Should I excuse DH from nighttime duties?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:My husband and I split night time while he was on leave. Once he returned, I did nights and he took the baby in the morning so I could get some rest. When I went back to work at 12 weeks, we had a night nurse. DC was consistently sleeping through the night by 3.5/4 months.

My DH is crap on no sleep and has an intense job (he works in finance). This worked for us, but bet your ass I didn’t tell anyone - I knew the judgment would be intense and swift.

And rightly so!

Before this thread, the idea that people would judge and criticize someone for a decision as personal and variable as how to handle night wakings without an infant would have sounded silly to me. “Oh come on, I know women can be hard on each other, especially about motherhood, but that’s really snd truly no one else’s business. Whatever works! I’m sure most women agree with that.”

I apologize. Women can be such total effing d!ces to each other. Do we even need men to oppress us? Seems like we’re doing a great job making life, and especially motherhood, just completely miserable and untenable all on our own. Jfc.

PP and this is pretty much how I feel. My fear isn’t my husband being a true partner in raising our child - it’s the constant judgment from other women about what they think makes sense for other people. I think that’s why this thread hits a nerve. Check out SM or a mommy’s group, and you’ll hear women praising their husbands for being equal partners. Check out this board and you hear an opposite story. Women are basically encouraged to tell falsehoods to avoid judgment/escape the black and white thinking from other women.

And I’ve found that the women who are most adamant about a perfectly equal split all the time tend to be far and away the primary career/income in the family. So are you really that progressive? You’re still allocating household work based on career demands which seems to be what everyone else is doing too.

I disagree with a lot of what you said but I want to point out that people in mommy groups usually have young kids. For me, the snags with being the primary parent didn’t accumulate to the point of frustration until the kids were older. I had a better sense of their needs and preferences just because I was around them more, and that causes all sorts of issues. I don’t think waking for a few weeks will make all the difference, but when you can look back at the impact all these little things had over the years, the pattern is apparent.

I am now a SAHM so I’m obviously embracing my role as primary parent, but part of making the partnership aspect of parenthood work is making sure my husband is with the kids a lot even if it’s going to be a major inconvenience with work. If we were to have another kid I would make sure he was with that child in equal amounts during the night.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:We split, so that my spouse was taking one wake up a night. He is more of a morning person and naturally prefers to go to bed earlier, so I handled wakeups until 2, and he handled them afterwards. That way both of us got a solid block of sleep every night. Because I knew I would be going back to work, and because I knew I was at high risk for PPD, and because it was important to us both that he be fully involved in his kid's care. And now I have a spouse who can easily and independently and competently take care of our kid.

I don't know why people act like when you pick up the slack and things are uneven in some parts of your relationship, that they become totally inept forever and will never do their share. IMO OP's DH is doing his share by continuing to work during this time. OP picks up the slack with the baby at night. This doesn't mean he becomes a manchild who is unable to care for his baby. You don't need to train men like dogs.

I have never heard it said that a mother is doing her share who works and then doesn’t also care for her child but maybe I’m too new at this.

Don’t be obtuse. If a working mother had a SAH parent, she wouldn’t be expected to do nighttime duty. OP is SAH while on leave.

No, she’s still bringing in her share of the joint income, same as her husband. So she’s supposed to pull her weight for the family finances *and* do more than her husband at home.

Parenting is not a “when it suits me” activity. Go to the relationships thread and read about the poster whose husband wants no parenting duties on weekends because he “helps out” during the week. That’s the outcome people are trying to help the OP avoid.

[Anonymous]

We shared night duties. I fed the baby, he changed the diaper and put the baby back in the crib.

[Anonymous]

DCUM: night nurses are great and don’t make you a bad mom at all.
Also DCUM: Husbands must get up at night or they are bad fathers and will never bond with their children.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:DCUM: night nurses are great and don’t make you a bad mom at all.
Also DCUM: Husbands must get up at night or they are bad fathers and will never bond with their children.

