Does your partner / husband help with night feeds?

[charlottexox]

So, I'm pregnant & due in October, and me and my partner were talking about if he's going to help with night feeds. He works and gets up at 6am every morning for work, and said I would need to do most of it at night because he won't be able to function at work (he has a tech job). I was slightly upset, but not sure if I'm going OTT?
He said on Fridays He could overtake since he doesn't work weekends, I don't know though. What is everyone's opinions?

DD is EBF so I do all the night feeds (cba with pumping and bottles), but my 7mo still wakes up every 1-2 hours throughout the night so DH usually takes her from 5/6am for a couple of hours so I can sleep before he goes to work. 7 months of no sleep has nearly broken me, if DH didn't help me out a bit I think I would have had a nervous breakdown long ago!

My DP will do the last feed before bed cos he’s usually up and I’m asleep by then then I’ll do later night feeds and mornings.

This situation is the reason why my DH insists I BF!

My DH says it's for the benefits of breastfeeding he wants me to BF for as long as possible. But deep down I know it's because he does t want to feed the baby a bottle himself!

Babynonamee Just tell him you'll express so he can help haha

I think you are being unreasonable, there is no reason to have two tired people. He is working, you can nap in the day etc. I know lots of people on MN have very strong views to the contrary, but it is practical to sleep when the baby sleeps.

Yeah, that only works if you have a baby that will be put down to sleep... not everyone is that fortunate.

We formula fed and worked on dh doing any feeds up until midnight - then he would sleep and I’d do any until and including the morning. That way if I was knackered I could have an early night and get a good 4 hours before the first one but he still got 6 hours mostly undisturbed sleep (getting up at 6ish for work).
Luckily dd settled quite well most of the time so this worked ok for us. We continued it at weekends but each took a morning to have a lie in (so dd downstairs after 1st morning feed and the other got up when ready).
Seemed fair - but dh did understand that looking after dd on maternity could be very hard so didn’t begrudge me the evening off if I was tired. Plus he enjoyed spending some quality time with her when he’d been working all day.

Well my second is bf and my dh until recently slept in the spare room so that our 5 yr old could go into him there instead of bounding into our room in the morning and waking ds. So he doesn’t help, nothing for him to do really! But he does do all nights with our older one instead so we each take one.

When our first was born though, yes, he was up for every single feed until 9 months when she dropped them. When I was bf, he changed her while I sorted myself out and helped with settling her. When bottle feeding, he got the bottle and I usually did the feed, but sometimes he did depending how I felt. They really can cope! He was working 9-5 plus starting a business evenings and weekends so working 50-60 hour weeks the first few months. He was just as capable as I was getting up with her once I went back to work and needed to leave for the train by 5:45am. You don’t have special magic powers to cope with exhaustion just because you are a woman, so there’s no reason they can’t manage just as well if they choose!

My husband helped but he works shifts where he is up at 4.30 some days so of course I did all the night feeds on those days and when he worked nights.

I do all night feeds, DS was EBF up to 6 months so I did them all. I continued to do them as I did not have to fit up for work could nap if DS did through the day. My hubby works as a Dj on a Friday and sat night as well as a day job so he can't do any then either, but he has started getting up when DS gets up at 6ish if he can. It has never bothered me him not getting up through the night as he helps out in other ways and it works for us.

Mrs Marigold, if both parents take turns, then you don't end up with two exhausted people, as you say, but no exhausted parents. It truly is a burden halved!

I do night feeds as baby is ebf and it’s work to express so save that milk for breaks in daytime. Baby is 5 months and still wakes every few hours. However, my partner is king shusher and putter downer, and will often take baby in morning to give me a bonus hour.

When DH was on paternity leave, he woke up for every single night feed. His job was to get baby out of Moses basket, give baby to me to ebf, sleep during the feed, and then depending on whether I could put baby back myself (joint condition meant this wasn't always possible) he'd wake up, wind baby and put back in Moses basket.

When DH went back to work, he'd he continued this up to 1am, after which I did everything myself. It gave DH 6hrs sleep but got me some rest between my early bedtime & 1am.

DH has bollocked his friends for ducking out of night feeds and will regularly point out the ONLY thing the dad can't do is breastfeed. There's no excuse for dodging your responsibility as a father. And you can help the mother immensely, especially during the early days.

