Help me deal with tired dh with newborn baby

[RainbowSlide]

Looking for advice on how to handle this situation please.

Dh and I have a newborn ds, also an older dd. Dh has trouble sleeping generally. I'm up every 2-3 hours feeding baby (ebf) and dh gets up to do night time nappies when i wake him (he's on paternity leave at the moment, I'll probably take on most night jobs in the week once he's back at work).

The issue is that he keeps telling me how tired and run down he feels. Last night he couldn't get to sleep from 12-3ish, not because of the baby (we were sleeping most of that time), but he was worrying about stuff. I understand it's shit when you can't sleep, but am struggling to muster much sympathy given I'm feeding on demand and most of the time he is asleep through those feeds. I'm also recovering from a c section so not fully back to normal.

So how do i not be a total bitch by telling him how much less sleep i'm getting and how i'm not actually complaining about it! I feel like he needs to be telling someone other than me.. how would you respond?

I don’t understand either why you’re not changing the nappies when you feed. I don’t see that waking him achieves much.

He’d be more use during the day if he wasn’t tired and moany.

@tatianalarina have you had a c section - she is under 2 weeks away and it is not recommended as it can burst the stitches

Yes. The only thing that was difficult was getting in the bath. Stairs, carrying the baby, nappies, fine.

Are people serious with the "why don't you do more so he does less?!"

OP. Tell him to see his GP. Keep expecting him to contribute to the welfare and raising of his child. Don't carry his load too.

I had an emcs and ebf. I left dh sleeping during the night, he got up about 6 and took ds downstairs so I could have a few uninterrupted hours. Worked well...
Ime 2 sleep deprived crabby people isn't a good combination.
In his defense maybe he is panicking now that the baby is actually here!!
Finances and being a good enough df - my dh had never even held a baby before ds arrived. Massive worries consumed him for months.
He is a fab df though.

Not saying you are wrong op but you are prob far too sleep deprived to think about much!!

Are people serious with the "why don't you do more so he does less?!"

I think he should pull his weight, but I don’t think the current MO is working. If he’s less cranky he could do much more for the OP during the day.

It's awful how generally c-sections are viewed as par for the course whereas at any other time major abdominal surgery would be viewed as the huge deal it is and everyone would understand the recovery time required. You've literally had a human cut out of your body!

That said, other posters are probably right that while it would kill me to bite me tongue, going down the competitive tiredness route is a race to the bottom and he'll find a way to frame his tiredness as "worse"
which will piss you off more.

I guess reiterating over and over that yes you're both tired and it's important you work as a team to preserve both of your sanity! And perhaps remind that you've had major surgery, it's terrible but people really do seem to write this off when a woman has had a c-section.

Poor you, FWIW it sounds like you're doing great

Dear OP, please ignore anyone telling you to do the nappies. I didn't have major abdominal surgery, just multiple episiotomies, and my then-husband did the nappies whilst on leave too - because moving bloody hurt and he cared about me!

And I'm laughing at people saying to change baby on the bed - obviously never seen a breast-fed poonami - no way would I risk THAT on my bed

He's pretty lacking in empathy really - I think the idea of both accepting you will be exhausted for at least 3 months is the way forward.

It is thoroughly depressing how little so many women on here expect of their partners and the father of their child. The baby is as much theirs as it is yours. They should be doing 50% of the childcare when they're at home, end of story. Nobody gets a full night's sleep when you have a newborn! The only exception would be in the case of a job where tiredness could be fundamentally dangerous, e.g. long distance driver, pilot, surgeon.

He needs to pull himself together and stop complaining

@christmasfluff
Agreed - or a waterfall of wee as we discovered in our baby boy's first week of life, after that we started doing night changes on the floor!!

I had an emergency section and my partner had two week's paternity. He wanted to do his part with night changes (and all changes - he probably did 80% of all nappy changes in the first two weeks) because he's a dad that a) wants to be involved in looking after his baby (I'm bf so he can't help with feeds) and b) because he's not a nob and wants to make sure I'm resting enough to make sure the section recovery goes as smoothly and quickly as possible.

Fast forward to week 3 and because I was able to take it easy the first two weeks I'm now more (still not 100%) mobile and am able to do most of the night changes alongside feeding now he's back at work.

Ive just recovered from a c section and I have a changing mat next to the bed and change him before a feed on the bed. It does seem a bit pointless you both being up at night.. As someone else said maybe he could get up early morning and give you a few interrupted hours sleep? It's so hard in the 1st few weeks!

It is thoroughly depressing how little so many women on here expect of their partners and the father of their child. The baby is as much theirs as it is yours. They should be doing 50% of the childcare when they're at home, end of story.

Completely missing the point. I expected and got 50%. What posters are saying is that the current MO is not achieving anything and DH’s contribution could be put to better use.

Like the poster above I had a changing mat by the bed.

DH could wake early and get things done round the house while OP had a lie in.

I had a medically fragile six week old infant post NICU hospitalization who came home on oxygen and respiratory monitor that needed round the clock hourly care-we split the care up 50%. I was recovering from two operations and an inflamed pancreas and needed life support with complications-in hospital 12 days. Looking back I'm unsure how we survived other than we were young and he was an only child. Husband worked full time during all this. I didn't work for months as I just couldn't do so. You've gotta be a team or you will have deep wounds in your relationship. We all have different strengths and weaknesses. Take care the newborn stage is hell but it passes.

The more of these threads I read, the more grateful I am for my DH.

