Dh would always get up and still does...if im up he is up too to help.
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Dh would always get up and still does...if im up he is up too to help.
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Mine doesn't / didn't....not so much because he won't but because we just decided over time that it didn't work.
We found that with him working the next day all that resulted was two tired and feral people instead of one. Because even on the times he was getting up, I was still waking up anyway.
And with breastfeeding it just seemed a bit pointless waking him up for the sake of changing a nappy when I had to get up and feed anyway.
It's hard to find a balance Leasha but you will work it out eventually, and Shell will take on other responsibilites as Jazz gets older. I think with newborns especially alot seems to fall on mum (not making excuses for her or anyone else's other half lol, it's just biology I guess).
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Agree one hundred %!DH and I are firm believers that parenting is a "shared" thing and not just for all the fun, happy, positive times either.
ETA - I'm just curious, have you had the discussion where you ask Shel what things would be like if the shoe was on the other foot, and she'd been the one to carry Jazz and give birth to her? Maybe that could help her to understand things from your point of view?
Last edited by AnyDream; September 26th, 2008 at 11:20 AM.
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DH & I agreed before having kids that he would get up one night a week for me to let me "sleep through". It actually happened by mistake because we were talking with someone (cant remember who now, may have been his family?) & it came up about parenting etc etc & he said "Oh when we have kids I'll be giving Danielle a night off, it's only fair, it's both our children". He said it to look good but it back-fired when the time came around for us to have a baby & I reminded him of his promise for my "night off".
He wasn't happy but I made him stick to it, well for most of the time he has. He still complains about it & will often get me up to settle DD or DS back to sleep because they "wont settle for him". I also still have to wake him to get up to Tobias as he sleeps through it most of the time, so i dont ever get my whole night to sleep through.
He often starts saying on the Friday night before bedtime (his night to get up) that he's not feeling well or something along those lines so if he doesn't feel like getting up he'll use that excuse. I simply reply "Damn thats gonna suck when you have to get up to Tobias tonight". He quickly miraculously (sp?) recovers!
When DS arrived DH was obviously hoping to get out of the Friday night get ups. I got home from hospital on the Thursday & on the Friday night before bed I told him I'll push the bassinette around to his side of the bed. He asked what for. I told him "It's Friday night.... your night". He said "Oh, are we still doing that?" Ummm yeah! He rolled his eyes & huffed & puffed with his tanty (infront of my sisterhehe) but I made him keep it up.
I often find myself reminding him that the kids are BOTH of ours, not just mine who he gets to show off when it suits him.
It is just a cop out when they say "He/she wont settle for me" blah blah blah. It drives me INSANE!!!! Wouldn't that be the life, being able to have a child when it suits you but when it all gets too hard someone else will setlle it for you & do all the hard work for you.
Anyway, sorry I've gone on & on but its a sore topic here too.
I suggest you sit down with Shel calmly & explain to her how you're feeling & try to work out a time that she can give you a break. Even if its in the afternoon once a week, she could take Jazz for a walk in the pram for an hour or so while you have a nap or a bath or whatever you want to do, but I believe you definately need a break.
Good luck getting through to her hun.
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DP would/will get up nights where he doesn't have to be at work the next morning ie. Friday/Saturday OR if there has been a spew etc to help clean up (I'm really, reallly bad with vomit).
However, when i also went back to work this had to change as I couldn't be tired all the time either so it went back to being a shared thing. The good thing with DP's job is he gets heaps of carers leave so he always stays home with DD if she is sick
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DH doesnt get up....
Well at the start he did and i told him that there was NO point in him doing so.
He works and so has to be on the ball in the morning, where as i dont have to.
I also exclusively BF, so i dont really see the point cos 9 times out of 10 he would need to wake me to feed her, so really there is no point in it.
Sure it would be nice if he insisted that he would change the nappys or that i express so he can do a feed at night, but its not going to happen, and i would be awake anywayhe doesnt know how to be quiet!
However as a compromise, sometimes i will put in ear plugs in at about 4 am and he will get up if she need anything or will play with her so i can have a bit of a sleep in. I still have to get up and feed her, but having the ear plugs means that i can have a deeper sleep without having to listen out. We ususally do this for one day in the weekend
If she wakes up when we are still up, i often have to ask him to get up as he just assumes that i will do it. It is not that he doesnt want to, he just doesnt have his brain switched on the same way that i do.
Sometimes its annoying, but usually if i just let him know calmly it works.
Being a new Mum can be sooo tiring and until you are actually doing it all, i dont think anyone can understand. I dont think that being female makes it any easier to comprehend iykwim, actually being the full time parent is the only way that you realise.
