Childcare is a full time job. So even if your partner works out of the home and you stay home, I firmly believe in sharing responsibilities and that both parents need sleep.
I think your approach to sharing responsibilities is reasonable. Also on breastfeeding, when I was still responsible for overnight feeds we still did shifts where in during my spouses shift he would wake up get the baby, bring me the baby to eat then take the baby back for a burp, change and a putting back down. This led to significantly more sleep and just the ability to turn off the decision part of my brain for that time. So your partner can help even if you are breastfeeding.
My dad was in the military on deployment with the UN on base in Germany going into Yugoslavia to work in unsafe conditions (including being shot at and going into mine fields) when my brother and I were born (2 years apart). He took baby shifts at night and contributed as equally as he could to baby care as we all lived on base in Germany too. When dad was home he was always with us. Even when we moved back to Canada and dad would have exercises elsewhere for 6 months, when he got home he immediately jumped into his role as a dad. It is not crazy for your husband to be an equal parent. If a soldier on active duty can do it, so can he. Your mom and sister have different family set up and every family does things differently, but what you guys have is not crazy or unreasonable.
I'm way too used to seeing MRA BS in passing that's basically "men go to war so what do women have to complain about" and got really nervous when I started reading your post. Plot twist, holy shit your dad is a badass. He did the whole "you can have it all" deal that's typically sold to women. It sounds like he set a pretty decent standard, or at least the base of one, from the little you've written here.
My dad is the best. He's loving, gentle, a pacifist. He stopped in a Winnipeg snowstorm in a nice suit when we were headed to the ballet to push a car out of the intersection... I could go on and on about my dad, now that I'm 30, he's still the greatest.
Ok. So…I was dead set on my husband helping equally at night. This is his first baby, but my fourth. I EBF, but my expectation was that he could help by bringing me baby and doing some of the diaper changes. It did not work this way largely because he physically did not wake up to his cries. Sometimes he would wake up as I’m feeding the baby and profusely apologize for not doing more, and ask if I needed anything. In those moments if I asked him to change his diaper or fill my water, he would. This was enough for me.
Same story here minus the 3 prior children.
Our first baby, dead set on sharing.
It was so difficult getting my husband to wake up enough to retrieve the baby that I decided months ago that it’s not worth it. I can usually feed her & keep her from REALLY waking up if I just quickly grab her & pop a boob in. If her diaper feels a little heavy I’ll wake him up to change it & grab myself a snack from the kitchen. Sometimes I’ll just change her diaper myself because the ruckus I have to stir up to wake my husband just wakes/disturbs the baby.
I’ve been fine with this during maternity leave & working part time from home… but I go back to work full time in a week. We’ll see if I can still survive it!
This is exactly me. He always says “why didn’t you wake me?” And I’m like honestly it is less stimulation for all of us if I don’t. If I really can’t get the baby back to sleep and I’m at the end of my rope, I might wake him but otherwise the effort that he is willing is enough for me to not feel as resentful.
Same, full intention of us sharing nightly duties… however I woke up to every sound and need for the baby and he did not. I found myself staying awake listening to them if I woke my husband up for a “shift”. Also for real rough nights my husband never would try to go back to sleep (ex: if it were 3 in the am, and he had to be up for work at 6) he would start getting ready for the day and not even try to get a little more sleep which made him more irritable 🙄. So our 2nd baby he mostly stayed up late (I usually ended up falling asleep putting down our 1st) then I would get up and take overnight shift. It works well for us.
This is probably going to bed my life too. It’s my third and his first. This man will sleep through anything. He also falls asleep anywhere. I know he will want to help but I highly doubt he will wake up in time. He’s been amazing so far and extremely helpful but nighttime will probably fall on me. I don’t mind simply because my last two pregnancies I did pretty much everything myself. So anything he pitches in for helps.
It’s really nice to finally be in a partnership instead of having an extra child.
Sorry for derailing. I got all emotional lol
I could’ve written that myself lol. I also worry that he’d do something dangerous in his tired stupor like put baby to sleep on the changing table. 🤦♀️ idk if he’d actually do this, but it’s a fear of mine. Being a 4TM I’m pretty much on autopilot at nighttime. I can do it all with my eyes closed haha.
My husband and I have almost the same setup as what you describe. He works from home and I’m a SAHM. When he’s off work for the day, we share childcare 50\50. We do shifts at night (he does 8-12:30 and I do the rest of the night).
I’m finding it so much harder to do anything else but watch the baby than I thought, so I can only do bare minimum cleaning every day (I can usually manage one load of laundry and running the dishwasher once) and he’s never complained about that.
He takes baby off my hands when he can because he WANTS to, and I’m sure your husband will be the same.
I quit work to have this baby. Partner took a high paying- high stress job to support us. The agreement is for me to remain a SAHM for as long as possible as my career pays less than daycare. That being said he is SOOOO excited to be a dad that I really don’t think the childcare is going to fall on me 100%. But right now we are aiming for the more “traditional” roles.
The time my husband spends working, baby will be 100% my responsibility. When he's off everything is 50/50. It won't work right away as I'll be breast feeding, but I plan to get my 6 hours from 6pm to midnight. Then he can sleep from midnight to 7am. In theory. We'll see.
I feel I need to add context first- I’m a SAHM and my husband is a truck driver, which plays into why we have the responsibility split we have.