Both DC ebf but that's the ONLY thing that wasn't split 50/50. During paternity leave he got up for every feed, passed baby to me, climbed back in bed and nodded off for duration. If nappy needed changing, DH did it. He also did a lot of the winding for DC2 (colic).

Once DH was back at work, we kept to the above until 1am. At this point, I took over completely so DH could get 5 solid hours sleep.

And so we all survived.

With DC1 we actually adopted baby's bedtime for the first 4 months - it was easier to cope with if we'd also slept 8-11pm before the first night feed!

Talk to your DH - good luck.

It's entirely feasible that so soon after the section nappies will be a physical struggle. Were for me. That was a laugh when the baby shat at least once every feed.

Is he doing any settling of baby too OP? Might help you get a bit more rest.

He's currently getting up with our 4yo dd and doing breakfast etc. while I'll either be feeding the baby or if i can I'll get him down and have a nap until the next feed. So he's not useless by a long shot, i'm not claiming he's a rubbish dad (he's great!) it was specifically the complaints of being tired and the expectation of sympathy, like i needed to find a solution to that too.

Baby settles easily at the moment so the only thing to do at night (if it's a poo) is a nappy change which I'll do once he's back at work and i'm more recovered.

Thanks for all the advice and ideas, I'm definitely in the "pull your big boy pants up" camp, just need to say it without him getting sulky about not caring about how he's doing. He did wake up today to tell me he had a thick head. I just looked at him. Then he asked how i was doing and i said dreadful actually, given baby was up a few extra times last night and the splitting headache i've had most of the night. So he took he baby and 4yo and gave me a nap. Maybe we're getting somewhere.

it was specifically the complaints of being tired and the expectation of sympathy, like i needed to find a solution to that too.

i've mentioned he should see someone in a kind way, but he refuses

Nah, fuck that. He doesn't want to help himself he'd get no sympathy from me. I'd actually ask him if he thinks he's tired what the hell does he think you are?

Tiredness top trumps does no good for anyone, he needs to pack it in! It's much better to accept you are both tired, stop moaning about it and just crack on making the best of it and supporting each other. Which it sounds like he's started doing.

I said this explicitly and bluntly to DH when we had newborn DC. Thankfully he shut the fuck up with his whinging and hasn't mentioned it since. So a short sharp shock can work!

And I'm laughing at people saying to change baby on the bed - obviously never seen a breast-fed poonami - no way would I risk THAT on my bed

I dunno what's so hilarious about it? This is what I did.. I just had a changing mat and a basket next to bed full of nappy changing stuff so I bf, changed butt and then put baby to sleep (I had emergency section, only bit I found hard was picking him up from snuzpod).

Op doesn't he sleep when baby sleeps too? We just both napped with one eye open on our sofa with DS in his basket when he napped (well DH did, I could never relax for some reason).

So if 4yo is in school, pop off for a nap or take it in turns. Put a movie on for little one and one minds while other has a nap. It's real fucking hard adjustment at any time I just think you've got to be kind to each other and rest in turns x

You are experiencing what happens when a man finds the attention taken off him. He has to find a way to get you to feel sorry for him. That's why he keeps relentlessly listing his symptoms at you. Its like when you are on the phone and your small boy keeps grabbing your sleeve to talk urgently about Thomas the Tank. Its not about the content its about the attention.

4yo isn't at school yet (preschool 2 days a week, we're not in uk so start school later), and no he doesn't nap when the baby naps in the day, says it makes him feel groggy 🤷‍♀️ i think it's that he's not helping himself that's the problem. And he set himself a bunch of tasks on paternity leave that he's trying to also achieve, so he won't sleep if he's got jobs to do. I have said paternity leave is there to look after baby and recovering wife (and dd) but he sees any extra time off work as potentially productive..!

He's just been for a run. So hopefully that will help his general mood. I'm particularly grumpy today with this headache but it's sunny outside so hopefully we can get to the beach where i can drink coffee!

As i said up thread, ds screams his head off getting his nappy changed, so doing it in bed would take dh up, which is what i think the suggestion was trying to avoid. And i also can't deal with the prospect of hosepipe wees on our bed (beyond the mat!) or anything more sinister...

@RainbowSlide Ahh I see with the school thing (I am in the UK). I feel for you, I have a toddler and I'm pregnant and it's so hard to juggle and keep them busy while tired.

Yeah he should be sleeping when baby does, he can't argue about it if he isn't willing to nap, it's just a suck it up situation for him then. Make sure you rest x

Haha DH had no problem sleeping through bum changes, I didn't mind it, to be honest I preferred doing it as that's when we got poo explosions due to nappy not being on properly as he was too tired.

So he doesn’t take sleep when it’s offered because then he will be groggy. Ok...sounds a little odd considering how dire his sleep deprivation is! Either he is too tired to go for runs & is falling asleep on the couch mid sentence or he is simply not exhausted. Like bone tired

The 'sleeping during the day makes me groggy' thing makes me see red.

When was the last time you felt 100% well and rested in yourself OP? I'm guessing it's a while. I'm guessing you're tired, that c-section recovery has been painful and uncomfortable, that even if you had a good pregnancy you would have felt tired and sore at the end. And you would have just sucked it up and got on with what had to be done.

But- Heaven forbid a man with a newborn should feel 'groggy' or 'tired'.

Guess what, caring for a newborn is a 24/7 physically demanding exhausting thing. If he's not feeling tired, groggy etc then he's probably not pulling his weight.

He is on parental leave, he doesn't need to be sharp for work, you're recovering from surgery- he is not! He should be doing everything he can to lighten your load.