Husbands and waking up at night with baby

[GrayMatterWife]

I get up with the baby. Unless DH is not due at the hospital the next day (that is, it's NOT a weeknight AND he's not on-call that weekend). Then he gets up. I don't feel the least bit guilty about that, either--since I do it most of the time.

I can do my job responsibly if I am sleep-deprived. No one dies because my drafting is shoddy. People could die if DH can't think clearly.

[poky]

Seriously, you guys have no idea how much better all of your posts are making me feel about things. Ironic, since you're really just confirming all of my fears. What can I say, misery loves company. I guess I often find myself wondering if I'm being too much of a martyr and not holding him to the fire enough. But reading what you wrote is making me realize that this is really completely normal and not unique to our relationship at all - for better or worse.

You've just put your finger on exactly why this forum is so invaluable. Perspective and knowing you're not alone makes a *huge* difference, doesn't it?

I do all the house work, which is ok since I am not currently working. I didn't plan on staying home until Anna was born. I got really stressed out b/c even before baby, when I was working full-time, I was still the one doing everything around the house, even on his easy months. It caused a lot of fights because I resented him for not helping out around the house much.

After Anna was born I told him I can either work full-time, but he will have to split household duties 50/50 with me or I can stay home and handle them all. He agreed I should stay home with her. The thoughts of working full-time, managing the household duties and taking care of the baby stressed me out too much. Don't get me wrong, he is a great father who will help me out most the time if I ask him. The key is coming up with a plan you both agree on. In terms of night-time duty a lot of babies get better about sleeping through the night once they are 4 months old, so it may be overwhelming at first but it will get better with time.

[Flynn]

I'll just agree with everyone here. I did EVERYTHING until our second born was about 14 months and then I implemented a "plan."

Honestly I wish I had bottle fed with our second child (both child 1 and 2 REFUSED bottles) from the beginning. It would have enabled DH to help me out in so many MORE ways.

We always had our kids in their own rooms from the beginning with a comfortable chair to cat nap. Waking DH up MORE than he was paged was just a dumb plan so baby was fed in own room.

I have done just about all nighttime parenting too. It has been hard, but I've been lucky that I've had my mom around for when I was just getting too sleep deprived to function. She stayed with us at one point (she lives nearby anyway) and got up with DS for a week when I really needed that. DH was very supportive at that time, but it was just not an option for him to do that.

[Pollyanna]

When baby is first born dh and I have a tag-team approach. I feed baby and give her to him and then he changes diapers and puts baby back to bed. After baby is about 3-4 months old I handle any nighttime waking unless I'm too tired and then he takes over. I seem to need much less sleep as I get older so the sleep deprivation with #5 has been much easier to handle then when I had my first.

[samssugarmomma]

Pollyanna,
I seem to be the opposite! The older I get - the more sleep I need!!!

[Chrisada]

I co-sleep and breastfeed, so I am in charge at night. When DH wanted to stop co-sleeping with DS1, I told him that he would have to help with getting up in the middle of the night when he woke up. Of course that never happened, so DS1 co-slept with us much longer than DH wanted. Now with baby number two along, DH is now responsible for giving DS1 a bath and putting him to sleep. I am just not able to do everything on my own now that we have two. I'm sure once DH starts residency next year though, I'll be back on my own.

[Ladybug122]

When DS was a newborn, DH was an M4. I breastfed, but we "shared" (maybe 70/30) the night time parenting until I went back to work full time (at which time DH was off b/c he had finished rotations). At that point, it was more 50/50 (on mornings when I had to be at work). However, when DS was 4 months old and internship started...it was 95% me. I expect it'll be 95% me this time around as well. I detest being sleep deprived (I don't handle it "gracefully"), so the first 3 months are looming ahead for me.