Am I contributing enough? Dad to 11 month old

[bamboo34]

Hello. I wanted to ask for some outside perspectives on our family situation. Over Christmas the situation at home has become quite tense and I am unsure of the reason why. I suspect it is because my partner is unsatisfied with my contribution toward looking after our daughter and I wanted to give some context and ask for some views:

1. Does my contribution to parenting look fair? I often feel guilty, rightly or wrongly, that I’m not doing enough. Is there anything more I could be doing to help out my partner and our daughter?
2. From what I’ve described, is there anything that might be causing my partner to be unlike herself?

Situation

• Our daughter is 11 months old.
• She was a delight when very young but now has become more difficult to manage - always on the move, suffering from quite severe separation anxiety, doesn’t settle easily for dad or anyone else that isn’t mum at nighttime.
• She will be starting nursery in early January.
• She requires frequent contact naps in the day.
• She wakes up between one and three times in the night.
• Mum doesn’t seem like herself - very tired and very stressed, short and snappy. I think she is quite anxious about going back to work.She isn’t normally particularly open about her emotions and she has been even more closed up about things recently, despite asking lots about how she is feeling.
• I recently tried starting to try and encourage our daughter to self soothe for a couple of nights, which didn’t go well and mum reacted very angrily to this because I didn’t consult her about it first.
• I don’t know whether I’m doing anything to upset my partner or not contributing enough. Before our daughter was born, we were perfectly fine and have had a grand total of one proper argument in the six years we’ve known each other.

My contribution

• I work an intensive job full time (upwards of 55 hours a week, mainly working from home)
• Handling any small wakings between 8pm-midnight (I did this between the ages of 0-6 months, but after her sleep improved this lapsed and I have only recently resumed full responsibility for this time period)
• Cooks and feeds breakfasts nearly every day
• Makes up bottles of milk at nighttime
• ~50% cooking of evening meals
• Lots of, if not nearly all, housework - hoovering, cleaning, washing up, cleaning cat litter
• ~50% supervising baby dinnertime
• All bathtimes daily
• All garden work and house maintenance

Mum’s contribution

• Has been quite strong in setting the household parenting ethos
• All night feeds (because daughter doesn’t settle with dad, between 1-3 a night even at 11 months, most commonly 2 per night)
• Looks after baby between 8am - 5pm Monday to Friday but will go back to work 3 days a week from January
• All lunchtime prep and feeding
• ~50% cooking of evening meals
• ~50% supervising baby dinnertime
• All baby classes - baby gymnastics, swimming lessons, sensory classes
• Some housework when time allows

She is going to be shattered when she goes back to work. Please start really trying with the night wakings. She can't do them all.

I think it's probably just exhaustion on her part. As pp said, she needs to try and share the night feeds, at least for the weekend so she gets some unbroken sleep. Other than that, it seems okay although trying to introduce self-soothing without discussing it first was a bit of a dick move.

I think the self soothing and not consulting with mum was a bad idea - hope you discussed/apologised for that.

Mum probably is stressed about going back to work. Have you approached her and asked what you could do to help? If things are tense maybe write a letter and tell her how much you appreciate her and you'd like to figure out what you can do as a team.

It's really hard to know what the other person in the relationship really does when you have a small child, so you're both probably underestimating what the other person is doing.

Also - solidarity with the 11 month old! Mine also wakes up all the time and has figured out how to climb things...but not how to get back down

She’s likely knackered and worried about nursery and going back to school.

Dealing with more night wakings would help the first. Time will help the others. Sympathy/empathy too but if I’m upset I don’t want people asking me if I’m ok. But people making me a cup of tea and giving me a hug helps a lot.

As a mother to a 2 year old.

I must admit that my first 12 months of becoming and being a parent were the hardest however my partner didn't do what you did in terms of baby support.

I have since become so much more mentally better when I went back to work when she was 11 months old. It helped me feel like me again and I now work full time and feel guilty on my child however we have more money and I'm making up for it in the holidays.

So I think you're both doing a great job and maybe she needs a break when she can to maybe go grab a coffee from a coffee shop or go do some selfcare something she loves to do and don't get the chance etc.

My point is, she may start to feel better once she goes back to work and things. It's hard the first year is hard the lack of sleep etc is horrendous but I think with the fact you work and still do all that you are you're doing great some mothers don't even get that!!

I hope this passes and she starts to feel great again as time goes on. I do think working will help. It did for me.

Relentless broken sleep would ruin anyone.

It doesn’t matter how much you do during mornings/evenings after work, she’s bound to be shattered if she’s doing all the nights by herself.

I would have been livid if DH had decided to leave our DC to ‘self soothe’ without discussing it with me. You need to make those types of decisions together.

Also if you work mostly from home that does just make it tricky when you're on maternity leave. My husband and I were in a similar position but during covid.