Unifying concept: a new mother should not do all the waking up with her newborn.

[Anonymous]

50/50 is rarely the fairest split. But he should be doing at least some of the night stuff every night.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:DCUM: night nurses are great and don’t make you a bad mom at all.
Also DCUM: Husbands must get up at night or they are bad fathers and will never bond with their children.

Those arent opposing statements Night nurses provide a break to both parents. Husbands getting up at night provide a break to Mom and if there are only 2 people available at night it should not be solely on one person. Both are means of making sure that mom isnt the only one waking up a night, which is normal in most babies.

Night nurses are also only available to a small subset of families. At 25-40/hr thats most peoples average hourly wage after taxes in the sub 150k world.

[Anonymous]

My biggest problem with this entire thread is that so much of the advice is "You better do it THIS way or your DH won't be an equal partner or parent."

I'm sorry, but if a man checks out on parenting, expects his working wife to do the lion's share of parenting/housework, or otherwise pushes an unequal distribution of the workload, it is not the fault of his wife for taking on night duty during her maternity leave. He's a person! If he has to be tricked into being an equal partner by FORCING a seemingly nonsensical work arrangement, he's trash anyway and probably was never going to be an equal partner.

Why on earth would the spouse who has to be at work in the morning for an 8 hour work day get up as much as the spouse who is on leave AND has 5-6 hours of help daily from her mom? It makes no sense. Stop yelling at women that they need to enforce an impractical and weird division of labor for a couple months at the beginning of their baby's life or any future imbalance in parental duties is THEIR FAULT.

It's not their fault. Men are responsible for their actions. Men are capable of being active and involved parents. Men are every bit as able to prioritize their children, bond with them, make time for them, sacrifice for them, etc. Every bit as capable. Like the first people I think of are some of the gay couples I know who are devoted parents. There is nothing about having a Y chromosome that makes men incapable of doing this work.

Stop convincing yourselves that women are somehow responsible for their husbands. They aren't. If a guy wants to be a good dad and partner, he can be. If he doesn't, there is not secret to making him do it. And the expectation that women will somehow figure out how to make that reluctant guy do what he does not want to do is IN ITSELF an example of the unequal distribution of labor in our society.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:DCUM: night nurses are great and don’t make you a bad mom at all.
Also DCUM: Husbands must get up at night or they are bad fathers and will never bond with their children.

Those arent opposing statements Night nurses provide a break to both parents. Husbands getting up at night provide a break to Mom and if there are only 2 people available at night it should not be solely on one person. Both are means of making sure that mom isnt the only one waking up a night, which is normal in most babies.

Night nurses are also only available to a small subset of families. At 25-40/hr thats most peoples average hourly wage after taxes in the sub 150k world.

And what about a family like mine, where DH makes 90k a year and I make 80k a year and neither of us can afford to lose our jobs? But I got 4 solid months of fully paid maternity leave and my DH got 4 weeks. So when he returned to work, I absolutely handled the lions share of night wake ups so that he could get out of bed at 6am and go to his job that we need in order to live. And then when I returned to work, we split it. And then the baby stopped waking up at night.

The months when I did night wake ups on my own weren't some horrible unequal nightmare for me. I was tired, yes, but I also took it easy. If I'd had a more challenging baby (my baby wasn't super easy, but also not super hard) we probably would have had to come up with a different solution. My DH did a ton around the house and was the primary parent in the evenings (6-10pm) and at least one full day on the weekend.

So I completely disagree with your premise that you HAVE to make sure mom isn't the only one waking up at night. It's very dependent on the situation. And it's important to note that the situation OP describes is precisely the kind where it makes sense to have mom do the vast majority of night wake ups. She has 5-6 HOURS of babysitting and household help a day. She's fine.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:DCUM: night nurses are great and don’t make you a bad mom at all.
Also DCUM: Husbands must get up at night or they are bad fathers and will never bond with their children.

