does your partner help with baby during the night?

[sotough]

I am wondering how often most dads of young babies help out with night feeds/settling baby during night.
I am currently on maternity leave with a four week old DD.
Me and DD sleep in a separate room so that DH has a decent uninterrupted sleep. he does the last feed of the day at 11pm; and then doesn't see us again until he gets up around 7.30/8am. Once a week he is willing to do a whole night of feeds (usually one at 2.30am and then 6am.) so i can have a break. He reckons this is more than most working blokes do, when their wives are on maternity leave. I'd be interested to know if he's right about that. I'd like him to do more but perhaps i'm being unreasonable!

DD was in SCBU for first 3 weeks so we didn't have to deal with the constant feeding thing of a newborn! She suffered with colic from when she was about 1.5months(? can't really remember) & was awake, crying from 12-4 most nights.

We slept in separate rooms so DH could get a good nights sleep & go to work. When he got home we would bathe her, eat dinner & I would go to bed, leaving him to look after DD, only waking me when it was time to bf.

He did pretty much all of the cooking & cleaning until the colic stopped at 3.5 months when we went back to sharing things more equally. When she was older & started waking due to teething we generally took it in turns.

Thankfully, she is a very good sleeper, so we haven't been tested too much!

However it's split, isn't the main thing that neither of you feels too hard done by, too often?

DH mucked in with everything (bottle fed!) on the first two, but DS2's arrival coincided with him working an hour's drive away for 6 months, and long hours too. Doing all the night feeds meant that at least I wasn't sleepless the rest of the time worrying about whether he'd dozed off on the M'way.

We had a great smelly nappy rule - whichever adult had touched them last....

Count yourself lucky - I had to get up with my dts every night by myself and then get up at 6.30am to take my eldest to school. I saw this as my job at the time. Let's be honest, feeding in the night doesn't last that long (10mths in my case)

I all depends doesn't it? I did all the night feeds while i was BF'ing, but now have stopped we pretty much get up equally, even though i'm not at work and she's our 1st. I think I have it easy :), but then i guess this is why i'm with him innit? Some of my friends get no help at all from their men. In the end it's between you and your man, but make sure you don't end up feeling used...

I love the way men always say "you're lucky, I do more than most" no matter how much they do!

I've had this discussion with various friends and my DH does do a lot but I don't think I'm 'lucky' I just think it should be the norm that you split it as much as possible. Maybe with the first, if you can sleep in the day then mum might do more but once you're on no.2 then forget it. I see absolutely no difference between a day at work and a day at home with two small children.

So I do all the feeds (bf) but DH helps with any other settling needed, gets up with sick toddler when required and gets up with said toddler at 7am every day while I feed the little one and then on the week-ends he'll come and get her when she's eaten and leave me in bed for another couple of hours.

Obviously I love him but I don't go over the top with oooh you're so wonderful because I just think its right to share the looking after of OUR children.

I done the night feeds with both my two ds and dp done one feed at the weekend,
I saw it as my job during the week as dp was at work and if he was tired/distracted etc he could easily chop off a finger. plus sometimes the odd disco nap on the couch could cure the terrible tiredness.
i found that if you could get one full nights sleep then you could survive anything.

Dh never gets up with them in the night. Hangover from breastfeeding I think. However he can't lie in so will do mornings at the weekend. Works well for us as I would rather be up all night than get up early.

DH has never got up for night feeds as mine were/are breastfed.
He does get a screaming colicky DS2 thrust upon him the minute he sets foot in the door after a twelve hour day though.
The bad sleeper rule (so far only applied with DD) is if you make it back to bed before they start crying again then it's the other ones turn.

I did the BFing; DH did the nappy change and winding/shushing back to sleep if needed.

He loved the quiet time of the night with just him and DS2, but he missed out on it with DS1 (separated) and DD (working away) so felt he was making up some lost ground.

my husband lived away at uni and was only home at weekends when DD was a baby but did all the night feeds when he was around to give me a break as long as i got up with her the following morning so he could snooze :-)

Only made dh get up once to do a 3am feed. He made such a hash of it that I was awake anyway and had to settle a very unhappy dd1... Didn't bother asking him after that. Having said that, he was/is very hands on with bathtime, storytime, generally being silly time so I didn't mind the few weeks of night feeds each time (mine were good sleepers and slept through early at 9 and 6 weeks respectively. Just luck really. I am prepared for my luck to run out big time if I have a third! ).

DH has never done nights; I co-sleep with 13 m.o. DS and he is bf. DH sleeps in the spare room unless DS is in a particularly settled spell (but DH does suffer from insomnia so would struggle if he were woken).

He takes DS in the morning at the weekends so I can go back to sleep.

I agree that what works for you is the issue, not what others do. We're both happy with our arrangement and it works well for us.

My daughter is 14 months and if she is ill or wakes for some reason in the night now during the week then I deal as I am a SAHM and my husband works v v late/long City hours and is exhausted during the week. At the weekends I usually still deal with her in the night TBH as she settles much better with me (think Daddy is a novelty!)

When she was tiny he had 4 weeks paternity leave. She was only BF for a week and thereafter expressed and formula. We shared the nights. However, it usually worked out that I went to bed earlier, he did the last feed and then I fed her during the night, although we did take turns. When he went back to work after that he did usually do the last feed (especially for the 3 weeks immediately after he went back to work when she screamed from 6pm-11pm and I was at my wits end but he was usually not home before 9/10). So I would go to bed at 9ish and he would feed her at 11/12 and then I would do the 3am ish feed. But I felt that, given his horrid hours and the fact that I could sleep in the day (rarely actually done) and could lie on the sofa when she was tiny, once he was back to work then the middle of the night stuff was for me. He is fab with her at the weekends!

