Query for people with newborns.

LegacyUser

I'm on maternity leave so at home all the time. My day is full from minding our infant and housework.

My partner works full time normal office hours.

He helps out in the evenings and we take turns with the feeds, and other work, from when he comes home and generally speaking he gets out of bed to do the feed in the middle of the night. He struggles with this as he works office hours 5 days a week.

However, he thinks he's some kind of hero for doing this. How do you guys with partners divide up the work and all the feeds? Is my partner really as helpful as he thinks he is or is what he does quite normal?

Ickle Magoo

Moved from PI - think folks here will be better placed to give you advice, OP.

All the best. :cool:

Moonbeam

My husband never did a night feed.
I Think while you are off and he has to be up for work in the morning it is more fair for him not to have to get up during the night and he should do it at weekends.

January

Quite normal...

Orion

I slept in the spare room when they were night feeding and I had work the next day. I did my share in the evenings and weekends but when I had to be in work for 9 I needed my sleep to survive.

Lisha

Hi Gaelgal,

When I was on mat leave I did all the night feeds during the week. Husbands work is very physical and he had a very long drive. My attitude was that he would be no good to me in a ditch or unemployed.
It would be more shared during weekends.
He is also a light sleeper so if there was a lot of crying or sickness we would both be awake. (which is pointless IMHO)
Our youngest stopped night feeds from about 9weeks so that was amazing. First child still getting bottles til he over 2. :mad::eek: (Not a mistake we repeated with second child)

As myself and husband worked long hours both with a long drive it suited us for many reasons for me to drop to a 20hr week. SO to me it makes sense that I do the lions share of the childcare.
This would not suit everyone I know but it works for us. Suits me as I would hate to do any outside work eg lawns, pet care, bins etc.
Ho does do housework but I would do more.

I just wonder from the 'hero' comment you made, are ye a young couple? Or are you both a bit competitive with the workload that a baby brings?

I really would recommned that you talk this out a bit as these issues being allowed to fester can do real relationship damage.


Best of luck, enjoy the rest of your mat leave and you baby:)

implausible

Wasn't really an issue with us as I breastfed, but my view on it would be that there is no point in two people being sleep-deprived, miserable and irritable. Having a new baby is stressful enough for a couple besides them being narky with each other due to lack of sleep.

There are loads of other ways your other half can help out besides night-feeds - bathing, cooking dinners, laundry, cleaning, letting you get a shower/walk/time out of the house.

Mr Johnson

Sounds like he's making a good effort, but you should both feel like heroes if you have a happy healthy baby. You'll be going through the sames stresses as a billion other parents before you, so as mentioned already it's really important to have good communication, and praise each other as much as possible for your efforts.

wmpdd3

I do all the night feeds as I'm breast feeding, I did them for the first baby too.

When he is off from college, he gets up with the older baby every 2nd morning and I stay in bed with the infant.

When I'm in the house all day with 2 babies, I have from 7pm to 8pm for myself.

Last Summer, he was off for 3 months and I was back at work, so he went in if she woke during the night.

I do all house work inside, he does all work outside including taking out the rubbish.

Works for us.

I have friends who's partners always slip into conversation how they 'have to burp the baby and change the nappy during the night'. All I can answer is: as long as that works for ye.

Neyite

What worked well for my sister was that she would do the feed around 8pm then go to bed, while her husband would do the 11pm one, she would do the 3/4am one and she then got up with baby in the morning at 7am.

That way they both got a decent stretch of uninterrupted sleep: her from about 9pm to 3am, and 4am to 7am and him from 11pm until morning.

Though she got up for the night feed, she'd had 6 hours straight, and could sometimes nap during the day if she felt tired, but because her husband worked, he couldnt do that.

I plan on doing something similar if I can, once a routine is established.

I always did night feeds on maternity leave. I really didn't think it was fair for my husband to have to do a night feed and be in work for 9am when I was off for the purpose of looking after the baby. We alternated at weekends.

How Strange

In the early days my husband looked after our son between 9-11pm so I could sleep then I did the night feeds. I was breastfeeding so we couldn't really share that :P
I also thought that as long as I was on maternity leave I should take care of night time because I could nap the next day or at the very least have a lazy day if I was wrecked. He had to be on top form for work.