Those arent opposing statements Night nurses provide a break to both parents. Husbands getting up at night provide a break to Mom and if there are only 2 people available at night it should not be solely on one person. Both are means of making sure that mom isnt the only one waking up a night, which is normal in most babies.

Night nurses are also only available to a small subset of families. At 25-40/hr thats most peoples average hourly wage after taxes in the sub 150k world.

And what about a family like mine, where DH makes 90k a year and I make 80k a year and neither of us can afford to lose our jobs? But I got 4 solid months of fully paid maternity leave and my DH got 4 weeks. So when he returned to work, I absolutely handled the lions share of night wake ups so that he could get out of bed at 6am and go to his job that we need in order to live. And then when I returned to work, we split it. And then the baby stopped waking up at night.

The months when I did night wake ups on my own weren't some horrible unequal nightmare for me. I was tired, yes, but I also took it easy. If I'd had a more challenging baby (my baby wasn't super easy, but also not super hard) we probably would have had to come up with a different solution. My DH did a ton around the house and was the primary parent in the evenings (6-10pm) and at least one full day on the weekend.

So I completely disagree with your premise that you HAVE to make sure mom isn't the only one waking up at night. It's very dependent on the situation. And it's important to note that the situation OP describes is precisely the kind where it makes sense to have mom do the vast majority of night wake ups. She has 5-6 HOURS of babysitting and household help a day. She's fine.

In a case like yours, I would have said it was even more important that you not go for a prolonged period not getting nighttime rest because if you had gotten PPD (a known risk of inadequate nighttime rest) and couldn’t return to work, there goes half of your family income which, as you point out, you absolutely need. You think your husband doing four hours of parenting a day is not “some unequal nightmare”. Others would feel differently. All we know empirically is that men who don’t do equal work in the newborn stage, statistically, so not do equal work throughout the child’s life. If that is not the outcome OP wants, OP should not start with it now.

OP is only “fine” if she says she is. Not if some lady on the internet says “I did it so you can/should too”.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:My biggest problem with this entire thread is that so much of the advice is "You better do it THIS way or your DH won't be an equal partner or parent."

I'm sorry, but if a man checks out on parenting, expects his working wife to do the lion's share of parenting/housework, or otherwise pushes an unequal distribution of the workload, it is not the fault of his wife for taking on night duty during her maternity leave. He's a person! If he has to be tricked into being an equal partner by FORCING a seemingly nonsensical work arrangement, he's trash anyway and probably was never going to be an equal partner.

Why on earth would the spouse who has to be at work in the morning for an 8 hour work day get up as much as the spouse who is on leave AND has 5-6 hours of help daily from her mom? It makes no sense. Stop yelling at women that they need to enforce an impractical and weird division of labor for a couple months at the beginning of their baby's life or any future imbalance in parental duties is THEIR FAULT.

It's not their fault. Men are responsible for their actions. Men are capable of being active and involved parents. Men are every bit as able to prioritize their children, bond with them, make time for them, sacrifice for them, etc. Every bit as capable. Like the first people I think of are some of the gay couples I know who are devoted parents. There is nothing about having a Y chromosome that makes men incapable of doing this work.

Stop convincing yourselves that women are somehow responsible for their husbands. They aren't. If a guy wants to be a good dad and partner, he can be. If he doesn't, there is not secret to making him do it. And the expectation that women will somehow figure out how to make that reluctant guy do what he does not want to do is IN ITSELF an example of the unequal distribution of labor in our society.

Because his child is waking up and needs care at night, and he cares about his child? Because his wife had a baby four weeks ago and was pregnant for nine Months before that and deserves rest, particularly if she’s breastfeeding? These are just reasons my husband would cite…

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:My biggest problem with this entire thread is that so much of the advice is "You better do it THIS way or your DH won't be an equal partner or parent."

I'm sorry, but if a man checks out on parenting, expects his working wife to do the lion's share of parenting/housework, or otherwise pushes an unequal distribution of the workload, it is not the fault of his wife for taking on night duty during her maternity leave. He's a person! If he has to be tricked into being an equal partner by FORCING a seemingly nonsensical work arrangement, he's trash anyway and probably was never going to be an equal partner.

