Anonymous wrote:If you’re staying home, obviously you need to do the night shifts. You can nap during the day when the baby naps. Stop being selfish.

- woman

I love it when the "selfish" accusations start rolling out. Or should I say trolling out.

If you’re staying home, obviously you need to do the night shifts. You can nap during the day when the baby naps. Stop being selfish.

- woman

I’m an early bird and my husband is a night owl.

For baby 1, I would pump and he would take the baby 7pm - 12am and I would eat dinner and sleep.

For baby 2, I didn’t pump and I woke for all feedings, but I would go to bed super early because 7:30/8pm - 12am was my best chance to get 3-4 hours sleep consecutively.

Mainly I did 98% between 12am - 6am until each kid was 18mo while working full time - but I have never washed a bottle or a pump part. He cleaned up the kitchen after dinner, did laundry and prepped all bottles for daycare. Basically he did all the things I would normally do in the evening so that I could spend time with our older child or rest in the evening.

Anonymous wrote:So my husband is refusing to help out at night with baby and says since he has work (during my maternity leave) he needs sleep. We have had a number of conversations and he refuses to take one feeding shift (like 1am or 2am) he said he will do the morning (5am) but I'm an early riser and that will not help relieve the sleepless nights. Our son is pretty nocturnal still and is up the majority of the night.

How did you split your feeding shifts? I'm sleep deprived and need a solution. I am definitely starting to resent him sleeping through my sleeplessness nights which is not good for our relationship.

I'll be honest. So, during my mat leave, I all the night feedings (and since I'm being honest, I would put baby in bed to nurse. I had a bassinnet next to the bed too) and dh would do the early diaper change or whatever when he got up-and get the other kids up and ready-so I'd sleep in!

I'm an early riser typically, but this worked well during the leave, because he could get the sleep he needed to work, and I got a good stretch of sleep by sleeping later than I usually do.

I took 12 weeks. Then, dh took 4 (you can use fmla within the first 12 months). So for my first month back to work, I didn't have to do any early morning stuff, he got up and handled stuff while I nursed baby and got out the door. By the end of all this, she was old enough that she slept decently and in the end, neither of us were badly sleep deprived.

I did everything (including feeding) during maternity leave & right after I went back to work. Good thing is that baby did not need night feeding since 2 months old, and she slept through the night from 8pm till 7am. Currently at 7 months old, baby still sleeps through the night, but more awake time in the daylight hours. Sleep train if you can!

Working a desk job is way easier than taking care of a newborn. Come on - I bet the husband is spending many hours at "work" on his fantasy baseball team or watching YouTube videos.

DD was a sleepy newborn and I was nursing. I did not want to miss feedings so I did all of them. She had no trouble sleeping alone in her crib so that was not an issue. If she was not such a good sleeper then DH would have done bottle feedings for sure.

That being said looking back a very large part of me wishes we had combo fed from the start. I think it is better for a marriage for both to be a little sleep deprived than for one to be super sleep deprived. Those first four months of only getting sleep in 2-4 hour increments was terrible for me psychologically and it affected our marriage as well. DH had no understanding of what I was going through because he was sleeping in a separate room. I remember when I finally slept 8 hours in a row I felt truly happy to be a mom for the first time.

Is your DH willing to do Friday and Saturday nights?

Anonymous wrote:Sorry but this is why you’re home on maternity leave. If he’s going to handle a shift it should be day earlier than midnight or 5 AM. He needs rest to go to work. You need to nap when the baby sleeps during the day.

+1 (did this for all 3 of mine)

OPs husband is not not offering to help.. he just wants to do the 5am feeding, which is the one OP wants to do as she’s an “early riser”.

I’m guessing this feeding Makes sense for him to do, as it’s likely close to him getting up to go to work anyway. If the baby is as nocturnal as OP posits, the. She should have time to rest through the day while DH is working, and this arrangement actually makes sense.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Dh took the 11pm feeding. I went to bed by 8 or 9. So with baby up at 1?still got a stretch of 4 or 5 hours of sleep.

This. You go to bed when baby "goes" to bed, around 8 or 9pm. DH can do whatever he wants (go to bed too or stay up) but he does anything beore midnight. After midnight, it's your shift again.

