DH just started back at work today. Since I am staying at home on maternity leave right now, I feel bad about waking him up in the middle of the night to change a diaper or whatever during a feeding session. Do you wake your DH up if he works and you stay at home?
-
My DH never wakes up and we both work. If you do want him to wake up with you it's best to get him started early. I personally don't mind getting up with LO by myself. It's more peaceful.
-
I did for the first week, and after that just started doing everything by myself. He was useless even when up!
-
Nope. I did all night duty and day duty. When he came home from work he helped out, did bath time, etc.
-
Nope. Never.
-
I usually did it all by myself, since he had to get up and work. But once I stopped breastfeeding, we took turns if she woke up.
-
Yep! He wants to get up and help. He usually wakes up before I do. He gets LO and changes his diaper then brings him to me to nurse. I love having his help.
-
I did! He would change her diaper. Now he goes in to console since we're trying to drop the night feed.
-
Nope, when he had to go to work and I was home, it was all on me. At one point early on I sent DH to the spare room so he could get a full night of uninterrupted sleep and I could turn on lights or the TV if I needed to. Sometimes the TV was just enough light so that I could see without being too bright, and it helped me stay awake when I was a zombie.
At first I thought sending him to the other room wasn't going to be good for our marriage, but then I realized that what I needed was to survive the first 6 weeks and then worry about other stuff.
-
Here's what we do: I breastfeed baby around 8-9pm and then leave baby with my husband. I go to bed early and my husband spends time with baby until it is time for the next feed. During their time together he gets baby changed, swaddled, and ready for bed. I feed baby around midnight or so in bed and then put baby in his co-sleeper/bassinet. Between midnight and morning baby will usually wake up one or two more times to be fed and changed, which I take care of. Starting my sleep earlier helps me get a better amount of sleep even if I do have to wake up 2-3 times per night.
-
No. I'm a SAHM and DH works and gets up very early. I didn't wake him up. Thankfully, she's a good sleeper so it was never a huge issue.
-
Nope, I did all the work and continued to do all the work after I went back to work full time.
-
Yes, I wake him up. He changes her diaper and then I feed her. A sahm is a full-time job too.
-
Yup!! I felt bad when he was back at work too it he said he didn't mind and we both agreed he was just as much his son as he is mine which means shared responsibility. DH helped a lot and sometimes still does. I sometimes ask him to bring ds to me so I don't have to get out of bed
-
We both work and I am the only one who can feed her. I will only ask him to get up if she is fussing and not hungry. Otherwise, I let him sleep.
-
@ChelseaRose: That's pretty much what my sister did, but she would also pump a bottle during the day (no idea how she found the time, to be honest) so he would stay up with the baby, change, feed, swaddle, and my sister could usually go until past midnight before she had to get up and feed him again, making it almost 5 hours of uninterrupted sleep.
-
I usually do the night wakeups since I'm a SAHM. However, DH will get up and bring her to me if he doesn't have work the next day.
-
Nope, I handle all the middle of the night stuff. I figure that since he has to wake up and actually function at work the next day, it's not fair to have him be sleep deprived. That being said, he has told me multiple times to wake him up if I need help. But since I'm breastfeeding, there's not much he can do, and it doesn't seem right to wake him up just to have him change a diaper when I'm up for the feeding anyway.
-
@prettylizy: thanks for this. I am also thinking about offering up the guest room to DH when our baby gets here. he will be working and will need the rest. I am very adamant about us always sleeping in the same bed (like when we argue, etc) so I have been kind of worried about this scenario but its good to hear it has been working for you!
-
While I was on maternity leave, no. I did all of the night stuff. Now I'm back at work and I usually get her because I work from home 90% of the time. Any day where I have to go into the office, he'll get her if it's the night before.
-
Yep! In the beginning my DH would be up, bring the baby to me to be nursed, then get up again to put the baby back down (he'd fall asleep in between). Eventually DH would just put the baby back down after a nightfeed. He falls back asleep super quickly whereas it takes me forever to fall back asleep. He never minded having to get up and he never complained either. He is a superstar husband!!! On the weekends I would let him take a long nap or sleep in if he wanted to.
-
I went back to work at 9 weeks, and DH was home for 3 of those, so there were only about 6 weeks when this was an issue for us, but yes, I woke him up for most- but not all- night feedings. During that period, LO never slept for more than 2-3 hours at a time, so it was pretty rough on me, and feeding sessions could last for a while. I definitely needed all the help I could get.
Also, DH is a really heavy sleeper, and gets back to sleep very easily, so I didn't feel bad about waking him up in the middle of the night (after I'd woken up with baby and fed baby for 30 minutes) to spend 5 minutes changing a diaper while I got a drink and went to the bathroom.
