I'll be on maternity leave, DH will be working FT. What is a reasonable division of labour re the baby?

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Hello,

I'm 25 weeks pg (and feeling rather freaked out/excited - first pregnancy!).

I was wondering what is considered fair - in terms of getting up in the night/handing over when DH gets home etc - during my year of maternity leave.

DH gets up at 6 am for work and gets back at about 5pm. He finds his work quite stressful and intense. And I guess my daily work as a SAHM for that year will be pretty intense too!

Would be really grateful to hear how you've approached this.

Thanks!

Hmm - I think the aim is you both keep vaguly functioning and you don't fall out too much - but its good to think about and have the convesations now -
sorry this is long?
Does your DH do much round the house now - thats a good starting point
The other thing is its a bit of an unknown quantity some babies sleep really well, others don't - some settle really well for dads, others only want mum - some have colic for the first 4 months
are you planning on BF? That makes a big difference about how you split the work - you have assume at least 6 weeks (it may not be of course) when you will be doing A LOT of feeding
what worked for us -this was with 2nd

• was my DH would do baths - once when we were doing them at night - i do think is a lovely way of dads bonding with baby

if baby would let me - ie didn't want a feed I would go to bed early and he would stay up till midnight ish or until baby wanted another feed - this was in early weeks when baby really wanted lots of cuddles - I would then do most of the nights - I was BF - and baby was in with me or in bedside cot - DH mostly slept in spare room - then he would get up with baby a bit before work - if baby wouldn't settle or I really needed sleep I would get DH up to help but it wasn't often - weekends - depended on nights but in general try and get one lie in each I put A LOT of meals in the freezer before baby was born Cleaning - if you can afford it and you do most of it at moment get a cleaner - if not don't proritise it - and both agree that not a problem Is DH planning to take parternity leave - that will give him an idea of the realtiy of caring for a baby - and I would recommend keeping back some of his AL so he can have the odd day off if its all getting too much and what also works for me with little babies is to get out about - baby groups/breastfeeding etc - to see adults, get support - and I found my babies were happier that way too - they were much grumpier at home with me on my own

I am currently 24 weeks pg.
will be a SAHM and am not working anymore now anyway.
OH works hard, Mon - Fri, 9 - 5, and is out of house between 8.55 & 5.05
We will keep our cleaner (who we had when we both worked full time)

Essentially i will continue to do all most of the laundry / ironing / shopping / cooking & keep on top of floor sweeping and extra cleaning between the cleaner
From pretty early on OH will be doing the 11pm ish feed (my plan is to get a decent block of sleep between 9pm and 2 / 3 am) I'll do the rest of the night and get up etc. Plan = that OH can sleep between midnight and 7am.
At weekends etc we will take turns but not be anal about it.... if he does both days, so be it, if i do both days, so be it..... we certainly wont have a "Rota" or turns or anything.
OH always has and will continue to be responsible for the garden

OH will also sometimes do bath and stories etc as they get older.

I did all the nights as I was breastfeeding - so pointless having us both up! If you breastfeed and co-sleep your nights aren't very disturbed anyway.

When DP is at home, I did all the feeding and he did all the other baby stuff (nappy changing, baths etc). I kept on top of the laundry. I fed the baby to sleep and DP cooked dinner. We shared tidying, washing up etc.

On the weekends, DP would take the baby out for a walk for a couple of hours in the afternoon so I could sleep. Plus he got up with the baby in the morning so I could sleep for a couple of hours til the next feed.

That was in the early days anyway. Now (ds is 9 months) we share everything when we're both here, take turns having lie-ins etc. DP often takes DS out for a day/afternoon at the weekend.

My DP does much of the housework anyway especially the cooking so we kept to that. As baby got older and I started using cloth nappies I took over all of the washing and we shared the rest.

I never asked DP to do night duty, although I was BF'ing anyway I didn't think it fair that he get up when he had to go to work the next day. Also other than when the baby was tiny DP didn't wake up so it would have meant me waking up and then waking him up. Seemed kind of pointless.

So our evening routine was pretty much DH come home chill for an hour or so before starting dinner. I looked after the baby and fed him while DH cooked. DH had one to one with the baby while I put DS1 to bed. We then bathed the baby together most of the time and then I BF and put baby to bed.

Sometime I would do chores during the daytime or DH would hoover etc at weekends. It is hard to tell how much you will be able to do with a newborn around until you have it.

On the other hand my SIL is a stay at home mum and expects her husband to take equal turn in night waking and she hands the baby to him as soon as he gets home so she can have a rest.

Whatever you and your OH are happy with is fine. As long as you both agree.

I take care of one end (BFing) he takes care of the other (nappies) although if he doesn't wake easily in the night I do struggle out of bed with baby (we have a co-sleeping crib blocking me in). Bath/shower and massage is Daddy-time unless DS comes in the bath with me or DH isn't around.

