A friend of mine has this rule in her house.
A friend of mine has this rule in her house.
papaya / 10343 posts
I'm a SAHM and my husband works. I've always done overnights but mostly because I was breastfeeding then I was just used to it. But he gets up with her in the morning and lets me sleep in until he has to go to work. It works for us.
wonderful kiwi / 23653 posts
It's not a hard rule right now but yes. Since I'm on maternity leave I don't ask DH for help unless I really need it it I know he can rest the next day.
When I go back to work though, who knows! We will prob have to split it more.
nectarine / 2765 posts
I work & DH stays home...we're pretty split based on how tired the other is, if one of us wakes up first, etc. It works well, with no score keeping, etc. Yes, I have to be up early for work but he's also had a long day watching two one year olds which is another full time job in itself.
blogger / pineapple / 12381 posts
I work much longer hours and have overnights. He picks up a lot of slack for me at home. In turn, I don't complain about the dirty house!
pomegranate / 3604 posts
Yes and no. I try to do the majority of night wakings for both boys since I'm on mat leave, but some nights mama just needs more than 2-3 hours of consecutive sleep, yanno? Some nights it's like playing Jack-in-the-box between the two of them.
I always make sure he knows this before we go to bed though.
GOLD / eggplant / 11517 posts
Mine thinks if he has the day off, he should be exempt, but that makes zero sense to me?!?!?!
wonderful cherry / 21504 posts
No. For most the year or so, motn wake up meant nursing, so yes I handled almost all of them. But now we go back and forth depending on what's happening the next day and home tired we are, but just going for a regular day or work is not enough. I SAH and I do take a lot more motn wake ups, but not all. Staying home with a toddler is just as tiring.
hostess / wonderful watermelon / 39513 posts
Only when DH worked at 6am during my maternity leave. We didn't get regular wakeups after 8 & 6 weeks so it was never a big deal. LO 2 had a few rough weeks of bad sleep at 11ish months and we took turns.
honeydew / 7295 posts
Yes but only because I am a SAHM and he is the breadwinner. He doesn't do overnight on weekends either though and that is going to have to change when the new baby gets here because ill need some kind of break. Nursing might make that hard at first though.
pomegranate / 3643 posts
Apparently I am the mean SAHM who makes her husband get up too! Jk. LO is still in our room so he wakes both of us up. Then I nurse and diaper and do whatever. Then I wake DH to swaddle him and we all go back to sleep.
That's what he gets for being a better swaddled than me!
I don't feel bad though. When I worked PT, it was way harder for me to be at home after a bad night sleep than at the office. And DH takes way more naps on the weekend than I do so I think he is surviving. I don't know. For me, WOH and SAH are both hard work. But SAH is so physical - I feel like I am constantly carrying at least one kid around. I need my rest too!
honeydew / 7230 posts
I'm a SAHM so I do try to take care of overnight stuff on my own, but there are also two of them so I sometimes need DH to rock one while I nurse the other, then switch, if they both wake up at the same time.
apricot / 409 posts
We both WOH. I generally do night time duty since I nurse and it usually puts baby back to sleep. If it doesn't, I hold out as long as I can before waking DH and having him take over.
persimmon / 1461 posts
Nope, any time DD would wake up from newborn until now we would both be up. One would do nappy while the other would get the bottle ready, then swap to do the feed/settle. We figured we were both exhausted from the day whether it was with work or looking after baby so we both suffered through the night
nectarine / 2028 posts
For now, yes. When he was on intermittent leave (and worked from home) then he helped more at night. But for now, beyond the occasional put-the-dropped-paci in, it's all me. I'm only working very part-time and he's the main breadwinner, so I feel it is fair this way-he needs to be "on" 10-12 working hours a day at least, so he needs sleep! It's important to note that this is 100% my choice, though! He helps on weekends...and I reserve the right to cry "uncle" at any point and ask for help!
nectarine / 2028 posts
@Mae: we've done this, too...that extra hour in the morning for me to sleep while he takes over has been crucial for me to face the day after a rough night!
papaya / 10570 posts
Umm, no!!!! If we played by this rule, nobody would get up for the baby 5 nights a week!! When I was on maternity leave for 7 months, I handled all the night wake-ups because it seemed wrong to ask DH to get up when he had work the next day. I think if we ever have another one, though, I'm going to ask for more support for night wake ups because being home with a child is work too!
grapefruit / 4819 posts
Yes and no. When DH was working 70+ hour weeks outside in the blazing hot sun of the tropics in Australia, yes, I did all of the overnight duties without question as he needed his rest and I was a SAHM. When he was working more normal hours in an office, he shared the duties as much as he could, although with both babies being EBF, I still had to wake up regardless.