You need to sit down, explain how you are feeling and also see if you can come to some sort of
compromise or ask for some help
If it makes any difference, Jaz will run to you when she skins her knees and look for you for the comfort, I dont want to be loved more, but when MJ just wants a cuddle from me, i realise all those times getting up in the night are worth it
I hope this helps a litlle
ETA : Parenting IS for BOTH parents... However you need to work out what is done by whom, DH works so that i can stay at home and look after Molly Jane, if i was back at work i would definatly expect more from him, but his role is to bring in the money so that i can continue to enjoy being a SAHM, my job is full time, but so is his as he is on call a lot as its his own business.
Maybe Shell sees the fact that she is working as her contribution... DH does help out when he can and sometimes he will send me off to the shops (as in clothes shops) on Saturday mornings (with $$) so i can have a break, this works for us and i am happy with it for the most part.
Last edited by Sammiejane; September 26th, 2008 at 02:30 PM.
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My DH has always gotten up with me when BF and now if DS wakes in the middle of the night. For morning feeds now he will go and fetch DS and bring him into me and then go and warm his bottle. If it is a work day and 6am he will just go and get ready for work otherwise he will get back in to bed and sleep.
I think it's a personal decision I am very much a everything has to be shared person. DH always puts DS to bed in the evening and has done from being very young. Bath, BF and then bed and DH would do the bath and then put him to bed once he'd had his feed.
With my return back to work when DS was 7mths I was even more grateful that we parented this way. We fell into this routine we never discussed it but DH felt that he would be missing out on so much not to get up to DS.
Best of luck with getting the help you want/need!
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This is what you could maybe explain to Shell???? Not getting in now will only hinder her ability to jump in later, if Jazz isn't getting used to her when she is upset already. In a way she is making you the only parent that can soothe her and have her of a night...
Jazz needs to go to Shell when upset or unsettled, so they can find there own little niche to have.
Shell may regret standing back later on when she only wants you and not her other mummy...
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Leash, I'm another one who is probably guilty of 'Shel-bashing' - sorry if that is how you feel.
And the Bear usually doesn't get up in the night, but so far our DD has only been waking up once at night and usually falls asleep within half an hour of finishing her feed (touch wood she keeps doing it!) so I haven't had too much trouble coping with the night shift. But the other night I did ask him to do the night shift cause I was getting ratty due to having broken sleep every night. He agreed (after a little coaxing) and DD (daddy's girl that she is LOL) did her trick of sleeping from 11 to 5 am so it wasn't a big deal in the end. But he does heaps of other things - like cooking dinner 99.9% of the time, taking DD for long walks, looking after her for a whole day so I can get my hair done, sending me to the shops on my own while he looks after her, doing nappies, baths, settling, getting up at 6 and entertaining her for as long as he can so I can sleep longer, and tag-teaming with me when she is being impossible. We were doing that yesterday and I was the one saying "she doesn't love mummy" because he was better settling her than I was! But the point is we worked as a team. It's just about getting the help and support you need and working together as a team. I hope you can talk to Shel and work out a way that it works better for you. I think your Baby Buddies are just concerned that you aren't getting the support that you need and deserve. You are doing a great job but you shouldn't have to do it alone. Big hugs
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Yep, he sure does. I don't want to offend anyone here, but any partner who says "but I work all day" is kidding themselves that they've got the hard end of the bargain. I used to have a highly stressful, highly responsible job where working 70 hours a week was not uncommon. And I'm telling you now, that's a walk in the park compared to this mummy gig. As a mother you work 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, 365 days a year. No lunch breaks. No tea breaks. No annual leave.
It is harder when you're breastfeeding but it doesn't make help impossible. DH used to get up and give DD#1 a bottle of EBM. Since DD#1 and now DD#2 are on bottles we alternate - one of us is "on call" from when we go to bed until 5.30 am. Either baby wakes up, that person gets up and deals with them (EBM can be used so no excuse re breastfeeding - otherwise, just settling etc). Come 5.30 am the other one takes over. This gives each of us a "sleep in" every second day and every second night while sleep may be disturbed with baby monitors going off, you don't actually have to get up. The pay off for my DH being this involved is that his daughters absolutely adore him and there are very, very few occasions when DD#1 needs her mummy, as opposed to simply needing a parent.
And one of my biggest ever peeves is when a partner says "I've fed her/bathed her/settled her for you". Sorry, but they're not doing it for me, they're doing it for their child!! You choose to parent together. Its 50/50 and that includes the nasty stuff as well as the gorgeous stuff.
Nothing like a cuddle from DD after a hard day's work!
DH seems to be an extremely heavy sleeper. When DD cries he doesnt hear it at all!!!
In the beginning sure, he would change her nappies and put her to sleep, now I dont even remember the last time he changed her nappies, infact, im pretty sure he hasnt realised I changed to MCN!
I got really angry at this too and I said to him that it was his loss from bonding with DD!!!!!
So for that day he did a few extra things like feed her, but after the one day of talk, back to the old useless DH who just plays his computer games!!!