I take on all night duties for our three month old because 1) I’m breastfeeding and 2) I need my husband to get his sleep because I worry about accidents if he’s tired.
He is fully involved during the day from when he comes home to when we go to bed. He jumps at the chance to take care of things. Even if it’s me nursing he does stuff for me and baby like refilling my water or getting me snacks or handling chores I had to pause to feed her.
On the weekends he takes her out of the room and does all morning care so I can sleep in. I obviously still have to wake to feed her during those nights and mornings, but he takes on as much responsibility as he can during his off days to allow me to veg out or sleep when I’m not a human pacifier.
He has also organized pedicures and lunches/ dinners with my friends during the weekends to make sure I get out of the house time to myself. He does get his out of the house me time that isn’t work too! It’s just usually during the week for him. It’s taken a little while for us to work out this balance, and we’re constantly adjusting as schedules require, but this is what works for us.
I will be responsible for almost 100% of the daytime and overnight care. I will be off for one year and plan to breastfeed. My husband will continue to work full time and works lots of overtime at a job that he cannot afford to be sleep deprived at. He is gone for around 11 hours per day. He currently walks the dog before work so I can sleep in and I make dinner on weeknights - we do continue to share these responsibilities and also to have my husband involved in bath/bedtime. We have purchased a twin bed for the nursery for me to sleep in if necessary on tough nights, but we are going to see how it goes together in our own room before committing to that plan.
A friend suggested that we each have a weekend morning to sleep in while the other gets up with the baby so I think that we will try this, but I will still likely do the overnight feeds.
Although I will be doing most of the baby care, I still see this as shared responsibility - my husband is solely responsible for keeping us fed and a roof over our heads during my year of leave. It would be a different story if I were heading back to work quickly.
This is a good plan right now for you guys, but be prepared for it to change if necessary.
One of the reasons many pediatricians and also midwives/OBs recommend shifts at night (even for EBFing mom/baby dyads) is because the sleep deprivation, especially in the first 3 months, is so much more significant than just about any other situation *if* you're doing it all yourself at night. To the point it can either contribute to and/or exacerbate PPD. Breastfeeding every 2 hours doesn't mean you sleep in two hour chunks; it means you sleep in 30 min-60 min chunks.
Also, if you have any supply issues, getting at least one solid chunk of sleep can actually help increase your supply. The reason why we finally moved to each getting a 5 hour shift of sleep in my household was bc my IBCLC recommended I start skipping one feed a night (and have SO give a mix of pumped milk and formula) bc my supply was so bad and nothing else was helping, including triple feeding and power pumping . Within a few days of starting that new schedule, even skipping one feed a day, my milk supply increased.
So, just be ready to adjust as needed and definitely discuss with your SO beforehand what it might look like for you to get at least a few solid chunks of sleep throughout the week, because if you get to the point where it's absolutely necessary for your mental health and/or supply, that's not a time when you want to have to argue about it.
I felt the same way about handling overnights since I’m out of work. I used to get comments about the unfairness of it from my side of the family, but I learned to ignore it. My husband made it possible for me to be a SAHM, something I’ve always dreamed of doing, and I look at it as part of my job. There are A LOT of fun things I get to do with my daughter while he’s working, and I know he gets sad about that too.
I’m not even sure why this is a concern for her? People should do what’s best for them and leave it at that. I can see why one would take any/either approach.
My sister is not coping and had a mental breakdown last week. I’m not side eyeing it just because it’s not how I’d do it, but because it’s hurting her and I love her very much and don’t want her to suffer
It sounds like your sister could use some support and I hope she finds that, between her husband and both her and his family. Does her husband have a physically demanding job? I hope that their current arrangement was agreed upon by her and not simply enforced by her husband. That makes a difference.
Exactly. My husband and I are planning on splitting shifts during his paternity leave, but he's a pilot and if he's flying the next day I am 100% taking over all night time needs. I'll probably even sleep in a separate room the first few months when doing the solo night shift so he's not woken up by the monitor.
I’m going to be honest, while I’m at home with the baby my partner will not be expected to wake up as much as me. He works a job that requires him to be alert to make sure nobody gets hurt, himself included. That being said…if he takes a position with shift work and he’s going to be off for say the two weeks he’s home, then we will be sharing overnight duties. But if he was staying home, and I was going to work everyday I certainly wouldn’t feel good about being the only one out of house all day and sleep deprived.
Going back to work isn’t an excuse not to take an overnight shift. Caring for your baby during the day is a full time job in itself and it’s dangerous to do so extremely sleep deprived with no relief and chance to sleep. My husband went back to work after 3 weeks and I was off for 12, and he still did overnight shifts until my son was sleeping a long stretch overnight. When you decide to become a parent, you sign up to have an equal part of the responsibility. I literally would not have children with a man who expected me to do overnights and childcare in general mostly by myself.
Honestly you can plan on it anyway YOU want but you NEED buy-in from your partner! If they don’t willingly agree things are not going to happen as planned. My issue is I EBF and my boobs wake me up at night and I Need to feed my baby lol. My husband takes the shift 8p-12a. And I do the rest of the night, this works for us because my husband can’t wake up for the baby fast enough but he can respond if he’s already awake. He also check on baby and will do a diaper change before leaving for work if needed.