Moral support or fetching a glass of water. It all helps - anytime day or night.

I breast fed, and he would sleep through the house burning down around him.
I was sleep deprived from night feeding, so he stepped up to do more day time stuff so I could sneak in naps and rests.
He may, or may not have, needed a few shrill reminders at the begining!
20 odd years later, it doesn't matter a hoot.

DH did until midnight and then I'd take over. Then he took a break in between work contracts for 3 months, so he did until 2am and I did until morning. Once he started back at work, LO was only waking up twice, so we would split. Weekends were the same. She started to sleep through the night from 8.5 months so no more night feeds! If she was teething, we would both get up to manage as it was difficult to settle. Basically I never felt like I was alone or couldn't wake him to help in the night. He made it very clear he was there to do his part.

Mine is BF so I do all the night stuff but if he wakes and she's stirring he will get up and change her then bring her to me for a feed. She's very good at going straight back to sleep after a feed and usually only wakes twice so I'm not shattered. If I am, and he's off , he will take her downstairs in the morning after her feed and entertain her so I can get a lie in. He does shifts so depending on what he's working will dictate how he helps.

Before my DD slept through, I did all nights feeds during the week as my DH was working and up early and he did weekends.

I thought this was perfectly fair, given that he had to get up early and drive 30 miles to work.

When we first got home and he was on paternity hed sit with us and do the nappy if it needed changed. Once he was back at work no and I tried not to wake him because he had work the next day and also he didnt have the boobs. Once they were much older and on bottles and I was back at work too wed take it in turns to go get them a bottle of milk.

I think you are being unreasonable, there is no reason to have two tired people. He is working, you can nap in the day etc. I know lots of people on MN have very strong views to the contrary, but it is practical to sleep when the baby sleeps.

Really annoys me when people say this. My DD has always taken 25-30 minute naps, I really struggle to get anything longer and it's barely enough time to boil the kettle let alone go to sleep myself. I haven't taken a nap in over 7 months! It's not practical for everyone to 'sleep when the baby sleeps'.

I breastfed, so no.

Plus he was working and needed the sleep.

We have 3dc. We had them a long time ago when we had 3 months maternity leave. We were therefore both getting up and going to work. Therefore we both did night feeds, and other night wakings as they got older. We did different patterns over the years - including the 'me going to bed at about 8pm and sleeping until about 2am, with dh doing the 11pm feed and then sleeping until about 5am' pattern, and we've done the alternate nights patterns and no doubt loads of other things too.
Our dcs have 2 parents, and we have both always pulled our weight.

Only 6 weeks in, but no so far. I'm breastfeeding and we're co sleeping. We've been lucky so far in that baby doesn't cry at night, just snuffles a bit, I feed him lying down, and we're both off to sleep pretty quickly. He wakes every 2-3 hrs at night but I feel well-rested. DH sleeps through! Though does the last and first nappies at 11pm and 6am (haven't changed at night since about 2 weeks).

Ds1 - breastfed for 7 months so no help from dh

Ds2 - he is 6 weeks old and wouldn't take to breastfeeding at all. Dh and I alternate the feeds throughout the night. Things are now settling and ds feeds at 2am and 5am. I do the 2am one so dh sleeps 10.30-5am straight and then he gets up at 5, back to sleep at 5.30 and we all get up at 7.30.
That means I have slept 2.30 -7.30.
So we both get a good stretch and neither are tired

Sure dh wishes I was breastfeeding again though

Have found some of The responses here really interesting. My baby is nearly 6 weeks old and EBF, my original intention was that I would do all the night wake ups and Let my DH sleep.... Of course it's never really worked like that. DH is much better at soothing back to sleep than I am so if baby hasn't fallen back asleep when feeding then DH will rock him to sleep. He also does nappy changes during the night if needed, and pretty much every time I wake up to feed he will wake up enough to ask if I need anything, and if not then he'll just go back to sleep. Knowing he's there to help has made such a big difference to me, and he often takes the baby downstairs for an hour or so in the morning before he goes to work so I can get some uninterrupted rest.

I think you are being unreasonable, there is no reason to have two tired people. He is working, you can nap in the day etc. I know lots of people on MN have very strong views to the contrary, but it is practical to sleep when the baby sleeps.

Sounds absolute bliss. What should I be doing with the other 3 though?