Dad help

kmdendy

My husband is such a mean person when he is woken up.. He was really good about trying to be pleasant and help at night when we first got home. My baby is 6weeks. For the last week and a half she has been a decent sleeper and just wakes up at 2am and 5 am to feed. Tonight I asked my husband for help- to change her and put her back to bed. He was such a whinny baby and it turned into a fight. He doesn't think it's fair to wake him up because I am already up and he thinks breast feeding doesn't count as waking up for me. He helps nicely during the day and is good with our daughter. Anyways.. How much help are your husbands??

Kriztyn

My husband was awesome from the hospital to the 2nd week home... then when he went back to work the help dwindled. We had to have a serious talk about ways he could help (weekends mostly since he was off work then).. and we've compromised a lot and it's been MUCH better. Because I will have to go back to work in the Fall... so we will have to have a routine by then. Just talk to him about how he can help you and share some of the responsibility. 

Peanutz21

my husband is pretty much useless. he likes to think he's helping a lot...but he's not and i don't have the heart to tell him so. 

the first 2 weeks we were home he was also home from work. he did help a lot with diaper changes but  he never woke up in the middle of the night to help with baby at all.  he even fell asleep at 10pm each night.  the most he did was wake up with her at 7 am or so and attempt to give her a bottle (from pumping) and let me "sleep in" till 9/10 after waking up with her twice overnight. 

now that he's back to work the help has gotten less. he comes home from work and plays with her and feeds her a bottle.  if she's extra fussy though and he can't calm her i have to take over.  for instance last night he is watching the hockey game but little lady was crying and he couldn't handle it. he asked me to take over while his eyes remained glued onto the screen and i rocked her to sleep.

i had low expectations from the beginning in terms of how much he could actually help so i'm not that devastated or disappointed. i think it just might be the way it is since i am BF i am sure he feels useless most of the time.  

kalette

DH and I take turns getting up with the kids. Every other night. I EP so it is no big deal for him to give DS a bottle of BM. That's all he gets anyway. Its perfect because we are both guaranteed a full nights sleep every other night. It keeps us both sane, he can be productive at work and I can keep the kids alive.
He also gets them from 7 to 8 am on weekdays so I can get my shower in before he leaves for work. He also helps out around meal times, mostly entertaining DD who is 2, but he will also do dishes, bath, books or take care of DS. Once DD is down he usually goes to his computer to work on his home business before bed.

spartybride3

My husband has taken on more of a secondary supportive role. He'll clean, cook dinner, take care of the dog, etc. He doesn't really get up at night unless she's super fussy or he heard me yell crap (which means I've been vomited on). I do get annoyed when he comes home from work and I'll hand the baby over to him to give me a break and then he holds her for 5 min then puts her on the playmat and then turn on the tv. He also gives up easily on things like dressing her or putting her in the car seat because "I'm way better at that kind of stuff." I told him he needs to learn. He will change diapers, check on her if she starts fussing, and all that other stuff. I wish he could help more in the night, but as previous people have said I'm BF so there's not a ton he can do.

hordol

It would take all I had not to throat punch my husband if he tried to tell me BFing didn't count as waking up.

My DH's help has dwindled considerably in the past couple weeks (DS is 6 weeks) but he at least acknowledges it and is grateful for what I do. His work schedule has been really busy so I'm trying to extend grace right now.

hordol

Sing2phins said:

I never asked my husband to get up MOTN once I had the hang of BFing. It doesn't make sense to me for both of us to get up, and since I'm the one who has to feed her, I have to get up anyway. An extra 10 minutes to change a diaper and put her back to sleep didn't seem worth waking him for, especially once he was back to work and I was on maternity leave. If we were bottle feeding, I'd probably feel differently.

And since about 3 months, I'm only up for 15-20 minutes tops, since we don't change diapers MOTN anymore except rarely and she's a quick eater.

