How much does your partner help with newborn?

[MrsWhite85]

I'm just curious, if you have a newborn, how much does your partner help out? With night times especially?

My dh didn't, but he was working 12/13 hours a day and I was exclusively breastfeeding, so not much he could do really... I didn't give the new born days that hard - we coslept which meant nights weren't too disturbed anyway.

In the beginning he was up every night feed with me. Our son needed top up bottles so when I was breastfeeding he made the bottle.
We always said we chose to have children together so are taking care of them together.
In the Netherlands it is quite normal to go back to work after 3 months. We split the night feedings 50-50 then (No longer BF).
In the weekend we both had one morning for a sleep in.

With my son he did al Friday and Saturday night wakings and then he took over weekdays when he got home so I could bath/ relax/whatever. With 2 under 18 mths now (that both sleep through generally) we take turns with early rising.

With regards to nappies and feeding if he's here it's 50/50.

In the first couple of weeks when he was on paternity leave his help was invaluable as I’d just had an ELCS so the first week in particular, I could barely move. I EBF but all I really had to do was feed DS, he did all the nappy changes and baths.

Since he’s been back at work (this week is the second week) he hasn’t done anywhere near as much for obvious reasons. I do the majority of the wakings in the night, if not all because I have the opportunity to nap during the day when DS is asleep whereas DP obviously doesn’t.

50/50 though I did the night feeds as I was breastfeeding. But he tended to stay up until about 3am and take him for a nappy change so I didn't have to. We tended to take shifts during the day. If he'd been on bottles we would have taken shifts with that too.

We are lucky though as he has extended paternity leave so we had the luxury of being able to split it, but I think we would have split things during evening/weekend anyway even if he'd been at work.

Completely 50/50, but DP works from home and I’m not EBF.

50/50 he is a great dad and always does half of running the house, raising children etc

With both DDs, DH did a great job of helping by taking up all kinds of slack around the house without being asked: meals, clearing up in the kitchen, laundry. Both times, he was also great at just being around to hold baby or change nappies.

Also, whilst at work, he scanned the for sale/swapping pages (he works at a large site for an international company) to find all kinds of useful baby gear. With DD1, I started out EBF but transitioned to a mix of that and bottles. DH found all the kit we needed and just brought it home almost before I'd even realised I needed it.

We did shift patterns for caring, so DH is able to just shut his eyes and sleep whereas I can't do that. If I have had a couple of hours sleep and then feed a baby I am awake for hours afterwards.

So we went to sleep around 9pm and any wakings were dealt with by Dh, until 2am when I took over. That way both of us got a solid 5 hours sleep, me first, then Dh. It worked for us.

Weekends we would take turns at lie ins. I should point out I have a medical condition so I needed his support. If we were tired during the week we would just go to bed earlier.

I batched cooked so that meals were easy and Dh was home every night from 6pm where we did bath and bedtime as a team. One bathing whilst the other sorts out nappy/clothes/bottle.

When my chdren were newborns I did all most all of their care as I was breastfeeding. DH did a lot of the housework, grocery shopping, minding the other DCs, as well as going out to work. As the. DCs got older then we shared looking after them.

I think as long as you are both making an effort to do the work involved in raising the DCs and running the house then it doesn’t matter who does what part.

My daughter is 3 weeks, for the first 2 weeks when partner was off work he helped with everything baby related like the night feeds, cleaning bottles, changing bum etc. now he's back at work I obviously do the night feeds but he still helps at everything els and does occasionally still get up if I sleep through

Both times my husband has got up with me during every night feed. I was so tired I used to worry about falling asleep and he’d keep me company. He’d also take the baby/ babies from about 8pm to their next feed every evening so I could get some extra sleep. He did this despite working 12 hours per day. I’ve had PND both times so needed the support and he was there for me every step of the way.

No my DH didn't get up with me, I was breastfeeding and we organised my feeding area before bed so I had everything I needed. I didn't see the point of both of us being up through the night, it meant DH wasn't tired through the day if I needed to go back to bed in the initial couple of weeks.
And then once he was back at work, I still didn't see the point of both of us being up so he could watch me feed DS, I had the chance to get a nap through the day when DS slept.

DH was really helpful once he got back from work. We had a great balance that worked for us. Each relationship and baby is different. You will find your own way for both your expectations. Congrats on the new addition 💐