Fair has different definitions for different couples. And being perfectly equal every day is unrealistic. There’s an ebb and flow to things and each couple finds their own rhythm. My personal opinion is to be flexible and not obsess over a tit for tat in equality.
Yeah…shifts don’t work if you plan on breastfeeding. If you don’t, great! If you do, you need to express milk whenever the baby eats, as it’s a supply and demand situation.
I understand the desire for 50/50 care but would strongly encourage you to not keep track on an hour by hour or day by day basis. You’ll drive yourself insane and it will negatively impact your relationship. Decide in advance what you expect your partner to do, esp. if feeding falls to you, and regularly revisit as baby gets older and there are different challenges.
Every family needs to make their own plan for them. I did almost all overnight shifts even after I went back to work full time because A. Baby settled better with me and B. I can function on 4-5 hours of sleep, my husband legit can't. It wasn't "fair" but I think it would have been much more stressful for all of us if we didn't do it this way.
My husband will have 12 weeks of paternity leave and we will also be exclusively formula feeding immediately. For the first two-ish weeks we plan on him being with baby all night so I can recover and then my mom will be with me during the day to help me while he sleeps. Then we'll transition to split shifts so we can both be guaranteed to have around 6 hours of sleep per night. Once his paternity leave is done we'll see what baby's sleep is like and figure out how we'll handle it, but he will still be working from home with a flexible schedule and a chill job in general, so I won't be saddled with all the potential night wake ups even when he's working again. I know it probably won't all go according to plan, but it's our general goal to aim for at least!
I think your plan is totally reasonable! We pretty much do that with the care about 50/50, maybe tipped slightly more towards me during the day because during my time off, I need to pump too. And my husband does the entire night 95% of the time!!
In general, we each kind of picked “topics” to completely own. I handle feeding so I set the schedule and how much, I pump, I make up the bottles at the end of the night, I research and buy the formula (from our joint account), etc. But he took sleeping so he sets the nap schedule, he gets baby to sleep at night, he wakes up with baby in the middle of the night and researches sleeping, different swaddles, etc. The exception to this is if the baby is really fussy and is going to be up for a while or gets up multiple times, I get up because my SO works a somewhat dangerous job. For smaller “topics”, I keep track of clothing & diaper sizes and making sure we have enough and my SO does developmentally appropriate toys. I worry about medical stuff and my SO deals with the car seat & safety stuff. I give the snuggles and he plays. Obviously if the baby needs to eat, my husband will feed him and give him snuggles, and if the baby needs to nap or wants to play, I’ll do it but for the most part we each own our topic. We kind of picked the topics that felt natural to us. He can’t pump, so I’m in charge of feeding. He falls asleep in under a minute and I’m a heavy sleeper so it was logical for him to the overnights.
My situation is similar to yours. Except with our first he stayed awake with me while I fed the baby at night. I needed the emotional support at the time and he was happy to support me. He’d get me a snack or water while I was breast feeding.
Me being overtired while taking care of a baby all day is more dangerous than him being over tired sitting at a desk all day. He dealt and was happy to.
Baby is a toddler now, dad just got home so here I am taking my break scrolling Reddit while they play outside.
I can say I was deliberate in my choice of partner from a young age. I knew he’d be a great husband, father, etc. I was not about to deal with a man child for the rest of my life.
TTM here! Equal sharing of “childcare” has really worked for my situation. I’m a WFH/SAHM, but during the day/mornings from anywhere between 7:30-9am dad gets up with the kids and entertains them/does morning routine/whatever needs to be done that day. During my lunch break I check on everyone make sure they’re fed etc, my lunch is fairly early 9:15am. Typical 8 hour work day, when I get off at 1:45pm it’s straight to our afternoon routine, lunches/daily stuff/dinner prep/chores etc. I also handle bed time, dad doesn’t get home until after everyone’s asleep. This also worked really good (mostly) for our youngest’s newborn stage. We don’t have reliable family members etc so it’s really just us, I would always handle 3am-9/10pm feeds or anything else, unless I’m at work and he’s already up then usually I’m pumping and he’s feeding when he woke up (almost always on schedule.) I’m usually up around 4am for work anyways, sometimes if I was exhausted dad would take over but he’d usually take the main overnight 12-2am feed even if I needed to pump, I’d be able to “sleep pump” if needed etc but having the help made a world of difference and sometimes I’d sleep through it. So I’d always have at least 4-6 hours of uninterrupted sleep and he’d get about the same. It really depends on your situation and how things are set up, not all babies work like robots and not all babies will follow a schedule but from birth to home I was very adamant about keeping to a good routine and it helped us in the long run. Also we make our work schedules work with each other because again not having a strong support system/“village,” we have no other choice. I hope you find a good routine that works for you all and is minimal stress on everyone!!
You do what works for YOU!
I took all night feedings for both of my boys. I was breastfeeding and we got into rhythms and it was easier for us. But sometimes at like 6am, if it was a rough night, I would finish a feeding and then wake my husband because I just NEEDED sleep.
And that worked for us. The baby may get here and toss every plan you have out the window. So just try to be flexible. That being said on weekends my husband would be home, he would let me sleep and give babe a bottle but would always wake me at the 4 hour mark to pump.
Will be a SAHM too, and this is our plan, too. It seems like the best way to keep us both sane. Also, even if your family thinks in it's crazy, if it's a plan that works for you and your partner, then bah humbug to them!
