Does your partner help with night feeds?

[BR1007]

Hi ladies.
So this has become quite a debate in our house and id love to hear other parents experiences!
I am on maternity leave and we have a 9 week old son and my husband works full time shifts. The way his shifts work out, he may do 3-4 12 hour shifts in a row, then has 4 days off etc. which i agree is a lot of work (as i did the same before maternity leave)
As i dont agree with him getting up when he is on his shifts, i would like some help when he is on his days off, but he doesn't seem to agree. He says as he still works full time then he should be getting a full nights sleep every night and doesn't know any other men help their wives when they are on maternity (as thats what mat leave is for)
Our son is formula fed, so my husband could easily help.
He is averaging 8-10 hour nights sleep and im lucky if i get 4.
What im wondering is, am i being unreasonable by expecting a bit of help on his days off or is it normal for working partners to help?
Thank u

My DP has the Moses basket on his side of the bed.
He always gets baby out and sometimes (most often will feed him too)
We are now formula feeding and I will make the bottle while DP has a cuddle.
DP then feeds and puts him back to sleep.
I'm so grateful for this as I'm exhausted after doing it all day long too.
Yes dp is tired but so am I.
It won't be forever

In the early days I'd go to bed at 9pm and DH would stay up with DS and do the 12/1am feed, settle him in his sleepyhead and bring him up asleep. By the time he woke for a feed at 3ish I'd had 6 hours sleep and DH got 6 hours ish too. Worked brilliantly. I went back to work at 4 months and after that we took it in turns with any night wakings. I also agree that working after little sleep is way easier than being at home with a whingy tired baby. He needs to start pulling his weight IMO.

I always thought there was no point in two of us being awake in the night, so when DH was working the next day I slept downstairs with the baby, but at the weekends he would do a night with bottles of expressed milk, so I got a decent stretch of sleep. It kept me from completely losing my mind.

We split it 50-50, though neither of us when working at the moment (shared parental leave). When one of us is back at work, the working person will do a bit less, but we will still share. He sounds horrible.

I would absolutely expect him to do at least one full night a week especially as he has 4 days off straight.

What's with him trying to make you feel bad? Not all women manage very well at all, he must know this.

Bit of role reversal in our house. I went back to work full time when son was 3 months and DH took extended parental leave. I breastfed till six months so was working and doing the night feeds and was exhausted, yes, but I got a lie in for a couple of hours at weekends when DH took son downstairs. Since we now bottle feed and DH still off, he does feeds at night during the week then I do Fri/Sat nights so husband can have a break and catch up on sleep.

You're both parents so should be a team and share it out when your partner isn't working the next day.

I like the idea that you should leave him to it for a bit if you can as a PO suggested.

The only way I coped with my DS (bottle fed) was to goto bed at 8pm and my partner did the 8pm and the 12am feed - I would then get up for the 4am feed and we would take it in turns for the 8am feed. Very lucky as DS was like clock work. I'm an emotional wreck without sleep.

Your partner is an arse and should be feeding during the night on his days off.

DH has always helped with night feeds. I don't know how I would of coped if he hadn't and I'm still on maternity leave. The way we worked it was splitting the night in half. Anything from 8.30pm when ds goes to bed till 4am I get up for, anything after 4am dh does, then he goes to work at 5.30am. Always let's me have a lie in when he has the day off as well. Works as he likes early morning and I'm a bit of a night owl, but no help during the night would be a nightmare!!

My DH was fabulous with our son. He's now 31 months but didn't really sleep through until about 22 months. I who thought I was a light sleeper, turned out to be dead to the world so 7 times out of 10 DH would get up when he cried and feed him. I gave up breast feeding at 4 weeks so he fed him formula. DH works 5 days a week.

No, mine didn't help.

'Help' would imply that all night feeds were my responsibility and any he did were just him doing me a favour. Which isn't the case. The night feeds he did were his fair share. That actually briefly included him doing every single night feed plus going into work, when I was ill. He was pretty knackered. So was I.

You make the arrangements equitably and that will depend on circumstances. Your current arrangements are not equitable, and you both need to disabuse yourselves of the idea that night feeds are your problem only.

(Although, just as a ray of hope, ff babies are quite often sleeping through soon enough. You may be on the home strait. One of mine completely stopped having night feeds about 11 weeks).

He's and absolute dick and I would take a weekend away with my girls tbh x

My partner does the feed before bed so that I can get to sleep before he brings baby in. I've then had a couple of hours sleep before she wakes at 3am. He also gives me £20 a week for not doing night feeds haha but he also does most of the housework

I should also add that I had a c section so the first week he had to do all the night feeds as I physically couldn't get up and I was on bed rest for an infection. Our routine works for us though

I did all night feeds from Sunday to Friday with our twins and dh did Friday and Saturday. I would go bed 8pm and dh did last feed at 11pm so I had to feed them at 2am and 5am.

Dh also works shifts and the patterns mean he cant really do night feeds but he will do the first morning feeds when he can so i catch up then.

Id point out that youre working 24 hours a day so where are your breaks? Id also be inclined to stop multitasking with the housework and take babies naps as your breaks too until his attitude changes!!

First of all you're doing a fantastic job!! Don't let any throw away comments make you think otherwise xx