Am i being selfish expecting help!!

[Perlustrate]

My partner works fulltime we have a 7 week old baby together, although she has only been home 2 and a half weeks as she spent 5 weeks in scbu, am i being selfish expecting him to help out with night feeds some nights?? He goes to sleep around 8pm every night and i dont see him again till around 5pm the following night where he gives me chance to get a quick bath and bath my 2 year old, I am absolutely exhausted and cant function properly anymore. Should he be helping out more??xx

The reason for maternity leave is to allow a parent the time to look after their baby without needing to work.

Whilst no loving partnership would let one person be exhausted and unable to function and the other well rested, there does need to be a balance. He does need his sleep to be able to work 8 hours the next day, it is unfair for his to expect to not shoulder and of the exhaustion.

I would say that expecting 50:50 share of night feeds while he's also working full time and you are not is as unreasonable as expecting 0:100 of the night feeds. Maybe there is a compromise? Could he be in charge of the children early morning, giving you a lie In? Or could he stay up later and deal with any night wakes up to midnight? I would say 12-6 is a good night of uninterputed sleep for him to work the next day.

With regards to your toddler - does he/she nap still? Coordinating naps is a great thing. Little one is still very young and you're still getting used to things, your DO will be too. Give it a bit of time.

Have you talked to him about how you're feeling? A loving partner shouldn't want to see you so desperate. So maybe he will want to help you?

I personally haven't had my husband help in the middle of the night, he works very hard, BUT he doesn't go to bed at 8pm?! Why is your partner doing that? I definitely think a good few hours in the evening would be helpful. When I was especially tired from night feeds in the early days I'd go to bed early and he'd stay up with the baby for a while x

50/50 is probably a bit unreasonable but then so is going to bed at 8pm. He needs to grow up and help out on the evening.

Could he do your toddlers bath and bed routine and then have baby for an hour so you can nap/have a bath maybe?

As you are suggesting he helps is it safe to assume that you are bottle feeding? If so can I strongly suggest you pre make bottles that you can then microwave overnight as it cuts down the tiredness immensely!

What time does he start work if he's going to bed at 8?!

My partner doesn't do night feeds when he's working but when my DD was little and up a lot he would help in other ways like let me get a couple of hours sleep when he comes home from work or do the bedtime feed around 10.30-11 so that I could go to bed early. he'd help with night feeds at the weekend. I don't really understand why he's going to bed so early. I didn't expect my partner to go to work on a broken nights sleep but I also didn't expect that he would have a perfect nights sleep as that's not the reality of having a baby so he'd stay awake to do that later feed.

My husband didn't do any night feeds when my baby was tiny- though he would sometimes take her weekend nights when she was screaming so I could get a couple of hours sleep. He did take over pretty much all cooking and housework though.
From 5 months he has been doing one full weekend night each week- I just make sure there's enough expressed breastmilk.