He cooks, I do laundry, when either of us has time we hoover etc. I currently seem to do most washing up as I still haven't had my Christmas present (dishwasher!). He usually does the shopping.

He's out for 12+ hours each day.

I am planning on doing everything around the house until I get really tired and have a breakdown nip off for an early night. But I'm planning on BF so DH won't be much help with the night feeds, unless I express, which ATM seems like a total PITA and something I want to put off for as long as poss. DH will prob bath baby at night too while I doze! This is our first though so I may be talking total bollocks and change the plan when DC arrives!

DH got up an hour early (when she woke) and played with her, dressed her and would normally feed her. She cluster fed in the mornings so if I expressed the night before this helped a lot. He would normally have her down for a nap before he left, if not we then co-slept together I would generally get up when she woke around 9/10am.

When he got in he would bathe her and put her to bed (although putting her to sleep took him a while to learn so that was a gradual switch over).

I'm a night person and him a morning person so he would go to bed early and I would do everything until midnight. For the first 6-8 months I did the majority of the night stuff, as was BF. If she was difficult to put back to sleep or I was particularly tired I would hand her over to DH. When when BF he would often lie her down in her basket after I'd winded her and got her to sleep.

In the first few weeks when every feed was a mission and involved a nappy change he would help out doing the nappy change part.

At 4 months he became the SAHD when I went back to work. He probably does 2/3's of everything. I am of the opinion I should do more and I don't expect him to get anything done while I'm out at work, just try to stay neutral. The way I see it, I have it easy by going to work and when we're both at home it should be split close to 50:50

I plan to do all nights at first as I will BF, once the BF gets settled perhaps I will express for maybe a friday or saturday night off. Yes I will be knackered but I can nap when baby naps if I am struggling.

My DH is very excited and will want to be involved as soon as he gets home from work (for how long who knows?) but he is likely to play while I make dinner (tho he will take his turn at making dinner) then we will bath etc while we chat and catch up on the day.
I am guessing we will do evening cuddles all together on the sofa and I will BF in front of the tv at the end of the evening with one of our sky +ed shows (thats what we do now to end our day - flopped on our huge sofa together witha cuppa and a cuddle - I look forward to it!))

We will keep chores the way they are now
I do laundry and he irons it (yes all of it - its ace, he likes to while he is watching the footie, it is a great deal!)
I dust, He hoovers, I mop, we do a bathroom each (usually a saturday morning)
11 Year old DD does the dishwasher (empties and fills) and takes the bins and recycling out

While I am off - I plan to use the time to sort cupboards and drawers and underbed boxes etc out...get rid of old excess clutter to make the tidying easier.
I also plan to get back to more baking/cooking and likely to have the veggies etc prepared for dinner during the day.
Later when baby is 6 months + I plan to fill freezer with meals to make life easy when I first go back to work. (taking just short of 9 months off)
We will have to re look at nights when I am back full tme too!

This of course is all plans - we know how well babies like to stick to plans don't we :)

Our chore divide up was different as it was easier for me to get different ones done during the day, but we just played it by ear.

Thanks to everyone for your very considered responses - will be a great starting point for more indepth discussions with DH :)

We plan to go with the flow and take it as it comes. Having never done this before we plan to wing and find what works for us!! We're crap at doing housework etc now so planning too much would be pointless! Lol each to their own.

Had not thought of that bit yet!

At the moment DH does all cleaning and I do the cooking.

He is out of the house 8am - 8pm usually so have no idea how we will work around the baby - I guess I was just planning on going with the flow. Especially as his work is unpredictable and he can get home earlier or later, and can also be sent abroad for a few days a week...

Would be nice if he could take over the evening meals when I'm on maternity leave, but very unrealistic and would mean never eating before 9pm (unless it's take-away, which I really don't like).

Am 21 weeks and I don't think we'll be having this conversation until after the birth!!!

My DH works similar hours. I work from home part time. When either/both of us are not working we are on child/home duty, simple as that. Neither of us expects to sit around while the other does stuff, though obviously we give each other lie-ins when possible and if one person's exhausted, the other will take over. I think if you are both reasonable, kind people who expect to be fully involved, it sorts itself out, and if not then it becomes very difficult.

Dh sees childcare as my job and his office job is his so all housework is sort of halved.

When dd was born dh would get up in the night and change dd's nappy while I got in position to feed. DD would feed for an hour so dh was happy to be up for 10minute nappy change.

tbh, it was more about survival and getting through, supporting each other, and not setting out rules etc.

Tbh I wouldn't get too hung up on this. Wait and see what kind of baby you get! Some are very accommodating, sleep well and feed well (I had one of these) and others - not so much (had two of these).

If you're getting enough sleep at night then, frankly, one baby isn't hard going and you'll probably find keeping on top of house stuff isn't that difficult. In which case DH could get away with minimum which to me is helping with dinner, dishes and baby bed and bathtime. If he does his own laundry then that's a good habit for him to keep (or it may be lost forever!)

If you're struggling then he has to pick up the slack - however much that may be.