Currently, with a 2.5 yr old and a nearly 12 month old, I still do about 80% of the overnight duties as I am still a SAHM, but DH will usually help out if the noise wakes him - he sleeps with ear plugs and I wake at the slightest noise, so I oftentimes get to the girls before he wakes up. I'm happy with the arrangement.
eggplant / 11716 posts
Well we both work, but even back when I was on maternity leave, the answer was no. Right now, I'm pregnant again and super super sick so we both work, but at home DH is doing 90%of all the parenting, night wakeups, cleaning etc. So I guess only pregnant sickos get a pass in our house.
pomegranate / 3577 posts
I tolerate interrupted sleep much better than DH. He takes the first evening shift to let me sleep for 2-3 hours and I get the second.
persimmon / 1367 posts
We both WOH, but I do all the night wake-ups since nursing is the best and quickest way to get LO back to sleep. But the tradeoff is that DH does all the cooking and cleaning during the day so I can go to bed earlier and generally relax when not on baby duty. It is an odd spit, but it works for us because my husband can't tolerate not getting his sleep and I hate chores!
hostess / wonderful persimmon / 25556 posts
We both work outside the house. Typically whoever is least tired gets up. Haha.
pomegranate / 3791 posts
With DS#1 I would try to not wake him if he had to work in the morning, but it certainly wasn't a rule because sometimes on terrible nights you just need the help. Now that we have two under two, hell no, this doesn't happen. I'll be up just as early and working just as hard as him, it's not like when there's just one and you get down time when they nap.
cantaloupe / 6885 posts
When I was on maternity leave (I had a year) I did the night wakings. If one was particularly terrible or we were having a rough night he would come take over.
Now that I'm back to work she rarely wakes up. If she does we trade off.
grapefruit / 4712 posts
DH gets up too! I am a WAHM (part time for my dads company) but full time toddler wrangler and nursing an almost toddler momma. My job is just as important as his. We share the kid duties day (when he is off) and night.
pomelo / 5469 posts
@Cherrybee: this made me laugh "Sorry E, we are both working tomorrow...can't deal with you tonight! bye!"
It's irrelevant now because we don't really ever have to deal with LO during the night, but when she did wake it was for feeds and I was EBF so I dealt with it. Oh, apart from the first couple of weeks when we both didn't know what we were doing and both got up together with her in the night!
persimmon / 1328 posts
Yes… I think looking after a baby all day is just as tough as most jobs, but my DH drives 2 hours each way to and from work so I never felt comfortable with him being sleep deprived for the drive.
cantaloupe / 6730 posts
When she was a newborn and DH was working, I didn't get him up because me and baby would sleep in. As she got older, I still did overnights because I'd be back asleep in 2 min and DH would be awake for an hour trying to get back to sleep.
pomegranate / 3231 posts
We both work M-F. So that rule would result in the baby being ignored completely. So, no.
grapefruit / 4649 posts
Since I nurse (and sah) I do night wakeups unless it's a really awful night and I am at my wits end- which typically means she is screaming so it's not like he's sleeping anyway. On days he is off he usually plays with her for her for her one hour wakeup in the morning and then he goes back to bed with her.
grapefruit / 4418 posts
No. I work part time and more often then not my husband helps on the nights I have off the next day so I can take advantage of it and be more rested. I tend to do most night time parenting because I'm nursing anyways so he can suck it up and be tired at work sometimes too!
wonderful pear / 26210 posts
Not surprised I am an outlier, but yes, when I was at home and my husband was working out of the home, I dealt with all of the night wakings because I could nap during the day and I didn't want my husband to be an a situation where he got into an accident while driving because he fell asleep at the wheel.
cantaloupe / 6692 posts
Right now I SAH and DH works a very physically demanding 10 hour job that starts at 4am. I handle all the night wakings at the moment just because I feel like I should. DH is great to always take over on the weekends without me asking or if we're having a particularly rough weeknight, he'll take turns with me anyway.
When I go back to work we will probably take turns more but I'm more comfortable doing most of the baby duty. DH being exhausted at work can be dangerous for him but I can push through my desk job.
GOLD / wonderful coconut / 33402 posts
During maternity leave, she was still in our room, so he helped til like 2/3 and then went to the guest room to get a solid 4/5 hours. But once we were both at work, we both helped. I mostly got up since the boobs were the quickest way to get her back to sleep.
GOLD / wonderful apricot / 22646 posts
When I was on maternity leave, for the most part I did night wakings because I was BF. It was quicker and easier for me to do and I just napped when the baby napped the next day when I could.
DS started STTN just before I went back to work, but when he did have random wakings after I went back to work, we took turns!
GOLD / wonderful olive / 19030 posts
It depends, when I'm on maternity leave, my "job" is to take care of our newborn, that is why I'm off of work. So I take the majority of the night wakeups/feedings/ect. However, if I'm needed a break DH would step in and take a night so I could sleep in. Weekends it's on him, that's my time to catch up on sleep and he gets to do middle of the night duty.
When I go back to work we have a system that it is every other night (no matter if baby wakes up or not) so one person is always getting a full night sleep (ideally.) If you get lucky and baby SSTN on your night then you get off the hook!
pomegranate / 3895 posts
When I was on maternity leave, yes. My husband protested, but I was breastfeeding and it felt like there was no sense in him getting up since technically we both had to get up in that scenario anyways. Now we do shifts since I go to bed earlier than my husband.
clementine / 927 posts
As a stay at home mom I used to try to handle MOTN by myself, that is, until I realized I worked
all day too.
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