When do I get ‘me time’?

[anibakes]

Since LO was born I’ve been feeling progressively low in myself, partly due to major lack of sleep partly because due to covid I have hardly left the house and I’m due back at work full time in January when LO is 7m old.

LO naps 2-3 times/day for about 40-45 minutes at a time. I’ve found that baking just clears my mind, takes my focus away from thinking I’m struggling with motherhood and gives me a different purpose, so I use his nap times to do baking. We’re talking time consuming sourdough, etc. This does however mean that things like the washing and ironing for myself and d h are being neglected. We have plenty of clean clothes but I’m not on top of things as I ‘should’ be. I cook everything from scratch for us almost every day and LOs laundry I do separately I couple of times/week it’s just general housework I’m behind with.
D h works from home so I’m with LO all day every day so often he will have LO on a Friday and Saturday night so I can get some sleep as LO wakes 5-6 times/night. On a Saturday D H spends a few hours with his daughter who lives nearly an hour away and on his return he generally spends the afternoon napping on the sofa or watching tv because he’s tired. He has an immune disorder which the last few months has seemingly been making him more tired but wasn’t an issue the last few years. So other than the two nights/week I am with our LO day & night apart from the odd break D H takes during the day. I mentioned last week that I feel very neglected emotionally and that I don’t feel very loved bearing in mind we haven’t had any physical contact since feb, he dismissed it with the fact we have a 6 month old.
So this weekend he had a go at me and said I only do what I want to do instead of what I should be doing which is the housework and emptying a room ready for decorating and more importantly he never gets time to do what he wants to do because he has a list of things to fix and build around the house that he’s been putting off for a while. What he used to do in ‘his time’ was watch tv and do car related things with the boys which he can’t do because of covid.

Am I being unreasonable for mostly using my time doing baking, etc when LO naps? I hardly go out because of his immune disorder and risk of covid.
When am I supposed to switch off or do anything for myself?

Also, please, please go back to work at the end of mat leave. My experience is that really changes things, on a psychological level at least, about who does what with parenting.

Thank you, I am returning in 4 weeks so I’m hoping it will make me feel better and more in control. I actually feel a bit better having been able to share my feeling with total strangers on here.

It's hard. You neither of you have enough time. Your roles become unbalanced after childbirth. He needs to be a dad to two now. Try to pull together not apart. Your baking and book ambitions are not unreasonable. Try to sit baby in a bouncer or high chair with toys while you sing and do housework sometimes. Get him to do the same.

Definitely disabuse him of the notion that you are doing nothing while he is at work. Work is 100% a break compared to looking after a 6 month old. I don't think people that haven't taken parental leave can understand how tiring, lonely and mind numbing it is (and that's without having lockdown thrown into the mix).

I was going to suggest baking during one nap and doing some housework during another, but I see that you are already splitting your days. Which seems fair enough to me. I would also suggest that you don't iron, it will save you loads of time. Hopefully a perk of WFH is that your DH doesn't need to wear shirts?

I would try and get him to take DS in the evenings, he shouldn't get to sit down with his phone until he is in bed. The chores should be split evenly.