However we always split the childcare 50/50 at weekends and as soon as the breastfeeding stopped we started taking turns at getting up if it was a bad night. I know for sure he'll be 100% breastfeeding if there's a no.2!

There's nothing more stressful on a relationship than one person thinking they carry more of the childcare burden than the other. It can cause a lot of resentment to build up.

Twinkleboots

I went back to college two weeks after having our son and my partner works during the evenings so we pretty much shared the are of our son 50/50. It was exhausting for both of us and we rarely got to see eachother, I would of loved maternity leave:(

Having a newborn is a very stressful time but it is also an amazing time for you as a little family. Enjoy this time and try not to dwell on things like housework etc.it sounds like you have a great guy there. Enjoy him!

Rubberlegs

I'm a domestic engineer since my last job finished up 2 yrs ago:p Himself has worked a 3 shift cycle for years now. Our last little one is almost 14 weeks. She's been sleeping through since 9 weeks now. Her last bottle is usually around 11pm or can be later, depending on how the day has gone. At the start, obviously I managed myself when he was on nights. When he is on 2 till 10, or 6 till 2, I usually go to bed a bit earlier for myself, and he will give the last feed and get her ready for bed, and bring her up. I used to feel so sorry for him when she was waking for feeds in the night, and he'd to be up at half 5:(. We have no spare room so me sleeping elsewhere wasn't an option. We used to bring kettle etc up to bedroom and make the bottles when needed in our bedroom. He is a great help when at home. He developed an obsession with having an empty clothes basket when I was pregnant, so if I've not got a wash on, he will. He'll also wash and sterilise bottles if he sees they need to be done. He does all the outdoorsy stuff like bins etc. I would do the bigger share of minding herself, when he's at work. I do all the going out to pay bills, getting the shopping in. In the 17 yrs we have lived together, I can only remember him coming food shopping 2 or 3 times. It's just not his thing, and besides he'd drive me nuts anyway! This works for us, and I can't give out about him or fault him for what he does about the place. Really OP, I think it depends on how happy you are with your situation. I can remember the struggle when we first moved in together with an 18month old, and we were not long out of our teens ourselves. How we didn't kill each other I'll never know!! Men definitley take years to reach the same level of maturity as us....

Knit wit

We share night feeds ... Thankfully she only wakes once a night (anytime between 3 and 5am). If one of us is particularly tired we swap but it's pretty much 50/50. I think it's easy to say the person at home should do the night feeds but I think on bad days having been up several times the previous night the escape of going out to work can be less demanding than staying home with a screaming child.
I don't mind the night feeds too much ... My bub is 6 weeks this week and starting to sleep through

LorraineMcFly

Getting up at 6-7 am with a new baby is a full time job and also you dont have the added benefit of showering and dressing and makeup etc. so u dont feel refreshed and its very tiring. So i dont think its unreasonable to expect a man to share night feeds. I was lucky my husband is amazing and he did the majority of night feeds. But then he rarely had to change a nappy or sort clothes or the million and other one things i was doing keeping our house going.

Moonbeam

LorraineMcFly wrote: »

Getting up at 6-7 am with a new baby is a full time job and also you dont have the added benefit of showering and dressing and makeup etc. so u dont feel refreshed and its very tiring. So i dont think its unreasonable to expect a man to share night feeds. I was lucky my husband is amazing and he did the majority of night feeds. But then he rarely had to change a nappy or sort clothes or the million and other one things i was doing keeping our house going.

When you only have one I think it is fine.
You nap when they nap,you bring the bouncer in to the bathroom to have a shower or shower when they sleep.

It is when you g back to work everything gets hard.

Rosy Posy

My husband doesn't get up with the baby but he does take him at 5.30am (when he gets up for the day) and lets me sleep until he leaves for work at 7.45am. He also makes breakfast for the older kids and gets them semi ready for school depending on how much time he has.

You should check out this book and website- http://www.babyproofingyourmarriage.com I found it really helpful...now if only I could get my husband to read it...

I am a friend

Neyite wrote: »

What worked well for my sister was that she would do the feed around 8pm then go to bed, while her husband would do the 11pm one, she would do the 3/4am one and she then got up with baby in the morning at 7am.