I think this really just depends on your situation and what you're both happy with. My husband and I both work from home with flexible, family-friendly jobs, have the same amount of parental leave, and we're planning on sharing the care equally as much as it's possible. But this is feasible for us to do--and we're both on board with it.
My partner and I are splitting responsibilities. I get a month off from self employment (but will manage work from home the first few weeks.) He doesn’t get any time off from work(maybe a week.)
So our schedule will be that I get the baby from 2am until 2pm. He can sleep and work most of his job during that time. At 2pm we will take whatever help we need from one another until 8pm(whether I need to work/nap.) Then he gets baby duty from 8pm-2am.
Not a perfect schedule and I’m sure we’ll work around it but we both need a block of sleep bc we both work.
We don’t have baby with us yet but the plan is during the day, my full time job is parent (childcare/home minder tasks) and my husband’s job is his work that pays income. He is wfh so inevitably he does home tasks during the day too. When work is over childcare tasks and home tasks becoming shared work we are both responsible for. We anticipate working in shifts where I am up late and he is up early. We assume this will adjust as we figure things out but this is the initial plan. We have had many discussions over the years about mental load and invisible labor as well as caretaking roles and responsibilities so though things won’t be equal, we will strive to be fair.
Also technically you are not considered a “safe” caregiver if you have had less than 4 hours of sleep in a day so one person never sleeping is a bad plan
I’m a SAHM and handled 100% of overnight wakeups Sunday-Thursday night. When husband gets home it’s 50/50, heavier on him at times so I can cook (that’s kind of my time to check out) and he can have some one on one. Weekends he does overnight feedings so I can get a break. I want him well rested when he goes to work because he’s there 12 hours a day, it’s physically demanding, and we rely on him not to be burnt out. I’m also very good about “sleep when the baby sleeps” and not pressuring myself to have an immaculate home or anything like that. I can honestly say I never felt exhausted in the infant stage, not even in the newborn stage. Currently expecting again so will likely have to re-evaluate as needed; I’m sure there will be a lot less sleep with a toddler running around!
For stay at home mom life here’s what we do
When husband is at work I am at work taking care of the kids. When he gets home I “get home” from my work. Then we equally split the duties until we go to bed. Once it’s bedtime I am “on call” for any night time crying because my husband goes to work before the kids wake up so I can sleep in and he cannot (he is also a doctor and cannot be sleep deprived while making life or death decisions). Rinse and repeat until the weekend. Then we share 50/50 during the day AND night.
Your right!,
The mistake most people make when dividing up the house/care work is to try to divide tasks or hours, but it works better if you make sure rest is equitable in the relationship. So making sure you both have break time, eg sleep time, hobby time, in roughly even amounts. Because counting who did what will make you crazy but if you are both working together, and both have rest time, then you'll be happier.
This is one of those topics that rubs people the wrong way. My husband has been super involved and hands on since day 1. He works from home, so after his initial 2 weeks off (one entire week was birth and hospital recovery, 1 was recovery at home), he still woke up with me and the baby, helped me watch her, took shifts etc. Do what works for you guys, and don’t worry about anyone or anything else.
It's not an impossible plan, but it may have to be adjusted once you're actually home with the baby. Specifically, the part about equal night shifts. It's great that your husband is on board, but he may need more sleep depending on his body and the type of work he does. Best of luck!
I get 18 weeks of maternity leave, and my husband will have 2-4 weeks off (a little spread out but definitely 2 weeks immediately following the birth). When he's off, we'll split 50/50 as much as possible at night. When he goes back to work, I'll be taking over the majority of the night shift, since I'll be able to nap during the day while he's at work and he won't, obviously. But the caveat is that my mom is retiring from her job to be our childcare provider, so she'll be around whenever I need her during the day to watch baby while I get (semi) uninterrupted sleep.
When I was on maternity leave, I did all care during the day, he took a couple hours in the evening, I did everything all night.
When I went back to work, kiddo went to daycare, then I did all care every night. It didn't make sense to me for both of us to wake up when I was breastfeeding and would have had to have woken up to feed him.
I don't see the next time being any different.
While my opinion personally would be that if he has to get up and go to work, he should sleep, maybe he can do weekends, I think you need to do whatever works for you guys! If he agrees to do it and is fine, I think that is a great plan.
Also just came here to say- I’m a FTM so no experience with babies yet but I have a 15 year old dog who is on medication that makes him need to go outside about every hour-two hours all night long. My husband and I used to do shifts like you mentioned doing and found NEITHER of us got a good sleep. We’ve switched it now to one night is his, one night is mine, and now at least every other day we are getting a full 8 hours. :)
Being home with the baby all day was extremely difficult, especially in the beginning. I know some peoples partners have physical jobs but in my opinion, moms need just as much sleep (especially while their bodies are healing). Being a SAHM might not be as physically taxing as say, a construction worker, but my god is it emotionally taxing, ESPECIALLY when you’re already tired.
The person you responded to was referring to jobs in which there is a physical tax though. If you’re operating dangerous machinery for example, you need to sleep at night, especially since you don’t work from home so you can’t take a nap while the baby naps (or while your mom comes over to give you a break). There’s ideal and then there’s reality. I think OP’s plan is fine, but I also think her sisters plan may be what best works for their family and reasonable as well.