We have 3 kids. We've done this each time - starting at arnd 3 weeks, I'd pump 1 bottle for DH to use. I went to bed after the 7-9pm feeding, and DH fed the baby the bottle whenever the next feeding was - 11 or midnight or so. Then, he'd go to sleep, and I'd do the 2 am/ish feeding.

Absolutely ridiculous for your husband to not help. 100% obnoxious. You are a team, you created that baby together as a team, and you care for it as a team. Just becuase you are home does not mean you do all the work or that you do not also need several hours of consecutive sleep.

This is what we did for 2 kids as well. It works really well. I always got a pretty solid 4-5 hours of sleep from 9pm-2am and I was able to function reasonably well. DH got plenty of sleep for work. It's also great to get your baby on a bottle on a daily basis if you're going back to work. I had a lot of friends who had the baby refuse a bottle after maternity leave, which was a huge stressor.

Anonymous wrote:Side DH. He has to be fresh for work. It’s nice of him to offer to take 5 am. My DH has a super stressful job for which he needs to be alert for and wouldn’t do any of the night wakings.
I think that you need to sleep during the day whenever your baby sleeps. I know easier said that done, but it is what it is while you are on leave.

Mom martyr for the win!!!

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Dh took the 11pm feeding. I went to bed by 8 or 9. So with baby up at 1?still got a stretch of 4 or 5 hours of sleep.

This. You go to bed when baby "goes" to bed, around 8 or 9pm. DH can do whatever he wants (go to bed too or stay up) but he does anything beore midnight. After midnight, it's your shift again.

We have 3 kids. We've done this each time - starting at arnd 3 weeks, I'd pump 1 bottle for DH to use. I went to bed after the 7-9pm feeding, and DH fed the baby the bottle whenever the next feeding was - 11 or midnight or so. Then, he'd go to sleep, and I'd do the 2 am/ish feeding.

Absolutely ridiculous for your husband to not help. 100% obnoxious. You are a team, you created that baby together as a team, and you care for it as a team. Just becuase you are home does not mean you do all the work or that you do not also need several hours of consecutive sleep.

Agreed. Maternity leave or SAHM, it doesn't mean you're on duty 24/7 and he gets to coast while you drop from exhaustion! "Nap while the baby naps" only works in theory. Both my kids' naps lasted 45 minutes max when they were infants. By the time I got the child down and lay down and fell asleep, the baby would be up. Not to mention there were household chores to do.

Anonymous wrote:I did all night feedings as well. I was breastfeeding and there wasn’t much for DH to do. Plus I can wake up, feed in 30 mins and go back to sleep easily. Dh isn’t able to fall back asleep once he is woken up. Fwiw this only lasted a few months until our kids were sleeping through the night. If it went on in perpetuity I would probably ask dh to start waking up for one of the feedings.

+1 it did us no favors to have 2 zombies in the house. DH picked up the slack in other ways. It was my job to feed the baby.

Anonymous wrote:I did all night feedings. DH helped out other ways but he needs to be rested for work and I would sneak in sleep during the day. We were both exhausted, but that’s just life with a newborn. It will pass.

+1 When DH was home (he took a month during my leave) we took turns. Once he went back to work I did all night feedings, and he took over after work as soon as he got home.

He took a month when I went back to work and the plan was for him to do all night feedings then but DD was sleeping through by then.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Dh took the 11pm feeding. I went to bed by 8 or 9. So with baby up at 1?still got a stretch of 4 or 5 hours of sleep.

This. You go to bed when baby "goes" to bed, around 8 or 9pm. DH can do whatever he wants (go to bed too or stay up) but he does anything beore midnight. After midnight, it's your shift again.

We have 3 kids. We've done this each time - starting at arnd 3 weeks, I'd pump 1 bottle for DH to use. I went to bed after the 7-9pm feeding, and DH fed the baby the bottle whenever the next feeding was - 11 or midnight or so. Then, he'd go to sleep, and I'd do the 2 am/ish feeding.

Absolutely ridiculous for your husband to not help. 100% obnoxious. You are a team, you created that baby together as a team, and you care for it as a team. Just becuase you are home does not mean you do all the work or that you do not also need several hours of consecutive sleep.