Anyone else resent their partner during exhausting breastfeeding and sleepless nights?

[Xanderpanda12]

I think I hate my husband! Anyone else ever felt like this?!
I'm exclusively breastfeeding our 6 month old daugher and we already have 2 year old. I feel like I have no life as she doesn't sleep at night. I do all the night feeds as she won't take a bottle. Nothing changes for my husband. He sleeps at night and has a social life. When I try to talk to him about this he says he isn't female so has no boobs so can't feed. Then he says when the baby is older I'll be able to go out again. I feel like punching him. I feel like leaving him. I think the only thing I'd struggle with is bedtime. Putting the 2 to bed on my own is horrendous as I've done it a few times before. Does anyone else ever feel like this??

I think everyone feels like this sometimes but your husband sounds like he’s being lazy and shit.

No he can’t breastfeed so he ought to do everything else. Is he doing that?

No, I don't feel like that because my husband more than pulls his weight in every other aspect.

What does your husband actually do?

Yep. I felt like that. Still do to a lesser degree.

Why is he not doing the bed time for the older one?

I found the breastfeeding years easy but only because I co-slept and fed them when I was asleep. I’d have gone nuts otherwise.

Well if baby won't take a bottle then you will have to do the night waking, he gas a point Does he look after baby in other ways?

I did with the nighttime stuff. He works for a job that is on call, so on work days he slept in the spare room so his pager didn’t wake the baby. So he’s having a lovely sleep whilst I was in the other room with a baby that slept for a maximum 90 mins. I thought I was going to die! But he pulled his weight in other areas. So it was a relatively short period of hating him (through pure jealously), but once baby slept longer it got better.

Oh I remember these days! 2 yo & newborn- breast feeding and toddler wanted me all the time. Don't punch dh, but do make sure u talk to him, he should be helping( mine was rubbish when kids were this age!) It does get bebetteryou can do this without murder conviction i promise.

I could have happily murdered dp in his sleep for being able to get a good night's sleep with our non sleeper. But he wasn't going out loads either. Howuch is your other half ditching you for?

By the way, we are years past that now and fine. Same child has slept heavily for years.

Yes I think it is pretty normal as breastfeeding is a huge (but worthwhile) sacrifice for mums. I don’t think any men truly understand what a huge and constant responsibility this is. I went through similar emotions with breastfeeding my first child and carried so much resentment towards my husband but it’s such a hard stage in general dealing with a young baby that it can be hard to have a proper sense of perspective on a relationship. The big question is whether is that he’s contributing to other aspects of childcare (especially with your eldest)?

No, but we introduced a bottle early-they often take it better if someone else does it, while you go downstairs. Ours refused till we tried that! We watched lots of TV together and had family and friends round, and went out lots at the early stage so we didn't get stuck in the stay at home and forget the world exists stage-most of the people I know who struggled didn't meet friends and family often, and they argued with each other. Encourage family/friends to take the baby some days, too, while you do KIT days-this makes a massive difference to your well-being as you do the job and don't have to feel you're only looking after a baby all the time, and ideally so you can have date nights as a couple, never feeling guilty, and remember your amazing baby is half him, and your relationship is so important for all 3 of you.

No I didn’t because my DH would do the evening shift, so I’d get a block of sleep from around 8/9-midnight. Mine never took a bottle but baby would usually just doze on him. He should be doing the lions share of care for your older daughter so you can nap in the day when he’s not working. He shouldn’t be going out over bedtime unless very special occasion.

Before going down the divorce route, def check if he can be forced to change. My husband did similar to previous poster- we spilt the night so he handled all the baby wakings 8-12, and I did rest of night up to about a year old. Don’t ask, tell him, make him do this.
You’ll need to get the baby on the bottle- I say this as a mum of two, I have first hand experience of how painful the process is ti get off boob and wean off but has to be done.
it it becomes more equal you may stop hating him so much.

Thanks for the comments/ advice everyone. He does do a lot with the 2 year old during weekends and helps with bath and bed when he's in.
I do co sleep with my little girl but my hip has now started to hurt because of it which has irritated me further. He's tried a couple of times to get baby on the bottle but she outright refuses and screams which leads us to argue. I'm just fed up I think because nothing changes for the man. Even during pregnancy. I'm fed up he gets to go out and gets to see friends etc on a weekly basis and I don't as I'm knackered on an evening too. We don't have any family support either which doesn't help. I just hope it gets better soon. Thanks everyone

I did a bit. With ny first we introduced a bottle early and he did part of the nights. We were going to do the same with DD but she had a big feeding strike at about 5 weeks old and after that I didn't want to risk it as I had to work really hard to get her back to breastfeeding again and it took a while for my supply to recover too.

When she went through a bad few months of sleeping, DH was mostly picking up the slack at home but he was cross and grumpy about how I was choosing to do all the nights and how I l was being rigid about not having introduced a bottle earlier.

It was very frustrating. I was very fed up of being totally sleep deprived, being resented for not doing enough housework and also being passive aggressively blamed for martyring myself on top.

“ I'm fed up he gets to go out and gets to see friends etc on a weekly basis”
Well dont accept this? I personally don’t this js acceptable unless you are 100% fine with it, which you clearly arent. His priority should be you and the kids right now.

Well you must have known what he was like the first time round and you chose to have another with a very small age gap obviously it was going to be hard, no I didn’t feel this way as I enjoyed BF.