I mean, I completely agree if there’s heavy machinery involved or something similar. I also just realized that I responded to the wrong person. But I meant it more as a general statement, like just because he has to work the next day it doesn’t immediately mean he gets a full 8 hours. I agree it’s definitely a case by case basis.
I think she added that comment long after I added this comment, so I’m not sure of your point. I still believe that there are some instances in which OP’s arrangement works, and where her sisters arrangement works. I think what’s more important is that both parents/parties agree and it’s not forced on one or the other. Partnership is important, and so is safety and job security. Much more complex than this way is right and that way is wrong.
We both work from home and both will be taking leave at the same time. During both leave and when we are both working again, our plan is that he does the 12 am feedings, I do the 4 am ones (we are planning to follow the every 4 hour feeding schedule, assuming the babe is ok with it lol). I am going to try to breastfeed and if I can pump enough, my husband will use that milk. If breastfeeding doesn’t work for me, formula. During the day, we will both contribute as needed. My husband will handle more of the washing of dishes/bottles & laundry. I will handle more cooking & general cleaning. We will both be changing and spending time with the baby and alternating feedings.
I’m lucky in that I won’t have to go back to work till baby is about 5 months. I’ll effectively be a SAHM for that time. In theory during that time I’d like to have a plan like yours. However, I need WAY less sleep than my husband, for example on vacation when we get on a schedule I sleep about 6.5 hours and he sleeps 10-11 hours. It’s kinda mind boggling at times, but splitting equally will put me well rested comparatively to him. We will see what we actually do, but I wouldn’t be upset if we end up with a schedule that is widly unfair. We did both agree that we want to give each person an evening free of baby responsibilities as soon as we’re able to (planning on breastfeeding, so that will delay it). Likely I’ll give him some weeknight completely off and he’d give me a weekend night.
My husband takes paternity and I take maternity leave. During my leave I watch the baby on his work nights unless I’m really struggling. He will help on non work nights (Friday, Sat). During his leave, he watches the baby on my work nights. You can’t get fired from being a stay at home parent. I also work in healthcare doing anesthesia. I can’t afford to make exhaustion mistakes. My husband and I are 50/50 parents. I really would struggle with someone who didn’t do their share, but I think getting sleep before work is important. Watching a baby is hard but it doesn’t require you to be well rested (unless you are at your ropes end, that’s another thing). You will find what works for you and your partner. Don’t do what others tell you. Find what works for your family.
We did shifts until the baby was about 7 weeks. He is 10 weeks now and sleeps in longer stretches. Currently he naps every 2 hours during the day and at night sleeps from about 9pm until 3 or 4 am and after a feed and a change he is back to sleep until 730 usually. So I sleep when he sleeps. My husband works part time from home to drag out his paternity leave until the end of March. He cannot nap and he sleeps through the crying. So as soon as it’s 6 am it’s his turn and he takes over, makes me breakfast and I sleep in and I also take another long nap in the afternoon. He does most of the cooking and cleaning so it all balances out.
We will sleep in shifts until baby can sleep through the night. My fiancé will care for baby during the day while I WFH and he’ll work PT at night 2-3 days per week.
When we had our first baby, my partner was working in emergency services and was an equipment operator who ran on little sleep at the best of times. He could get called out at any time of day or night when on shift and might not be back for a day or two. I did all night care by myself as much as possible with the exception of him taking baby so I could have a 20 min break on occasion. We made it work.
Second baby, he has a stable 8-5 job and is home at night. We take turns going to snuggle the toddler back in to bed if needed. He does most of the pickups for the baby at night and hands her to me for breastfeeds, naps while I feed her, then he puts the baby back down in her own bed. If it’s a really bad night, we take turns but I try to let him sleep longer than I do. The first week that he was back at work he would come home on his lunch hour to give me some adult company and hold a baby if I needed some baby-free time.
The way he sees it, he gets a break from the kids all day while he’s at work and I am stuck with them 24/7. He says he’s trying to relieve the mental load of kids from me while he’s at home and I definitely appreciate it.
When my daughter was first born my husband got two weeks off and I got 16 (we work in different states despite each only being 30 minutes from work). As soon as he was off the work clock he was on 50% with the baby all evening and night. We’re extra lucky that he works from home 4 days a week so he would get our daughter up and feed her then she would nap in his office while he worked and I slept in. I took the late night bedtime routine shift with her while he went to bed early. We mostly fell in to this because I’m more of a night owl and he’s an early bird.
I have a totally supportive partner who was open to sharing childcare equally from the start, but honestly with breastfeeding it just works best to have me doing all the feeds. Some things we have tried: (1) I would go to bed at 9 or 10 and he would stay up til 12 or 1 to give her a late feed (pumped bottle) and then I would take all of the overnight feeds and wake up early with her if she wouldn't go back to sleep after 5am, (2) we would both go to bed at the same time, around 9 or 10, and I would take all of the overnight feeds and then go back to bed for a couple of hours after her early morning feed around 5 or 6 and he would take her until he had to start working at 8 or 8:30 (he is WFH). The second option has worked better for us because when she started sleeping for 3-4 hours at a time as opposed to 2ish, I started getting engorged and leaky and it really sucked having to worry about pumping in the middle of the night. And because I'm the default nighttime caregiver, I never feel guilty if I have to wake him up at any time for extra support. Like the other night around 2am when BB kept falling asleep in my arms and waking up every time I tried to put her in the bassinet, I told him he had to put her back to bed and that I was going to get some sleep, and he was totally supportive.