Can you get away with not cooking breakfast and doing more of the evening meal prep during your lunch break or something?

Does she have any financial worries or is your money completely shared? She is probably worrying about returning to work, I absolutely dreaded it and wished for my partner to say I didn't need to go. I ended up getting in a good routine but looking back I wish I'd had his blessing to take longer off.

If you're doing 55 hours + per week then your wife must be doing more than 8-5am looking after your child.

Thank you everyone for your thoughts.

To be clear, I haven't deliberately avoided or tried to get out of doing the night feeds. Our daughter cries, screams and gets extremely agitated unless it's mum doing the feed or settle. This is despite my repeated attempts. And when I do get her settled and asleep on me, attempting to put her back to sleep in her cot causes her to wake and scream, starting the whole cycle again.

The mother of your child is sleep deprived and constantly on alert taking care of a baby. If she is displaying signs of extreme stress, it doesn’t really matter how much you are doing, you aren’t doing enough.

Nothing compares to the sleep deprivation and always being on alert for every little sound. Nothing compares to the complete loss of freedom. do you ask your partner if you want to go take a shower, go use the bathroom, run a quick errand, or just engage in a task that will take your undivided attention for 5 minutes? Your partner likely asks you before she does those things because she knows someone always has to be in charge of the baby.

you are keeping a score card of chore lists and not thinking about this in terms of sleep deprivation and default parenting.

recently tried starting to try and encourage our daughter to self soothe for a couple of nights, which didn’t go well and mum reacted very angrily to this because I didn’t consult her about it first.

can you say a bit more about this? How did you encourage her to self soothe?

Your wife must be losing her mind if she hasn't had an unbroken night in 11 months. You need to work on this. The rest of it doesn't sound too bad.

i feel like you could be my OH writing about our experience when my 3.5YO was 11 months! We now have DC1 3.5 and DC2 15months. Speaking from experience, I think your OH is overwhelmed. Sounds like she doesn’t get a break and even if she did she’d spend it running errands or something rather than focusing on herself. There is no time anymore to be the her she was before baby and she longs to be that woman again, but at the same time she doesn’t want to be apart from her baby and spends the moments when baby is sleeping looking back at pictures from recent days. The only thing you can do is try to softly encourage some relaxation. Maybe buy her a face mask and tell her to put her headphones in for an hour after bag goes to bed so she has no responsibilities and assure her you’ll parent exactly the way she’d like you to in that time so that she can fully relax. It will get better in time but start small like that if you can.

You let your wife do all the nights and you wonder why she's pissed off?

Your excuses don't really fly. Baby won't settle for you because s/he's not used to you. You have to put the time in to get them to settle for you. And I can guarantee that your intensive WFH job isn't as draining as looking after a baby full time.

And I'm guessing you deciding on your own to have a go at letting the baby 'self soothe' looks a lot to your wife like 'right, he's going to ignore the crying is he? Guess I'll go AGAIN then'

You want a happier wife? do 3 night wakings a week and let her get some sleep.

You say that things have become quite tense 'over Christmas'.

How has Christmas been? What did you do and who did what in terms of all the planning and organising?

Excellent point. I would love to read the wife's breakdown of responsibilities. I suspect there may be discrepancies.

Some very one sided comments here because OP is a man. OP has posted for advice not to me jumped on!

Is mum napping during the day? Do you have any family support?

Looks after baby between 8am - 5pm Monday to Friday

And who looks after the baby the other 10+ hours a week you work on top of 8am-5pm?

As a mother of a child who had (at times still has) severe separation anxiety, it's really quite hard to explain how suffocating and overwhelming it can feel. Please just take the baby, she will calm down. I found physically leaving the house worked best. She'd scream hysterically for me, but only for 5 minutes tops. It most likely felt like the longest 5 minutes of my partner's life, but she is almost 2 now and she goes running to him when he comes in and he puts her to bed every night and they have a lovely bond. She doesn't even whinge when he takes her off me to go to bed.
Maybe discuss what you can do to help more. If she's not particularly forthcoming you can disguise this as a 'new routine' discussion for her returning to work. Once she's settled back at work it may well help in itself. She'll be able to eat and wee in peace for the first time in a year!

Even just 8 hour days (could be 8 and a half), 7 days a week would be 56 hours a week. Additional work could be done around the 8 to midnight wakings.

Thanks. This is correct. Plus some time at weekends.

OP specifies Mon - Fri

You both sound like you are doing amazingly . I know it doesn't feel like it, as it can be relentless for both of you at this early stage of parenting but I don't think either of you need to change anything unless you ask your wife and it would help . The main thing is just being generous with each other and it sounds like you have a great relationship to argue so little normally; this is a tough time usually all round (we have found it so and similar responsibilities ) and just look out for each other and continue to be kind .