I will say that when she does have trouble getting back to sleep, my husband will help, and he'll help any other time I ask, I just usually don't. If that's something you want, then you'll need to have a talk with him sometime other than during the MOTN.

That's great that you don't mind waking up and doing all nightly duties, but I don't think if a woman wants some help at night that that is wrong. It's kind of BS that a guy can think he can skip out on one of the hardest parts of having a new baby just because he has a job and doesn't have boobs. Many women (myself included) also work, and I don't know why a man deserves to be more rested for his job than a woman. Like you said, changing a diaper only takes a couple minutes, so why can't he help with that once in awhile? You helped make the baby, you can help change a damn diaper at 3 am.

That said, I don't wake DH unless DS is fussy and won't go back to sleep after a feeding. Soothing back to sleep is his job, but that doesn't happen often so he still gets a pretty good end of the deal.

Avion22

OP, I think this is a discussion that you need to have sometime when you're both well-rested, and not in the middle of the night.   It's possible that he really doesn't mind helping that much, but he's just one of those people who is a jerk if they are woken out of a deep sleep,   In that case, you can just ignore how he acts and accept whatever help he can offer.   If he DOES mind helping, or is so resistant that you can't get him out of bed, then you really need to cal my discuss expectations for who does what in the MOTN.

Personally, I'm in the "it doesn't make sense to wake him up" camp.  Unless I need help with something that I can't do on my own.  For example, two days ago I woke H up and asked him to change the sheets in the crib because the baby's diaper had leaked.  We'd recently moved the bouncy chair to the living room, so I had no place to physically put the baby while I changed the sheets myself, so I asked him to come and do it while I fed the baby.   I can also see asking him for help if the baby is fussy and needs to be rocked to sleep, but usually the fastest way to put the  baby to sleep is to nurse, and H can't do that part.   

hordol

Sing2phins said:

@hordol I missed the part where I said women who want help MOTN are wrong. In fact, I'm positive that I said if OP wants help she should discuss it with her husband.

I also never said the man deserves to be rested for his job more than the woman does. I was specifically talking about when I was on maternity leave and my husband had gone back to work. I could nap when the baby did during the day; my husband didn't have that option.

As for now, since I've gone back to work, like I said, I'm up for 20 minutes tops and it's rare that I actually need help, so why should I wake him up just to make a point about how he's 50% responsible for her? That's kind of a shitty thing to do, in my opinion.

Sorry I guess I was confused then because I wasn't really sure how that was relevant to OP's problem.
The point I was trying to make was towards the op, that if she wants help she deserves it. Your post kind of confused me because it had a tone of "what's the point of waking up a husband anyway?" so I just wanted to tell OP that she shouldn't feel like she can't do that if she needs the help. That's great for you that you don't need that (that is sincere, not snarky.)

I do not think you need to wake your husband if you don't want to. I was not telling you to do so. BUT it is NOT shitty of OP to wake hers, and she is not just trying to "prove a point." My post wasn't really about trying to tell YOU to do anything. OP was the one asking for advice.


Eta something

kmdendy

Yeah well that night she ended up being up and fuzzy for over 2 hours.  

'

Earlier that night.. 

I told my husband that we HAVEE to wake the baby up from there nap by 8:30 if we wanted her to sleep that night.  She had gone down for a nap at 7pm.  We got involved in watching a movie... I fell asleep (That was my first day back at work and the night before i was up all night with the baby... exhausted)  I briefly woke up at 8:45 and said to him that we need to get her up and would he mind going to get her.  He INSISTED on letting her sleep because he wanted to watch the movie uninterrupted.  

So when she woke up.. i wanted some help because he was the one who insisted and messed up her sleep time.

It was just annoying.  Overall.. my husband is great with her and helping during the day.  He is just ask ass when he is woken up.  An whiney ass. lol. Oh well.. I'm glad I'm not the one women dealing with this! I wish men had boobs! 

I also agree.. i wish he would give me credit for waking up to feed her and not discredit me like that! It is work.