DH new job is weekends

[Lalala2025]

I’ve just returned to work after maternity leave and still feeling a bit emotional about it all. DH has just accepted a job offer, but will be required to work all day every Saturday and Sunday. I am pleased for him because he was miserable in his old job (even though hours were great for family). But I am so upset at the thought of us never having weekends together with the baby and losing most of the support I get from him with sharing parenting/house bits over the weekend. I have a very tiring/stressful job in the NHS and a baby who still wakes multiple times a night - so I rely heavily on sharing the load at weekends. I will say though - we’ll both have Mondays off. So that helps a bit.
We were also hoping to try for baby #2 soon. But suddenly parenting feels much more lonely.
Anyway, hoping that this post will reach people in similar situations who can share their experiences - challenges/tips for managing etc.
Thanks x

You need to establish who is doing what household tasks on the days off you both have, so Mondays are for non-work/house things.

Still having Mondays off is good, and probably fairly normal. I think a lot of couples have 2 day weekends off ‘together’ but do seperate things on one of the days. He can help out with night wakings on his other day off in the week as well

You’ll be fine. When we were having kids DH and I worked opposite days/shifts so no day off together at all. It also meant no other parent around when with the kids, the other parent was either at work or sleeping after night shift, or shifts that had bled way over what they meant to. We had no family anywhere near so was just us, but was completely doable.

It’s solo parenting which you quickly get into the swing of but easier than being a single parent as the other parent will have done some of the chores while they were ‘on’, so while you have the full kid load you only have half the household chore load if that makes sense.

There is no ‘me time’, and very little sleep. That’s fine and to be frank, I think traditionally that’s always been the case when you have babies/younger children, it’s a newish concept where people think they should have it due to media or whatnot and are ripped off without it. If you just accept this up front it will make your expectations and life a lot easier.

Thank you for your replies! I woke up eager to see if I’d had any responses and you didn’t disappoint.
Thank you for your advice and different perspectives ☺️ x

Try sleep training, you'll all benefit from it.