That way they both got a decent stretch of uninterrupted sleep: her from about 9pm to 3am, and 4am to 7am and him from 11pm until morning.

Though she got up for the night feed, she'd had 6 hours straight, and could sometimes nap during the day if she felt tired, but because her husband worked, he couldnt do that.

I plan on doing something similar if I can, once a routine is established.

This is what we do and it *works*.... Am still knackered every day but as another poster said, he is no good to me in a ditch...

OH is fab at weekends though and doesnt think himself a hero at all..

Lisha

Rosy Posy wrote: »

My husband doesn't get up with the baby but he does take him at 5.30am (when he gets up for the day) and lets me sleep until he leaves for work at 7.45am. He also makes breakfast for the older kids and gets them semi ready for school depending on how much time he has.

You should check out this book and website- http://www.babyproofingyourmarriage.com I found it really helpful...now if only I could get my husband to read it...

+1 on the above book baby proof marriage I found it good, funny at times too

jaspertheghost

I`m a stay at home dad and my fiance works..i mostly do the night baba`s as i know she has to be up for work,at the weekends she does them and we`d have one lie in each..she has saturday id have sunday...small bit of advice...leave him feel like a hero us men need that little bit of cudos..and yes all us men know that the women are the real heros...

Sparks

Moonbeam wrote: »

When you only have one I think it is fine.
You nap when they nap,you bring the bouncer in to the bathroom to have a shower or shower when they sleep.
It is when you g back to work everything gets hard.

Amen to that.
We've been lucky in that our little guy is breastfeeding all the time; so who does what feeds isn't yet something we can decide, but daddy does all the nappy changing and settling at night that he can. But it does catch up with you. We were fine for the two weeks that we were both off work, but when I went back to work, everything just got that bit harder, because now we're still doing the same schedule of night feeds, we're still getting no more than three hours sleep at a stretch, but one of us has to squeeze between seven and nine hours of work into the day (depending on the day) as well.

It might not qualify you for hero status and it certainly isn't easy on the other partner by comparison either (because now they don't even have someone to watch over the little guy while they grab a shower or make breakfast), but feck it, it ain't tiddlywinks either.

And Gaelgal, in case you're wondering if he's really "all that" for doing this while working, ask yourself how hard this would get if you were doing it solo. Frankly I didn't know before our boy was born how single moms could do this and keep their sanity, and now that we're in the middle of it, I really don't know.

Mink

My sis was a single mum and went back to work after 3 mths. I still don't know how she did it & remained remarkably chirpy! She also didn't drive and had to get two buses to work, with the wee man in tow!

My baby is due in July and I'm starting to freak out reading this thread as my OH works a 40hr week and then has a 2-3hr commute each day. Then on the weekends he gigs and these can be quite far away so he will usually not get home to bed until 3/4am on Fri/Sat/Sun night! I think I may have to learn my sister's tricks!

I guess we are going to have to just find some way to adapt and make it work.

I definitely think it's important to validate the men (or women - if you are a bloke and the main child carer) when they help out a lot, whether or not you think it's normal. The more you praise or reward something, the more appreciated that person will feel and the more likely they are going to help even more (at least this always works on me )

Sparks

Well, the gigs on the weekend and things like that tend to cease
All my target shooting, the modding on boards.ie, the programming projects done on the side for fun, the (very) slowly ticking over PhD work, the computer games, all of that has basicly stopped, for at least the first three or four months. After that, who knows, but right now, there just aren't enough hours or ergs to get any of it done.

Hannibal Smith

We share the night feeds. If the hubby does it one night, I'll do it the next night. Whoever does the last night feed, the other one will do the early morning feed. I know I'm very lucky, my husband is a fantastic dad, but on the otherside, whilst he has to get up to go to work, I have to get up and mind the baby. I can't nap when baby naps, don't get a lunch break per se, or a hot cup of coffee...except for the ones I get on the coffee mornings with the girls :D

dublinlady

My oh works shifts - if he is working at 9 I do the feeds if he is working at 2, he does them and generally goes back to bed from 8-12 as our little one ain't a great sleeper! My hubbie is brill - he helps so so much and I do think he's a hero!! Well compared to what my dad was like!!!!!