Returning to work while baby stays home with dad full time

[sweetbabyangel]

I’m about to go back to work, leaving my 5.5 month old LO with DH 5 days a week and I’m petrified. It makes complete sense for us financially as he works evenings (so is home all day) and I am main breadwinner, meaning we rely heavily on my salary, but I hadn’t realised how hard it would be to contemplate leaving LO- even with her dad. Made harder by the fact that she is quite unsettled at the moment anyway. DH is very hands-on and is looking forward to building a strong bond with LO, but I just find it so hard to see him doing things differently to how I would and knowing it is harder for him to settle her (without boobs) so there is inevitably more crying when I’m not there, which I feel guilty about. He can understandably get pretty stressed out when unable to settle LO, which again is hard for me to see, although he always figures it out in the end. I know I need to trust him and just let them get on with it, but worried I’ve made a huge mistake going back to work. Has anyone else done things this way round? Do you have any tips or experiences to share? Thank you!

I swapped with my DP at seven months. It was great, he finally understood how hard looking after a baby is! I guess the only concern is the working nights - when is he supposed to sleep?!

Yes. I did with DS who was my first. It made sense because I was the breadwinner and DH was going to be going back to college.

It was actually fine. I left DS snuggled with his dad and when I got home I took over while DH cooked.

Nursery with DD was MUCH harder. I ended up giving up work and being an SAHM for a couple of years.

What Ottermummy is right too. When it was my turn to stay at home DH fully understood how busy the days were so had no expectations of me getting anything else done.

Yes, we did, with dc1.
We didn't get as much maternity leave in those day, so dc1 was about 2.5 months old.

It was done because of finance at the time, but, with hindsight, was a great thing to do, as we BOTH ended up knowing how challenging it could be to have dc1 at home all day. There were a few times when I arrived home and was just handed the baby whilst dh went for a 10min walk around the block. On other days when I needed to do that, he knew exactly how I felt. We parented equally and both of us took turns to do the nights, as we both understood the parent at home on any given day wasn't having some sort of day off.

Yeah that is one of my concerns. He works 5pm until about midnight-1am. I will continue to do night wakings with LO so he can sleep as soon as he gets home. But even so, it will not be a huge amount of sleep.

When you say he gets pretty stressed out with the baby, how stressed? Is this a big part of your worry?

What do you have to leave in the morning?

If he is only getting to sleep at 2 and then has to take over baby again at 7 then it’s going to be tough and not healthy. Can little one do morning nursery?

I'd say that's not sustainable or fair on him long term. Is nursery or childminder and option? Even for morning only to keep costs down?

Honestly it sounds like a really daft and dangerous idea. He needs to be able to sleep instead of doing two jobs one in the day looking after a baby and another in the evening. It's not a sensible plan and I would be sorting out a nursery place ASAP

Why can’t you use nursery or a child minder? That isn’t enough rest time for your DH

That’s a crazy plan - whilst I would be very happy to have left my babies with DH to look after, I would not have done so if he was only getting 5 hours sleep a night. When does he get his down time? Presumably you’ll have baby in bed by 7, so get the whole evening to chill out. You’re expecting him to look after the baby all day, go straight to work when you get home, then sleep a few hours before doing it all again.

I don’t think this is workable from a sleep perspective. Short term on an emergency basis, yes. But no one can manage full time care of a baby plus work on so little sleep.

If you do intend to push forward, I think you need to account for that. So you will need to work out between you what tasks you each need to get done in your time at home with baby. He can do the food shopping and put the washing on and prep breakfast and lunch. You will hang washing up and cook dinner, with leftovers for baby meals for the next couple days, and do the tidying in the evening. You will need to give him time on the weekends to catch up on sleep just like he hopefully has given you. You’ll need to work out a routine for who catches up when.

Lol at everyone saying poor him not getting enough sleep.... mum is going to work full time and then taking over childcare from 5pm and doing all the night wakings. No one is getting much sleep but at least this seems fair!

I think you just need to give it a go and see whether it is workable.
He will find ways of doing things when you are not there and create a real bond with your child.
He just needs to lie down and rest every time baby has a nap. This might mean that the place will be a bit chaotic when you get home, but it means he is concentrating his energy on the child and getting rest when he can, which is what is needed.

We did SPL but not for financial reasons (even though we did benefit financially from it)
It was the best decision we made. We appreciated each other more and neither of us ever feels resentful for feeling like the default parent.
But the difference was he wasn't working at the same time. How much does he earn? Could you afford for him to take shared parental please instead of trying to do both?

We put the baby to bed fairly late, so she generally sleeps until around 8:30am.
The plan is for me to give him weekend lie-ins, as well as on my one morning off, which will be mid-week. In January, we will get our funded childcare hours and she will start nursery on a couple of mornings too, giving him this time to catch up on rest. It’s not ideal by any means, but we unfortunately don’t have much choice at the moment for financial reasons.

I will of course not be expecting things to be done around the house while I’m at work (as he hasn’t while I’ve been on maternity) and we will just try to support each other as much as possible and see how it goes.

Good luck with it all. Your child will learn a valuable lesson in sharing and co-operation as they grow.

Why not use your funded hours at nursery to give you both a little balance?

Can he not take SPL? Your plan is to have 3 jobs between 2 of you… which is very difficult.

Just upset and frustrated at not being able to calm the baby, just as I (and I’m sure we all) feel sometimes. And yes, it worries me as I hate the thought of LO being upset and DH feeling bad.

We did this from 6 months and it’s the best thing we ever did. DH and DD have an amazing relationship, he’s completely competent and can handle wayyyyyy more than any other dad we know.

With the concerns about milk, she was happy to take expressed milk and we did it from 6 months so she was having solids and that also really helped - you’re not far off by the sounds of it.

It also levelled the playing field with understanding the challenges of being the SAHP (he didn’t do this with our first child).

I actually think it should be compulsory for all dads to take a proper chunk of pat leave - it would change society for the better!

the only challenges that really came up was I would have done some things differently with regards to taking her out more. But I just learned to keep that to myself!

Adjusting back into work took a month or 2 but at least with LO being with dad it’s easier emotionally than having to put them in childcare so young 🙃

you’ll be fine!