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does/did your oh...

help with night feeds on work nights?

i'm dying to know, because my hubby doesnt think he should, and i agreed to that, and that he would do wknds. thing is, one night every wknd my lo goes off to my mums or the inlaws over night so ben tends to only do one "shift" as we call it, per week. i go to bed and get up at the same time as him every day, and work just as bloody hard as him during the day and am starting to think i should rope him in on week nights! at the wknds he often makes a big song and dance out of doing his share and moans and groans whenever she wakes up which wakes me up anyways!!! then we argue about who deserves a lie in the most and who should get up when evie does.

what happens in your house? x
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Replies

  • Poppy doesn't waken in the night for feeds anymore and my oh is on shifts. When she did wake and he was on early shift, I would feed her but if he was on lates then we would take it in turns. At the weekend we do one night each. We still feed her at 11pm and then again when she wakes at roughly 7.30am and if he does the late feed then I do the early one and vice versa.
    It is really hard work and I think one day alone with her will make him realise just how hard it is! It worked for me!!
  • Hi, When my lo use to have feeds through the night we always shared it. I would do the 9.00pm, oh would then do the 12 am and 3 am and then I would do the 6.00am feed. Now he's older my oh gives him his last bottle and puts him to bed before he goes to work at night.
  • Hi, When my lo use to have feeds through the night we always shared it. I would do the 9.00pm, oh would then do the 12 am and 3 am and then I would do the 6.00am feed. Now he's older my oh gives him his last bottle and puts him to bed before he goes to work at night.
  • Hi,

    My hubby sound similar to yours! I do the feeds during the week as my oh works and has a fair way to drive every day so I don't want him falling asleep at the wheel. I manage to do them without disturbing him so he gets a full nights sleep, on a weekend he can sleep through Brendans grumbles for a bottle so I will nudge him and ask if he will get a bottle. Usually takes several attempts to wake him up properly and even then he has been known to fall asleep sitting up in bed feeding Brendan! :roll: Consequently I am never fully asleep when he does the feeds and usually do at least one of the feeds myself still on a weekend.

    It is very tiring and on more than one occassion I have wanted to point out how unfair it is as I have not had a full nights sleep for longer than I can remember what with pregnancy bladder and now an 8 week old baby! Don't think he fully comprehends this though and was surprised the other week when I said how tired I was and he said 'but you do sleep during the day don't you?'! Don't know how anyone finds time to properly sleep during the day when they are looking after a baby! The times Brendan is asleep during the day I am either grabbing a shower and getting dressed, making up bottles, getting something to eat, tidying the house a bit, putting on a load of washing and hanging the clean stuff up to dry .... the list goes on!

    So I can't offer you any advise just sympathise with you! Makes it all worth while for me when Brendan gives me a big beaming smile and I am still keeping my fingers crossed that any week now he will increase his feeds from every 3 hours so mummy can have a bit more sleep!

    Liz x
  • liz B our hubbys are exactly the same! especially at the wknds, i have to wake ben up too and it takes him a while to get his arse in gear so i lie there thinking "i should just get up and do it my bloody self" and i know a lot of the time thats what he is thinking since im obsously awake anyway! lol. i think i might just show ben this post and hopefully a lot more will come and say that their oh shared/s the night feeds!! then he'll see that at the minute im being very generous! and your right with the smile thing too, every morning although im shattered and can barely open my eyes, imwoken by evie babbling away to herself all chirpy, and as soon as i go over i get the biggest gummy smile from her, brilliant way to start the day! xxx
  • Hi, I also do the night and middle of the night feeds as partially bf however Neve has a bottle at 10 but doesn't go to sleep usually until anything from 11.30-01.30 so I have to stay up for that (although we are hoping to sort that out next week) and then get up for her at 4am for a feed which is knackering, was so tired last night oh sent me to bed at 10 and he got her off to sleep (she was an angel for him and went to sleep at 11.15 - so unfair!) so I feel quite well rested today! At weekends oh gets up with her and leaves me in bed as he has always been an early riser so I get up at about 9-9.30 and then have a bath and faff around on my own for a while which makes me feel a bit more normal.