You're not alone =)
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Leash - I'm sorry if I'm always "Shel bashing" but really - she does have to pull her finger out and help with the "parenting" of this child.
She may not be the one feeding Jazz - but she has three things Jazz wants - a chest to lay her head on, arms to cuddle her with, and lips to kiss her.
And yes, DH does get up to DS - still - all the time - I never go in there anymore - and when DD wakes, he goes to the kitchen and gets her bottle and warms it up while I get DD out of the bassinette next to the bed. Then he starts feeding her while I go to the toilet... he does this and then goes back to sleep (if she doesn't start screaming after the feed like she did last night!!).
This is during the working week though - on weekends he will feed her and let me sleep. Plus, he also gets up with DS when he gets up EARLY and lets me sleep in every morning (well till 6 anyway..lol)
I don't have a superman for a husband - I just have a partner that knows what parenting means - SHARING the responsibility - and doesn't just hand the babies back to me. (Hmm.. that could be because he knows what reaction he would get from me if he did it...)
I hope she gets better for you hon, I really do.
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One thing that DH and i do and it seems to work for both of us is have one night where all the responsibility is his. Sounds a bit silly but from the moment he's home on a Fri he looks after the girls. I can go to bed as early as i like and he has to see to them if they wake etc. He also has to get up when they wake in the morning. He doesnt mind and i see it as my time off my JOB haha iykwim. Of course i'm still around if he needs a hand or something but its nice to go to bed and know i dont have to get up until my body is ready to wake up. Maybe you and shel could come to some arrangement similar. It helps me get through the tough nights (esp in the early days) knowing that i had a full nights sleep coming soon. HTH
Hoody
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When our second came along it was DP looking after the older one if they woke at night and me looking after the new bub, now im pregnant with the 3rd i make DP get up to both of them at night so that hopefully i'll be ready to be getting up every 3 hrs to the new bub again
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At this stage I would think about how you can get the most value (ie. rest for you) out of Shel's helping. Are you able to feed lying down in bed?? If you have the hang of that then sometimes when Jazz wakes in the night ask Shel if she can change her and bring her to you - it means that you don't have to really wake up until after the feed, for burping and putting back to bed.
Also - during the afternoons, ask Shel to take Jazz for a walk. The chances are that Jazz gets a snooze, Shel gets some cuddles, and you get a break...
Are there people other than Shel who can help out - the less you are alone when Jazz is sad the better!
My hubby had a couple of months off work when our bub was born, and we split the load evenly at that time. Once he went back to work I did as much of the nights as I could - though we had the 2 hour rule, where if bub had been yelling for 2 hours then we swapped whoever was trying to settle him. He still takes vaccination day off work, because sometimes that day is really hard.
He does most of the baths, a few of the nappies, and most of the feeding-solids-in-the-evenings. If boob-settling doesn't work then he'll help settle too. The baths and the feeding are jobs he really enjoys. Ask Shel what her favourite bits of parenthood are, and make sure she does lots of them!
My DP always got up to help
my wife and i have a system which seems to work pretty well. i work, but i still help out a heap. any bloke who can't help needs to look at themselves. i go to bed around 10 which is usually as he is having a feed. dp stays with ds until he settles, which on this feed never seems to happen. she will then feed him around 2am and wake me up to change and settle him while she goes to bed. i then look after him til the 6am feed which is usually not too hard. i then bottle feed him and settle him before i head to work at which time i wake her up for the rest of the day.
this way we both get a reasonable amount of sleep. some times it works in my favour because he will setlle real quick and i basically only wake up for one hour of the night. sometimes it works in her favour because he will be a grizzle guts from 2am to 6am.
i firmly believe that parenting is the job of mother and father. too many guys leave the mum to do everything.
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DH doesn't get up in the night when he is working - he gets up at 6 and doesn't get home til 6 so in a way I don't expect him to. Having said that though, there are exceptions, the "she doesn't like me" is a cop out for sure. DH used to walk Iz around the house sometimes for up to an hour to get her to sleep at nights while I went to bed and that was after a day at work. He loved the time with her even if she was Miss Cranky Pants. On the weekends I would give him one sleep in day and I would have one too - but we often compromise.
If I have had a cr@ppy nights sleep(most nights right now) he will get up with her (he's been home from work for a few weeks) no matter what time she gets up. We also have to change nappies in the night to stop her wetting through. Most times DH falls asleep on the couch and comes to me to get me up to do it when he comes to bed - recently I have put my foot down and said he is up anyway. He worries because we have to wake her to do it and worries he can't get her back down - he did it a few times this week without a hassle though so I think he proved to himself that he can do it.
As a PP mentioned hun, feeding isn't all there is to motherhood and I think if you both sit down and talk about how she can help you most it would be good for both of you. It is tough hun and I hope you can come to an arrangement where both of you feel good about it all.
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