Reply to Should I excuse DH from nighttime duties?

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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]8:57, you’re right, it’s a blip in the scheme of things. Baby’s first year is a blip - mine is 12 now so trust me it’s all a blip. But that first year can be a really hard blip.

It sounds like your baby was on the easier side when it came to nighttime stuff. Mine was hell - he didn’t STTN reliably until he was over 2 years old. He was also later diagnosed with autism (so it wasn’t my failure, it’s just the way his brain is wired).

My ex refused to help with night duty after baby was 2 weeks old - and we didn’t even make it through the first year before separating. Thank god we did separate because that’s not the only issue we had, [b]but I was made to feel like I was crazy for needing more support for nighttime parenting. I wasn’t, my baby was just hard. [/b]

So, you do you. But when someone asks if dad should be given a blank check on nighttime parenting duty, the answer is No. Everyone can come up with their own way of dividing the labor, but moms sleep is not less important than dads. Even during maternity leave - mom is still healing after all and NEEDS sleep in order to heal. Yes, some moms feel great post-birth. They still need rest to ward off PPD/PPA. [/quote]

I’ve noticed a lot of (white, American) people do this. Try to minimize how hard the newborn period can be for many new moms and pooh pooh those who want or need help. No wonder PPD is so common among this crowd![/quote]

But it works both ways! Of course the newborn period is hard, everyone struggles with some aspects of it. I’m a PPD survivor and I’d be the first person to tell you that the postpartum period is rough as hell, I didn’t get enough support, and people need to be more aware of this.

And yet, I also did nighttime wakeups and didn’t find them burdensome and it was the right choice for me. Sleep deprivation was not my particular issue. I actually liked my nighttime feeds and it was an aspect of new motherhood that felt peaceful and gave me uninterrupted time with my baby. I’m not pooh poohing anything when I say that. It was my experience. It doesn’t negate PP’s experience. It sounds like she had an aggressively unhelpful partner and that sounds like a nightmare. Nothing but empathy for her.

But OP has support (her mom coming daily for several hours, something I would have given anything for at that stage) and has not indicated she’s sleep deprived or struggling with wake ups. So she’s getting advice based on that.

It doesn’t help anyone to just NOT LISTEN to what they are saying, project all your own issues into them, call them liars, and then say you detest them because they had a different experience. [/quote]

Your lack of nighttime rest absolutely was a factor in your PPD. [/quote]

A cool thing to do is tell other women their lived experience is wrong and that they are incapable of understanding, but justify it with “feminism” and “caring about women.”

You don’t know sh!t about my PPD and you certainly don’t know more than me, my therapist, or my doctor. But go on trying to make me fit your agenda.[/quote]

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