    It makes me laugh to think how things have changed - I now feel like I have had a huge lie in if I get a 5 hour chunk of sleep in one go! :lol:


    [Modified by: Lottie78 on February 28, 2008 08:43 AM]

  • Oh and I used to do what we liked to call "shift work" up until she was about 3 months. I'd try to get some shut eye at 10pm until 3am where he'd stay with her in another room. Then we'd switch and I'd stay with lo and take care of the feeds until the morn. I must say Oh was pretty wonderful as he had to work 9-5 weekdays. Now lo is almost 5 months, and I do the night feed while he does a morning feed if needed before heading out to work. Thankfully, she has slept thru the night without feeds twice this week so I'm hoping she'll drop them completely. Hang in there, how old is your lo? As hard as it is to believe, it does get alot easier. I used to feel unfairly in the beginning at times as I felt oh wasn't helping as much as he should...but eventually we found a routine that worked for us.
  • katielou - men can be useless cant they? i went to bed early the other night and asked my OH if he'd wash/sterilise the bottles before he came to bed... he didn't look like he was listening but then again he never does! i got up the next morning, evie dying to be fed and were the bottles done... no! even if he hadn't heard me, would be nice if men were thoughtful enough to help out with chores off their own back ay? and lauriec, she's 14weeks, still wakes up twice in the night to be fed! i've tried just putting her dummy in and tucking her back up but she only lasts another half an hour before really crying for a feed. i don't mind too much as she comes first and i'd do anything for her no matter how tired i just wish my OH could see how hard it is. once in a blue moon she'll wake in the night and i'll be so knackered ill nudge and ask him to do it and my goodness i regret it as soon as i ask! he totaly makes me feel rubbish for asking and tuts about and stomps around! xx
  • Its obviously a male thing - it would NEVER occur to my oh to sterilise the bottles before we went to bed and I also asked him to switch on the (fully loaded and filled with water) steriliser on before he left for work the other morning and he forgot!! I also suspect that they think we do nothing but eat cake and file our nails all day.
  • coz ollie is bf it was a bit difficult for my oh to feed him, but if h woke up for any other reason we did take it in turns, sometimes oh would bring ollie in to me to feed in bed so i dint have to get up and it was his way of trying to take his turn at least.

    we did have many many arguements about it, and still have a few rows about it now, that i always change nappies, feed and bath him... but oh is getting better and does things when asked - the only groan i have about him now is that he needs telling how to do things, and i sometimes dont like the way he does things so have to go and stop him and show him....... and also he doesnt think about things the way i would and sometimes comes across as a bit selfish (which he by no means is) and i have a rant at him...... just little things

    but with training he is getting better image
  • lol you're right lottie!
    Have got to say though I have managed to get my oh to sterilise the bottles on two occassions now woohoo! =p And I have trained him to not re-boil the kettle for a cuppa while I am waiting for the water to cool down! I do often think it wouldn't harm him to think for himself for a change rather than me having to give him instructions.

    The other thing that annoys me is on an evening when I am making dinner he is supposed to be looking after Brendan and on several occassions I will shout 'its bottle time' and he will say oh he has fallen asleep on me so I will leave him. It really annoys me as the evenings are the time I really want Brendan to get as much food in his system as he can to give any kind of a chance of him dropping just one of his night feeds. My oh reaction is 'he's quiet now why disturb him?' which is fine for him as he sleeps through the night without a care in the world while I am left literally holding the baby!
    Last night Brendan had a bottle with me just after 4pm and at 7pm I told my oh to give him a bottle as he had started to grizzle for one. Instead my oh rocked and patted him to sleep! For the first time Brendan didn't wake for a bottle and didn't ask for one until 12:50am!! A total record, but I can't help but think if my oh had given him his bottle at 7pm maybe that time of no feeds would have been when I was sleeping!! Think I will have to start putting my foot down!
  • My OH did get up during the night in the week but he was doing weird hours 2-3pm right through till about 4am most days he would sometimes get home and just as he got in the door Shayla would wake up for a feed and he would be awake enough to do it and feed her but during the first 8 weeks i was bf so we didnt have a choice in the matter it was all me doing it and as i stopped bf LO stated sleeping through so luckily OH only had a couple of nights where he had to do this. I was always the one to wake up first thing in the morning and still am at weeends so yeah- never get a lie in anymore