Why on earth would the spouse who has to be at work in the morning for an 8 hour work day get up as much as the spouse who is on leave AND has 5-6 hours of help daily from her mom? It makes no sense. Stop yelling at women that they need to enforce an impractical and weird division of labor for a couple months at the beginning of their baby's life or any future imbalance in parental duties is THEIR FAULT.

It's not their fault. Men are responsible for their actions. Men are capable of being active and involved parents. Men are every bit as able to prioritize their children, bond with them, make time for them, sacrifice for them, etc. Every bit as capable. Like the first people I think of are some of the gay couples I know who are devoted parents. There is nothing about having a Y chromosome that makes men incapable of doing this work.

Stop convincing yourselves that women are somehow responsible for their husbands. They aren't. If a guy wants to be a good dad and partner, he can be. If he doesn't, there is not secret to making him do it. And the expectation that women will somehow figure out how to make that reluctant guy do what he does not want to do is IN ITSELF an example of the unequal distribution of labor in our society.

Because his child is waking up and needs care at night, and he cares about his child? Because his wife had a baby four weeks ago and was pregnant for nine Months before that and deserves rest, particularly if she’s breastfeeding? These are just reasons my husband would cite…

+1. Also, muscle memory. If you get used to ignoring your child’s cries, it gets easier over time…

[Anonymous]

OP I ended up getting up with my second almost every time after she was down to 1-2 wake ups because it was just easier. However…this meant that when the kids were weaned, I kicked my husband and told him it was his turn when they came running into our room since I’d delay with the first 1+ year.

[Anonymous]

The amount of bickering on this thread is absurd.

Have a discussion together (really, many ongoing discussions) and figure out what works for your family. For mine, it didn't make sense for both parents to be up all night and end up exhausted together. I (mom) do the overnight wakings, and dh wakes up early with the kids. That might mean as early as 4/5am for a baby or young toddler. This pattern continued naturally as kids became toddlers/preschoolers. It works best for our sleep patterns & the family's needs. Of course, it's flexible and of course we'll both help if either needs back-up for any reason.

There is no need that the dh MUST wake up overnight, basically to prove a point about equal partnership, if it's not the right choice for your family.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:The amount of bickering on this thread is absurd.

Have a discussion together (really, many ongoing discussions) and figure out what works for your family. For mine, it didn't make sense for both parents to be up all night and end up exhausted together. I (mom) do the overnight wakings, and dh wakes up early with the kids. That might mean as early as 4/5am for a baby or young toddler. This pattern continued naturally as kids became toddlers/preschoolers. It works best for our sleep patterns & the family's needs. Of course, it's flexible and of course we'll both help if either needs back-up for any reason.

There is no need that the dh MUST wake up overnight, basically to prove a point about equal partnership, if it's not the right choice for your family.

If your dh did mornings with your kid for years then he was a key part of the night shift.

I feel like a lot of posters are hung up on the details here. Does it matter really if you force your dh to wake up and change a diaper so you’re sharing equally in the burden? No specifically that does not matter. But many many many many many women know what it feels like to be the varsity parent. To be the one who knows what to do who can calm the baby easily blah blah blah. And you become this way by taking on an outsized percentage of the work in infancy. This starts a cycle that simply grows more defined and strong the longer it’s allowed to go on.

So whatever quibble about the fine print here. But if mom takes on everything in infancy it will, perhaps not always but more often than not, lead to a cycle of inequity in parenting that will have an erosive effect on the marriage and parent child relationship. You can yammer on about your specific life situation and how it does or does not conform precisely to this argument or you can head on over to the relationships forum and read all about the versions of yourself 10 years on who have to do everything and who stopped having sex with the husbands they hate. Work on some level of egalitarian parenting for your marriage and, frequently overlooked, for your kids.