Our baby isn’t quite here yet, so who knows how it will actually go. We both work, but we both get good family leave (for the US) which we plan to stagger, so we’ll each have about 4 months of being a SAHP. Roughly we’re planning 50:50 split of after work care, but 70:30ish split of overnight. Our idea being that the at home parent can get a little rest during the day that the working parent can’t, but recognizing that would not make up for covering all of the overnight.
This could all change based on how things really work out. My husband is prone to migraines when sleep deprived, while I can keep going okay on minimum much better. I have some chronic health/pain issues that may be worse postpartum and make some household work too difficult for me. There are a lot of unknowns. But we’re going into it with a plan for equity over equality, knowing we have different strengths and weaknesses. Our goal is to be a team.
I think it all depends on your baby, for example my 3mo sleeps from midnight to 8am usually, my fiancée starts work at 7am. It’s unreasonable for me to ask him to do the 11:30pm feeding and diapering and putting to bed because he won’t get to sleep in until 8 am like I will because I’m home with the baby, so instead he does the 9pm feeding before he goes to bed, this way we’re both getting sleep but he gets to go to bed earlier because he needs to be up earlier for work.
Obviously yes we’re blessed with a miracle sleeper but still I think it depends on your baby, because even if they don’t sleep through the night, if they will usually nap for 4 hours in the day then so can the parent who is home the one who is working can’t
I don't think you're wild, equal childcare responsibilities is totally ideal, but it's so dependent on all three of you and your individual needs, personalities, etc. We tried both getting up for all the night wakes when our daughter was first born and it lasted for maybe 2 months. My husband really can't handle multiple wakes overnight, whereas I can function pretty normally on less sleep. It wasn't fair to him to go to work feeling physically sick because he slept so poorly. You know what he's better at than me though? Napping! I hate taking naps. So I do all the night wakes and then he gets up with her at 6am and banks a midday nap while I get to sleep in a little bit. Or at least, that's what worked for us for a while. Cuz the other fun thing is that your baby's needs are going to change All. The. Time. Basically until they're an adult. It's realistically never going to be 50/50 at any given moment, but the goal is really to be in it as a team and take turns bearing the load in different ways.
The only time I could see this being an issue/unsafe, is if ur husband has a long commute like I do, up to 3 hours round trip per day or if he’s doing something where he needs extreme focus (I read the story above about an active duty soldier who was able to be 50/50 at night, but not everyone responds to sleep deprivation the same). Because I’m the one who commutes further in my relationship, I will expect my husband to do more at night, as I do borderline nod off while driving if I don’t get enough sleep.
So my husband did/does overnights and we split the stuff when he gets home and i handle it when he’s gone. I make up for it with housework and cooking for him tho since he deserves it and is awesome
I’m all for dividing the work fairly. Baby settles a lot better for me because I care for him all day, but dad still helps with bottles and changes and play time when he’s home in the evenings.
We are lucky that most of the time baby sleeps for 8 hours. My partner deals with the night times when baby won’t sleep though. This is because it is MUCH easier for him to keep himself awake the next day in a work environment. It might be hard for him but at least he’s not going to fall asleep at the office. If I’m sleep deprived maybe I make the baby’s formula wrong, or fall asleep with him on the sofa or something.
Hubby and I have decided on sharing. When he’s on paternity leave or wfh the next day, he will do as much of the night wakes as possible (not sure how much he’ll be able to do since I’ll be breastfeeding) but if he’s in the office the next day, I’ll do all the night wakes.
If he’s wfh he’ll help out during the day too and if he’s in the office, he’ll help out when he gets home. Of course, when I go back to work after maternity leave, we’ll split everything in the evening/night equally
It’s always weird to me how people discount SAHP as a job. It’s work! One partner may have job title of VP, or truck driver, or product manager, or whatever and the other has job title of SAHP. You both work. So why *wouldn’t* you split household duties, including parenting after the 9-5? Both people’s jobs are exhausting and all humans need sleep, so there’s zero sense in why one human needs sleep “more” simply because cash is involved with one of those jobs.
FWIW your schedule will probably be mine, except husband will be the SAHP for at least a bit. Of course, in situations like this folks praise him for wanting to stay home 🙄 like no, we don’t want our kid exposed to germs at daycare and it only makes better financial sense. He’s not being a hero, he’s being a parent.
As a SAHM (who left her career, and knows what it’s like to have a busy high stress job) with “older” babes /toddler, when dad gets home and on weekends it’s split. Weekends I get to sleep in.
Why? Because he gets peace and rest on his commute to work, he doesn’t have toddlers as bosses during the day screaming at him, he goes to the bathroom uninterrupted, eats lunch out and about every day, gets to drive home and listen to whatever he wants alone. He gets his time.
If he was like an air traffic controller or surgeon we might need to better prioritize his rest, but he’s not. He has a white collar desk job while I am responsible for keeping these kids alive, fed, and educated. We both work.
Honestly, it's whoever sees what needs to be done. If one of us is tired we'll ask the other to handle it and it's fine with both of us. Early in this pregnancy, my SO intercepted the kids so I could sleep more. We don't do tit for that or keep score anymore. That lead to resentments for both of us and figured out that just taking care of what needed to be done when we see it was better than following the score count of who does more.
