How do you share childcare with partner when have more than 1 child?

[Cookiemonster83]

Hi, I’ve got a 12 week old with my partner and a 7 year old who I have apart from every other weekend when she is with her dad.

Im really struggling at the moment and just wondering whether I’m expecting too little/much form my partner.

Baby suffers terrible reflux so cries and cries most of the day and doesn’t sleep laying down at night. I sleep alone with her upstairs and partner on his own downstairs as he works. He gets up at 5:30am and is back around 3:30pm.

I struggle in the morning to get my daughter ready for school with a crying baby. Luckily my mum takes her and picks her up from school as I’m exhausted from 3hrs sleep max each night. Can’t make up sleep in the day as baby will only sleep upright in a sling.

Partner gets home and gets frustrated approximately 10 mins after arriving as baby crying so I take her back then struggle with her and doing homework with my daughter, getting tea and then bath time. Each time carrying the baby either sleeping in sling or crying. I’m absolutely frazzled at the moment, I’m really struggling.

Should he be doing more? Even tho bigger child is not his? I feel so guilty I can’t give her my attention as I’m always trying to comfort the baby. I dead going to bed as I get no sleep and know the next day baby will cry most of it.

Did you do all the cooking and housework before you were pregnant?

Umm I guess I did but I had a lot more time on my hands. He can clearly see I’m struggling and I’ve told him and he says I know but then doesn’t seem to do anything about it. I’m starting to think he simply can’t handle the noise of the crying.

So he doesn’t contribute anything at all to the basic running of the house, is rough with the baby and swears at her. Yeah, he’s scum. There’s no fixing such a fundamentally terrible person.

he is being horrible.

can he put earplugs in and do the bloody chores, at least??

Does baby sleep in the car? Could he take her for a drive when he gets in?

Dh pretty much had the baby from the second he walked in the door until about 1am except for feeds with both of them at that age. He watched whole box sets walking in circles in the lounge with them in slings.

Except for homework and cooking meals and a bit of bedtime, a 7 year old should be able to look after themselves, so really it's just the baby. The reality is that having a small baby is frustrating and boring and annoying. I'd want to hand them back too if I could - but that's not how parenting works.

You're doing the overnights and all day, so surely he can do 3:30-930 with the exception of feeds if you need to do them. I literally never gave either of mine a bath until I don't even know how old they were because I was doing everything all day so they were shoved to dh for dinner and bathtime and I usually took over again for bedtime (or when they were really little, he kept them downstairs with him til midnight/1am while I slept the first part of the night).

Don’t scam yourself in to making excuses for him. No one likes the noise of a kid. He made her exist, so a non aggressive parent would tend the child’s needs to stop the noise. Swearing + shaking the baby on his knee= more crying. He’s making a total mug of you and failing the baby.

How can you possibly think you're asking too much of him? It doesn't sound like he's doing any active parenting at all and you say you're doing everything around the house too. And he is not helping at all in the night when you're only getting around 3 hours sleep! What an utterly useless partner and father he sounds. I'm sorry OP, but I highly doubt he'll change and your relationship is a rather a sham if the person who is meant to care and support you in life is too selfish to be there for you when you're on your knees with exhaustion.

Christ @Cookiemonster83 you’re not asking enough,

for context dh gets home at 4pm, empties the washing machine and dishwasher and runs the hoover over before I get home with the kids at 5:30. He then plays with the toddler while the older one has some iPad time and I make dinner. Afterwards one of us does bathtime and the other cleans down the kitchen and preps the next days bags.
kids get put to bed around 8ish, we sit down together for an hour at 9 then go to bed - rinse and repeat,

We were in a similar situation to you, I already had my son (six) when me and my husband had our daughter. I took the first six months of leave and did my sons school runs, got him ready in the morning etc. When my husband came home he would take over looking after our daughter, even if I wasn’t tired when he got home he still did as he wanted to spend time with her. When I had six months of leave I had assumed I would still do the morning school run etc, but he wanted to do it, so thats what we did, then when I got home I took over as I wanted to spend as much as the evening as possible with my children.

This @Cookiemonster83 . You had a baby with a waster. I’d prepare for being a single parent of 2.

For context, my DD is currently not sleeping well and my DH does half the nights even though he is working and I’m on mat leave. He also pulls his weight with cooking and cleaning and will take DD on his lunch break when he’s working from home. I was away for a night at my parents and he hoovered the whole house and did the washing and will now take DD tonight and I am going for a massage tomorrow morning for an hour. When I was breastfeeding he still took DD for the odd night when I was exhausted. He would bring her into me to feed then he would deal with resettling and winding as she also had reflux.

This sounds so so hard for you. Things need to change, he needs to step up or it'll be like this forever. He needs to take over either baby or everything else when he gets home to support you.

There is no break right now for either of you.

You're in the eye of the storm. This won't last forever. It'll start getting easier after 6-8mo. Big hugs xxx

I feel for you....That's tough.It sounds like a serious conversation about splitting responsibilities is needed xx