Disappointed with DH - sleep/vomiting

[rugbyfan2025]

Posting this to distract me and keep me awake. It’s possible I’m being really unfair and too wiped to see straight.

Our baby DS (5 months) has been suffering with sickness and diarrhoea. Awful and scary but he is now doing well, bless him.

Unfortunately I’ve been throwing up every half an hour since 3pm. I have never felt so sick as I did yesterday. DH has been looking after DS since then, bringing him to me to breastfeed. It was difficult for all involved as DS could sense we were all stressed and would not settle for DH.

I finally managed to get DS to stay asleep in DH’s arms - he simply would not go down in his crib, unlike him but shows how unsettled he has found the afternoon. I finally got some sleep 10:30-midnight and haven’t been sick since 10:30. The sleep has really helped and lying down stops me feel nauseous - when sitting / standing I just throw up again.

However, I’m now up holding baby DS as DH said he could not keep his eyes open a moment longer apparently. DH must be exhausted - I get it. But I feel upset he couldn’t push through a couple more hours when I am feeling so rotten. For context, I do every night shift and have done since DH went back to work when baby was 2 weeks old. DH has done the odd nappy change and settle (maybe 4 times) and the odd 5am wake up (maybe 6 times).

He is 31 years old, fit and healthy. I just wish he could have pushed through for a couple more hours and held baby whilst going on his phone or something.

Apologies for any typos, I really am feeling awful.

How long has he been awake, when you say he's had baby since 3pm yesterday do you mean Saturday or Friday?

Sorry you're poorly btw!

He’s been awake since 6am Saturday morning.

Sorry OP that’s sounds rough, try and get some sleep now and have a chat with DH in the morning, ask him why he didn’t feel able to stay up longer, explain to him how it’s made you feel and how upset and tired you are and 100% get some sleep in tomorrow afternoon see if he can take the baby out between feeds. Are you planning on expressing or bottle feeds? This may give you the breaks you need and in situations like sickness can be a godsend is the baby will take a bottle occasionally.

Well all I can say is be glad you haven't got 3 together ill as there must be a bug going around me and 2 of our 3 youngsters have it sickness, bad tummies, at one point yesterday I had to zoom to toilet to throw up and had the twins sitting cuddling behind me while hubby was sorting our 3rd who had a bad tummy..today was hard as hubby has to work but hey ho got to push thru and my hubby also 31 but since I don't work and he does full time and is pretty good I don't complain about the occasional I wish you could deal with all 3 at once like I do lol

lIt sounds like a long hard tiring time for everyone, hope you’re all feeling better soon.

Wtf that's only 18 hours! He should have had a coffee and washed his face with some cold water. I would be pretty furious given how obviously unwell you are. Poor you.

It sounds horrible all round. I don't think it's helpful to talk about pushing on through or who does more when sickness is involved. Bugs hit us all differently and he doesn't sound like he is slacking at all. Hopefully you will all feel better soon.

Maybe DH is getting the bug now too. It’s really rubbish for all of you, try not to get into competitive tiredness with each other when in crap situations like this. I really hope it’s over for you all soon

Her husband isn't ill though he's just tired (from being awake about an hour longer than an average waking day) so woke her up to look after the baby despite that she's obviously poorly!

If the other two have it, he is probably on the cusp and if you can't keep your eyes open a moment longer then it's sensible to take some rest. And safer.

Men are (generally...not all men of course..some are good) much weaker when it comes to babies. They are often completely pathetic and prioritise their own sleep because they selfishly don't think about the mother and how wrecked her body is for seven SEVEN years after birth!! I suspect this is something most women have to go through and I feel for you OP. I hope you feel better ASAP!!!

when I was sick and had a baby that age, we just co slept and so the baby could feed while I dozed all day feeling sick.

Pfft fair enough. Apparently I'm in the minority so I accept that but that would royally piss me off. He's potentially getting ill and says he's tired (from being up a normal amount of time) and she's definitely ill and finally asleep after vomiting all day while breastfeeding. I would expect my DH to have a coffee and leave me to sleep it off. OP's info about how few night wake ups he's done suggests, imo, that he just doesn't think it's his job.

She said she's breastfeeding. It's much better to breastfeed rather than expressing for a few reasons, the first being the baby gets the antibodies which is crucial for helping their immune system develop, the second being that expressing doesn't give a mother breaks, because you need to express for every missed feed to stop losing supply, then there is the time messing about and washing the pump and bottles. It's much quicker and more convenient to directly breastfeed and not introduce bottles.

On the plus side OP, it's only 15 minutes till you can wake him up for him to take over as he seems to think 1h30 is enough sleep to function on!

So he was up from 6.30am - midnight but just felt that he couldn't do it anymore??

But I bet when before baby was born, he could work all week, up early on a Friday to go to work, then out to the pub till 4am??

🙄

What’s up with you, @AquaForce ? All I see in the post by @ReadingSoManyThreads is science and practicality.

I don’t get the people saying they don’t understand why he’s exhausted- he’s been dealing with a sick ds. Yes op is sick and jots a pity he couldn’t hold out longer but I find our bodies just go ‘fuck that’ and let us down. I’d say he saw you sleep and his body gave up too. Young babies are body breaking!!

JustMe2026

Well all I can say is be glad you haven't got 3 together ill as there must be a bug going around me and 2 of our 3 youngsters have it sickness, bad tummies, at one point yesterday I had to zoom to toilet to throw up and had the twins sitting cuddling behind me while hubby was sorting our 3rd who had a bad tummy..today was hard as hubby has to work but hey ho got to push thru and my hubby also 31 but since I don't work and he does full time and is pretty good I don't complain about the occasional I wish you could deal with all 3 at once like I do lol

hope you all feel better but it doesn’t take away from op’s situation, young children are always tough to deal with and op is sick too.

You know your dh best - do you believe him when he said he couldn’t keep his eyes open any longer? I know that feeling and it is horrible - I literally fell asleep at the dinner table when me and dc were poorly once. I also know my exh and he would claim all sorts of exhaustion when dc were ill but managed to find energy to do his hobby, watch tv etc 🙄

If you OH is holding baby and falling asleep in chai/on the couch then it's not safe for him to keep holding the baby.

If baby won't sleep in the crib can you make your bed safe for co sleeping so you can sleep and feed baby as needed and rest as much as possible.

Good luck gasto while breastfeeding is no joke. It sucks.

Sorry you’re so ill OP, how rotten! Make sure you’re keeping hydrated if you can.

If it were me, I’d look into bedsharing in line with the safe sleep 7 guidelines, as long as you don’t feel too impaired by being unwell. We bedshare every night and it’s a godsend - makes BF at night so easy and relaxed.

Anyway, I’d also be unimpressed if my DP did this! Depends if I really thought he was unsafe to take care of baby, which seems unlikely based on what you’ve said.

Second what @ReadingSoManyThreads said too!

It's dangerous holding a baby when you're nodding off. Dh was being sensible to get a nap..
Though for both your sakes stick him in his cot.

10.30-6am… seems pretty decent to me OP

That's not helpful.