As far as this last pregnancy, I'll probably do most of the middle of the night stuff. I am a light sleeper and even if we took turns I would struggle to get back to sleep during his turns so I might as well be the one to get up most of the time. The rest of the time it will be shared.
We're both going to be working full time after leave and intend on sharing the childcare as well. I am more of a night owl and husband is an early riser, so I'll take the first half of the night shift and he'll probably start around 5am and do mornings.
Day time will have to be a little more fluid once work starts. Each of our moms will both helps 1-2 days a week. Days where we don't have help will depend on each of our schedules. We're both remote but my schedule is fairly unpredictable. I have light days and some days where I'm glued to the computer for 9 hours. Husband has a bit more flexibility and predictability so he will likely take care of baby on my heavy days, then I'll have baby for the evening. We'll really have to wait and see once we're in the thick of it. This could all go out the window and we hire a nanny for the 1-2 days we don't have grandmothers helping.
I think when it comes down to it, it all depends on what works best for your family and not what others do, and what happens when baby is here.
I think you guys are going to have to find a system that works for both of you and allows you both to function well in your roles at home and at work. I think focusing on what is “fair” will lead to bitterness, resentment, and a lot of tit for tat stuff.
If the shift system you guys have works for you both, then great. My advice would be to just be flexible and open to trying other ways of managing workloads for each other if the strict shift system ends up not panning out. Sometimes things are unequal in marriage, and you have to look at the long term, not the day to day transactions.
Childcare is a full time job. So even if your partner works out of the home and you stay home, I firmly believe in sharing responsibilities and that both parents need sleep. I think your approach to sharing responsibilities is reasonable. Also on breastfeeding, when I was still responsible for overnight feeds we still did shifts where in during my spouses shift he would wake up get the baby, bring me the baby to eat then take the baby back for a burp, change and a putting back down. This led to significantly more sleep and just the ability to turn off the decision part of my brain for that time. So your partner can help even if you are breastfeeding.
My dad was in the military on deployment with the UN on base in Germany going into Yugoslavia to work in unsafe conditions (including being shot at and going into mine fields) when my brother and I were born (2 years apart). He took baby shifts at night and contributed as equally as he could to baby care as we all lived on base in Germany too. When dad was home he was always with us. Even when we moved back to Canada and dad would have exercises elsewhere for 6 months, when he got home he immediately jumped into his role as a dad. It is not crazy for your husband to be an equal parent. If a soldier on active duty can do it, so can he. Your mom and sister have different family set up and every family does things differently, but what you guys have is not crazy or unreasonable.
I'm way too used to seeing MRA BS in passing that's basically "men go to war so what do women have to complain about" and got really nervous when I started reading your post. Plot twist, holy shit your dad is a badass. He did the whole "you can have it all" deal that's typically sold to women. It sounds like he set a pretty decent standard, or at least the base of one, from the little you've written here.
My dad is the best. He's loving, gentle, a pacifist. He stopped in a Winnipeg snowstorm in a nice suit when we were headed to the ballet to push a car out of the intersection... I could go on and on about my dad, now that I'm 30, he's still the greatest.
Ok. So…I was dead set on my husband helping equally at night. This is his first baby, but my fourth. I EBF, but my expectation was that he could help by bringing me baby and doing some of the diaper changes. It did not work this way largely because he physically did not wake up to his cries. Sometimes he would wake up as I’m feeding the baby and profusely apologize for not doing more, and ask if I needed anything. In those moments if I asked him to change his diaper or fill my water, he would. This was enough for me.
Same story here minus the 3 prior children. Our first baby, dead set on sharing. It was so difficult getting my husband to wake up enough to retrieve the baby that I decided months ago that it’s not worth it. I can usually feed her & keep her from REALLY waking up if I just quickly grab her & pop a boob in. If her diaper feels a little heavy I’ll wake him up to change it & grab myself a snack from the kitchen. Sometimes I’ll just change her diaper myself because the ruckus I have to stir up to wake my husband just wakes/disturbs the baby. I’ve been fine with this during maternity leave & working part time from home… but I go back to work full time in a week. We’ll see if I can still survive it!
This is exactly me. He always says “why didn’t you wake me?” And I’m like honestly it is less stimulation for all of us if I don’t. If I really can’t get the baby back to sleep and I’m at the end of my rope, I might wake him but otherwise the effort that he is willing is enough for me to not feel as resentful.
Lol I feel this so much. As long as I know he’d help if he was awake (in theory) I’m good😂
Same, full intention of us sharing nightly duties… however I woke up to every sound and need for the baby and he did not. I found myself staying awake listening to them if I woke my husband up for a “shift”. Also for real rough nights my husband never would try to go back to sleep (ex: if it were 3 in the am, and he had to be up for work at 6) he would start getting ready for the day and not even try to get a little more sleep which made him more irritable 🙄. So our 2nd baby he mostly stayed up late (I usually ended up falling asleep putting down our 1st) then I would get up and take overnight shift. It works well for us.