    I must sau though that OH was really sweet when i was preg as he would wake up with me everytime i needed the toilet in the last few months as i had to go up two flights of stairs (stayed in room on ground floor) as he wanted to make sure i didnt fall down stairs!! I thought that was so sweet of him considering his long hours and some nights it would be every hour or so!!

    Hannah xx
  • Lol Lottie - my nails are bitten to the quick!
    My hubby did more with the boys. Once bottle fed we took it in turns to do the night feed and he always gave the last bottle as he's a night owl and i'm not! We agreed this time that once she was 'off the chest' (as he put it!) that he'd do a feed too as before. Thing is, it's just so much easier doing it myself and i had to wake him and i'd stay awake...so i got him doing the weekend feeds! Then, lo and behold, after only 2 weekends she started sleeping thru so no-one needs to get up! Like you katielou i asked him to swap sides to do the 'dummy' shift but he never wakes so i have to get out of bed to do it. How is it they can sleep through anything?!
    He's getting good at the steriliser tho-managed to wash bottles i'd left soaking, sterilise AND add water all without being asked! He did cook a fantastic steak too...can't complain too much!
    Back to my cake.....!
  • Lol I have to have a timer next to the kettle and when the half an hour is up/bottles have been made we can reboil it!
  • Hi girls,i feel like im gratecrashing your topic because as a sngle mom im used to doing everything by myself,almost from day one really!!!!there were times when i wished i had a useless OH to shout at for not doing enough but then again i sometimes think its sooo easier on your own because you dont have that stress or arguements caused by someone else not helping lol and you know that everything will get done!just by reading on this forum and others it would seem its a common problem and men in general(though im sure not ALL)are like you have all described....almost makes me glad i am single lol
  • have to say my oh did a lot of the housework and cooking at first coz id had a c sec so my only job was to rest, drink tea and feed lo which was great for the two weeks he was off.
    since then tho i have to do most of it, and still i get told i do nothing..... (albeit jokingly, he admits he probably couldnt look after ollie all day as well as i do)

    xxx
  • i would get him to do night feeds too! like you say this is the hardest job in the world! lol we need our sleep!
    My oh works nights so i can't but on his nights off he does it!
    my oh had to look after lo for a couple of hours yesterday and just as i was about to leave he said 'so what do i do with him now?' lol
    When i got back he said 'i haven't had any breakfast yet and i'm desperate for the toilet!!!' lol he only had him a short while but it made him realise what i do during the day, look after lo get myself ready and do the housework! maybe do that to your oh and make him see just how busy you are during the day!!
  • My oh works mon-wed 8am til 8pm so on these days i do all the feeds. Tje days hes home if Jack wakes before 5am i get up then go back to bed and he gets up once jack wakes again (usually 6am) If Jack wakes after 5 then oh gets up and stays up with him. We share housework but he does all the cooking!! I think it works quite well xxx
  • I definitely agree that oh should do night feeds and thankfully my oh agrees too. When I was doing night feeds my oh would often get up to bring him to me so I could breastfeed in bed! x
  • When he was on paternity leave he was fantastic, I too had had a section so for those 2 weeks I did nothing, except bf but even then, he would get her up for me, I'd feed, he'd wind and put her back down.
    He doesn't do anything in the house at the moment but I have to go back to work on April 1st so everything will be shared then and he's fine with that!
    If he is on late shift, he gets in at about 7.15, he baths her and feeds her before I put her to bed so he's very good to be honest!
    xx
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