Once LO stopped pooping all the time and we stopped changing his diaper every time we woke up at night, I'd often just do the night wakings by myself since I was BFing and there wasn't much DH could do, but I never really hesitated to wake him up if I needed something or just wanted company. He never had a problem with it. -
Yes. My daughter was never a good/long napper, so I couldn't really nap with her during the day. I really didn't feel like it was fair for me to be the only one sleep deprived, too. So he changed diapers until we stopped doing that (2 months). Then we moved the baby to his side of the bed and he'd get her for me. When we coslept (5-8 months) she slept with him between the wall, and he'd just pass her to me to nurse.
Now at 14 months she's night weaned and sleeps in her nursery. He goes down and sleeps with her (she sleeps on a floorbed) the nights when she wakes before morning. He always lays down with us to nurse to sleep, too. She used to nurse a lot overnight, and it really wore on me. So he's always been eager to do his part to contribute. Now the times that she wakes are their time to snuggle up together, it's very sweet. I think he misses it when she just sleeps all night.
-
@coacheswife123: My husband and I would normally never consent to sleep apart, but there were times when we did so due to baby sleeping issues, like when we recently night weaned. It sucked, but sleep became a priority. And it didn't last long.
-
I did..... well he woke up anyway because he's a light sleeper. But I didn't feel bad about it. I couldn't nap when LO napped because she would only nap in my arms and I was always scared of dropping her. And taking care of a newborn is hard, I needed my sleep too!
-
Absolutely not! I stay home and watch baby. He works. He needs his sleep.
That being said: he occasionally gets up sometimes anyways because he feels bad for me:/ haha and he will feed baby while I mosey out of bed but then he will go back to sleep & I'll burp and change baby. -
@coacheswife123: we do this....well the first half of the night were together, but that's only like 5h, the last 4h of the night were apart because after 4am, DS starts waking every hour so DH makes a run for it. So it's been perfect for us. He gets his sleep and we still get our time;)
-
I usually let DH sleep (Baby is in her own room next door) but I will wake him up if she's somehow managed to get poo everywhere or we're having some other sort of crisis!
-
When i'm home on maternity leave, I'm going to take care of the weekday duties. He's going to take care of Friday nights and maybe another night in the middle of the week for me. This way i'm not a total zombie. But i'm respectful of the fact that he has to drive to work (safely) and work with other people (coherently) and i can sit around the house with my eyes glazing over. We'll see how the plan works out. In the beginning, he will probably have to bring her to me since I'll be sore.
-
@coacheswife123: Honestly, do what feels right for you guys. DH came back to our room when Prettybaby was down to 2 wakings a night and they were quick and painless (After avout 4 or 5 weeks I think?). The hardest part for us at that time was getting her back to sleep, sometimes it would take over 30 minutes. I would be so upset trying to keep her quiet and the stress was NOT helping the baby relax at all. I'm like you, I rarely ever want us in seperate bedrooms but it made us all so much happier. I wasn't close to ready for any nocturnal action at that point anyway so it's not like we were missing out on intimacy either! lol!
-
DH wakes up when DS wakes at night. We all sleep in the same room so we are always up together. DH tries to give me a break. I work from home and he works full-time out of the house. We try to split everything 50/50.
-
The short answer would be hellz no. My husband works around live electricity and could die at work if he's exhausted from doing my job for me. So even though up until last night (she's 26 days old) she would only let me sleep an hour a day and I was losing my mind I STILL took care of her by my onesie.
-
Nope. My husband is like a zombie when he wakes up. It would take 5 times as long for him to do it. He offers to do it, but it doesn't make sense.
-
I did, but he worked nights so he was either able to sleep in, or not at home.
-
We put the baby in the nursery right away. The first week when we were both home, we took shifts sleeping- one of us on the floor of the nursery and one in our bedroom. He would come get me for feelings. That way we both got some sleep.
After he went back to work, I sleep in the nursery and and then on Fridays and Saturdays he comes sleeps with me and does all the diaper changes. I'm hoping she'll be sleeping through the night or at least close to it by the time my maternity leave is over and then we will both move back to our bedroom and use the monitor.
-
I'm on mat leave and DH has a long commute to work. I think driving while sleep deprived is dangerous so I let him sleep.
-
@JessicaMcB: I'm curious as to what you mean by "doing my job for me." Are daddies off the job once bedtime rolls around?
-
DH gets up with me at our one night feeding-around 4:30 am- he gives LO a bottle of pumped milk while I go pump. From start to finish, we are all back in bed in 20 minutes max. Much better than the hour it was taking for me to get up, feed the baby, burp, change, swaddle, and then be in pain for an hour because LO is the laziest nurser in the middle of the night, so he would always latch badly.
-
@junebugmama: hahaha my DHis the same way... It takes him forever to wake up
-
@ChelseaRose: that is exactly what we do!
Subscribe to our newsletter
- Google Plus
- Stumbleupon
- Twitter
- Facebook
- Pinterest
- Favorite0
52 comments