with the night feeds? I have a 5 month old and I'm doing almost all the night feeds. I formula feed. Hubby sleeps in our 5 year olds room so he can be well rested for work and I'm in the main bedroom with our baby. Hubby has the sort of job where lack of sleep could end in disaster so he needs his sleep. Occasionally he will have our baby overnight if he is off the next day. Curious as to how much your partners do? Our baby is a terrible sleeper, frequently wakes and is beginning to wake up screaming and refuses to go back to sleep. I'm finding it so hard right now!

I breastfeed but we still split 50/50 as I express milk to give her in the night, she's a prem baby just out of NICU so this is what happened in hospital

My OH did no night feeds ever, but then I never used formula and didn't express.

Also at 5 months I was a SAHM, OH had work , so unfair to get him up through the night.

2 dc. I have done every single night feed (bf but both have taken a bottle so DH could have shared). It's caused resentment. Better with DC2 as I told OH he had to leave our room if he didn't want to sleep with us / help whereas with DC1 I was the one who ending up sleeping in various places leaving him snoring in bed. Personally I think that your DH should do the nights when he's got a day off work the following day to give you a chance to recover.

It will pass though.

I just got a full nights sleep for the first time in ages. OH didn't want to risk being disturbed so he is on the sofa. I'm star shaped in our comfy bed and very happy. 😄

This is interesting - I'm SAHM, DS is almost two but still wakes at least twice a night (sometimes for an hour or so, usually quicker to resettle), and I'm heavily pregnant. DH has never done any night wakes....ever.

Am beginning to think I'm getting a raw deal!

Never. Ds was BF for first 5 months and now is 9 months. He's on formula but won't accept a bottle at night from DH, only me

SpotTheDuck after 2 years you are indeed getting a raw deal. Assuming DS is waking up for reasons other than breastmilk, then your DH should be sharing this with you. He should get into the habit immediately before DC2 comes because there will be moments when both are awake and you'll need to divide and conquer.

Ex never got up at night. Even when he was on paternity leave and I was recovering from an EMCS or when I went back to work. That's partly why he is an ex.

Waitingforsomething - yes I think you're right - DS has been formula fed almost since birth so really there's no excuse for DH not doing some wakes.....going to have to talk to him about it!

Ahhh thanks all. I'm currently delirious from lack of sleep as bubs cried all night. 😴 3rd night in a row he's done this! Not sure what's going on or whether he's teething? Hubby is working from 6am til 10pm too. Zzzzzzzz hope he naps today!

My dh would always help. If he had to work the next day I would usually do them, but if he had the day off then he would.
Or sometimes we would take it in turns if he wasn't settling, so I'd do one, then he'd do the next one.
Our lo was a good sleeper though and slept through from 3 months

My dp would do Friday nights. I would go in the spare room with earplugs, I would to bed at about 9 and sleep til I woke up. It was amazing.

DH would do anything needed up until midnight, so he could at least sleep/not have to move for about six hours. I tend to go to bed before him and get up after him, so I'd do the rest. Whatever needed doing we did it in another room, so the other one was only disturbed while we got up.

Bottle fed twins. DH helped with the first feed of the night at around 1 am. Then moved to the spare room and slept through the 5 am feed so he was in a fit state to go to work. He got up at 7.00 am to make up the day's bottles and brought two upstairs along with my cup of tea at about 7.30 am so I could stay in bed with DTs until 9 or 10 am.

A mum with triplets I knew managed weekday nights mostly on her own so her DH could be rested for work. At weekends, she swapped houses with her in-laws so she could have two solid nights sleep and her DH and in-laws did all the feeds.

DW was ff. I did the nights for the first three weeks while I was on leave and then in the small hours on Saturday and Sunday, and in all honesty I enjoyed the process of turning a hungry wet squealer into a dry contented sleeper. After I went back to work I took some of the work-night feeds; it depended on what time I needed to be up and other things which thirty-one years later I forget.

But at eight weeks he slept through - come on, come and hate me - and we never had a peek out of him at night again. Getting him up in the morning could be an issue later on, but that's teenagers!

Oh shit. DS was ff!

Fortunately one of ours had entirely stopped night feeds by that age and the other just had one, sometimes. But DH did a lot. Honestly I would never, ever have tolerated being the one solely responsible for night feeds. It wasn't a question of him 'helping' either. They were a joint duty. My sleep was no less important than his, and actually in the period shortly after the births, it was more important because I was the one having to physically recover.

That said, for the one who was still waking up, I did do more. I had gone back to work by then, but wasn't doing as many hours.

My DS is only 6 weeks so early days but so far (he is bottle fed with expressed breast milk for medical reasons so that affects things):

For the first week or so, I had to do a lot of pumping in the night to get my supply established and I was also physically recovering from a difficult birth - my DH did 90% of the night feeds (but, as I say, I was also up in the night pumping so I think this was really more 50:50)

For weeks 2-3, I was able to pump a lot less often so we switched to a shift system - usually, my DH did 8pm-midnight/1am, I did the rest.

Weeks 4 - now, my DH does 10pm-2am, I do the rest. Friday night is my night completely off, I go and sleep in the spare room and Sunday night is my DH's night completely off.

If my DS's naps in the day become more regular and I can nap more during the day - currently, given the need for me to express and wash and sterilise bottles, plus a 6 week old who is naturally still erratic in feeding/sleeping, I haven't managed to nap at all during the day - I'd like to be able to get my DH a bit more sleep, as he does have a lot of work on at the moment.

I am always stunned by reading mumsnet at the number of men who do very little/nothing and the women who put up with it.

DC4 is 5 months, combination fed. DP has done pretty much every night wake with me, I bf or he does bottle, he burps does nappy change settles back to sleep.

I think I've had maybe 5? nights of creeping DS downstairs to feed and settle so DP can sleep. He had 10 weeks of paternity! Now, DP wakes before me as he's a very light sleeper so says he'd feel a knob waking me up to deal with DS when he's already up.

Hope you get some more sleep soon OP.

It makes me angry the fathers who do no night wakings when they're on paternity leave. The mum really does need sleep to heal and often has very little quality sleep at the end of pregnancy then a few nights of no sleep due to labour.

I do all the night feeds during the week, during the weekend it's 50/50. DP has an hour and a half commute each way during the week, and I'd rather he didn't fall asleep at the wheel. This will most likely continue once I go back to work next month, as I can at least have a cat nap on the train :)

All these partners who can't do night feeds as they have to work!

I work and still pull my weight with night feeds and help out my husband. It's actually often more exhausting being a SAHP than working!