And yes, sometimes I resented it when exhausted! But it worked for us and I think whatever works (and stops arguments ) for for each couple is great...

PS. I think things may change once we have number 2! He will get a shock to the system...

My husband used to do the 3am feed, to let me get one block of uninterrupted sleep.

Only possible as DS was happy drinking expressed milk via bottle.

He was very good and efficient at it all, and could be back asleep, baby fed, changed and settled in 25 minutes. A complete star.

For my 3rd child, we had a routine of dh feeding baby a bottle late at night, say between 11 and 12. Then that would mean I could go to bed early if I wanted say 9 or 10pm, which would mean I would get a good sleep for 4,5 or even 6 hours uninterupted sleep . I breast fed all other feeds apart from the late night one. It worked for me and helped keep me sane and dh didn't have to get up for work shattered because I would be ok sorting at the baby during the night. In fact I quite enjoyed the middle of the night feed most times.

We take turns, night about. MIL stays one night a week and does it.

So I get three broken nights and four solid sleeps a week.

DP works during the day, but has flexible schedule. I'm still on ML but going back soon.

DS only needs one night feed and compared to newborn stage it's easy, so neither of us mind the nights on duty, and even when it's tough we know the next night will be relaxing.

DS is FF, obviously. I BFed to begin with but developed PND.

Now wishing I hadn't read this - feel like such a mug :(

Have 7month DD.
DH has never done a night with her - tried once, but I ended up waking up to wake him up.
I co-sleep in the nursery now as its easier.

I do all washing up.
I do all washing
I do all shopping
I do most cooking
If I want a shower I ask him to mind her, which means I don't get a chance everyday.

He does work very hard so I figured it was unfair to ask him for more help. Feel a bit dumb now.
Considering not going back to work, as I don't know how I'd cope with that too.

Yes, always has. When we had our first batch, I was ultra-zonked when breastfeeding (less so now in my 40s) and he would get up when the babies woke, and latch them on for me. I'd feed them virtually in my sleep and then either settle them down at the top of our bed (we do "flexible co-sleeping" ahem) or he'd return them to their cot.

We've hardly ever changed a night-time nappy so that doesn't apply (have been lucky to have babies who never poo at night so would only change if in obvious discomfort/had known nappy rash) and never really had the kind of baby that needed extensive resettling at night (maybe DS did many moons ago but have forgotten).

DH never found it difficult to go back to sleep whereas I did, so this seemed fair.

When the children were older and were sick or need their beds changing, it worked best for me to get up as I can manage with less sleep than him when not breastfeeding.

Having said all this, everything has changed now we're in our 40s as I find (when I'm not inactive due to broken limb) that I now go back to sleep more easily than he does and we've sort of swapped compared to our 20s. He still gets up to DD3 in the night if she wakes and I seem sound asleep.

I see it as a partnership. I could not ever have coped with being on my own in a crowd iyswim looking after the babies. Fine to actually be on your own if DP's away or you're single, but crap for one partner to get a far better deal sleep wise than the other imo. That would not have worked for us.

I BFed for years. exH was worse than useless as he got mean when sleep deprived, and refused to believe I would get less sleep if I had to get up and prepare bottles for babies yelling their lungs out at night. He would never have woken to a baby's crying so it would have been me making bottles, etc. -- he could sleep through a hurricane. His idea of settling a baby was to leave the baby crying and go back to bed to sleep himself.

I was a SAHM so fair enough imo that I got up, and I genuinely never trusted him with the babies. He had no patience.

So glad to have read this. I LOVE my DH .

I am bfing so doing all the actual feeding. Co-sleeping has worked really well for us so most nights it's just a case of "turn over and stick ds on the other boob" so not too hard work. When both dcs were newborn it took a couple of weeks to get the hang of feeding lying down. I would feed propped up in bed but had to wake dh to watch me as would invariably fall asleep and I was terrified of baby being smothered by a pillow.

DH will always change/settle if I ask him but I try to avoid on weeknights. If DS1 wakes early it is almost always DH who deals with him. We are supposed to take turns at weekends but I get far more turns lying in than he does, even though I get to sleep later weekdays ! DH has to leave for work at 7.20. If ds1 is up before that, dh sees to him. He makes ds1's packed lunch if he needs one that day, brings me a cuppa before he goes and lately has even taken to leaving outfits for both dcs at the bottom of the bed (although I often substitute matching socks etc!)

I LOVE my DH!

my other half did very little with the first, but he is a chef and was on split shifts, however since then we have had another 16months now, and he has had a break from work, he really didnt know how hard it was to look after two DD until he was thrown in the deep end, now he is much better, maybe do a role swap, then he might have a better understanding of how tough it can be if you feel like your on your own. hang on i also work but never use that as an excuse!!! maybe men just cant handle it!!!

DS2 is 18mos and is still waking 2-4 times a night. DH and I share the care doing 2 nights on then 2 nights off so that we both get some sleep. We decided to do it before DS2 was born on the basis if we got another bad sleeper we needed to have some kind of plan for dealing with the tiredness.

MustShowDH, for God's sake make sure you go back to work, and have the conversation with your DH about how the household stuff and childcare is split when that happens. Otherwise in a few years you'll still be doing all the domestic stuff, your H will think you're a skivvy who's there to service his needs and you'll be posting on here wondering whether you're unreasonable to be fed up.