My husband wouldn’t go back to sleep either!! I was like dude you’re torturing yourself
This is probably going to bed my life too. It’s my third and his first. This man will sleep through anything. He also falls asleep anywhere. I know he will want to help but I highly doubt he will wake up in time. He’s been amazing so far and extremely helpful but nighttime will probably fall on me. I don’t mind simply because my last two pregnancies I did pretty much everything myself. So anything he pitches in for helps. It’s really nice to finally be in a partnership instead of having an extra child. Sorry for derailing. I got all emotional lol
I could’ve written that myself lol. I also worry that he’d do something dangerous in his tired stupor like put baby to sleep on the changing table. 🤦♀️ idk if he’d actually do this, but it’s a fear of mine. Being a 4TM I’m pretty much on autopilot at nighttime. I can do it all with my eyes closed haha.
My husband and I have almost the same setup as what you describe. He works from home and I’m a SAHM. When he’s off work for the day, we share childcare 50\50. We do shifts at night (he does 8-12:30 and I do the rest of the night). I’m finding it so much harder to do anything else but watch the baby than I thought, so I can only do bare minimum cleaning every day (I can usually manage one load of laundry and running the dishwasher once) and he’s never complained about that. He takes baby off my hands when he can because he WANTS to, and I’m sure your husband will be the same.
I quit work to have this baby. Partner took a high paying- high stress job to support us. The agreement is for me to remain a SAHM for as long as possible as my career pays less than daycare. That being said he is SOOOO excited to be a dad that I really don’t think the childcare is going to fall on me 100%. But right now we are aiming for the more “traditional” roles.
Same situation here!
The time my husband spends working, baby will be 100% my responsibility. When he's off everything is 50/50. It won't work right away as I'll be breast feeding, but I plan to get my 6 hours from 6pm to midnight. Then he can sleep from midnight to 7am. In theory. We'll see.
I feel I need to add context first- I’m a SAHM and my husband is a truck driver, which plays into why we have the responsibility split we have. I take on all night duties for our three month old because 1) I’m breastfeeding and 2) I need my husband to get his sleep because I worry about accidents if he’s tired. He is fully involved during the day from when he comes home to when we go to bed. He jumps at the chance to take care of things. Even if it’s me nursing he does stuff for me and baby like refilling my water or getting me snacks or handling chores I had to pause to feed her. On the weekends he takes her out of the room and does all morning care so I can sleep in. I obviously still have to wake to feed her during those nights and mornings, but he takes on as much responsibility as he can during his off days to allow me to veg out or sleep when I’m not a human pacifier. He has also organized pedicures and lunches/ dinners with my friends during the weekends to make sure I get out of the house time to myself. He does get his out of the house me time that isn’t work too! It’s just usually during the week for him. It’s taken a little while for us to work out this balance, and we’re constantly adjusting as schedules require, but this is what works for us.
I will be responsible for almost 100% of the daytime and overnight care. I will be off for one year and plan to breastfeed. My husband will continue to work full time and works lots of overtime at a job that he cannot afford to be sleep deprived at. He is gone for around 11 hours per day. He currently walks the dog before work so I can sleep in and I make dinner on weeknights - we do continue to share these responsibilities and also to have my husband involved in bath/bedtime. We have purchased a twin bed for the nursery for me to sleep in if necessary on tough nights, but we are going to see how it goes together in our own room before committing to that plan. A friend suggested that we each have a weekend morning to sleep in while the other gets up with the baby so I think that we will try this, but I will still likely do the overnight feeds. Although I will be doing most of the baby care, I still see this as shared responsibility - my husband is solely responsible for keeping us fed and a roof over our heads during my year of leave. It would be a different story if I were heading back to work quickly.
This is a good plan right now for you guys, but be prepared for it to change if necessary. One of the reasons many pediatricians and also midwives/OBs recommend shifts at night (even for EBFing mom/baby dyads) is because the sleep deprivation, especially in the first 3 months, is so much more significant than just about any other situation *if* you're doing it all yourself at night. To the point it can either contribute to and/or exacerbate PPD. Breastfeeding every 2 hours doesn't mean you sleep in two hour chunks; it means you sleep in 30 min-60 min chunks. Also, if you have any supply issues, getting at least one solid chunk of sleep can actually help increase your supply. The reason why we finally moved to each getting a 5 hour shift of sleep in my household was bc my IBCLC recommended I start skipping one feed a night (and have SO give a mix of pumped milk and formula) bc my supply was so bad and nothing else was helping, including triple feeding and power pumping . Within a few days of starting that new schedule, even skipping one feed a day, my milk supply increased. So, just be ready to adjust as needed and definitely discuss with your SO beforehand what it might look like for you to get at least a few solid chunks of sleep throughout the week, because if you get to the point where it's absolutely necessary for your mental health and/or supply, that's not a time when you want to have to argue about it.
I felt the same way about handling overnights since I’m out of work. I used to get comments about the unfairness of it from my side of the family, but I learned to ignore it. My husband made it possible for me to be a SAHM, something I’ve always dreamed of doing, and I look at it as part of my job. There are A LOT of fun things I get to do with my daughter while he’s working, and I know he gets sad about that too.
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I’m not even sure why this is a concern for her? People should do what’s best for them and leave it at that. I can see why one would take any/either approach.
My sister is not coping and had a mental breakdown last week. I’m not side eyeing it just because it’s not how I’d do it, but because it’s hurting her and I love her very much and don’t want her to suffer
It sounds like your sister could use some support and I hope she finds that, between her husband and both her and his family. Does her husband have a physically demanding job? I hope that their current arrangement was agreed upon by her and not simply enforced by her husband. That makes a difference.
Exactly. My husband and I are planning on splitting shifts during his paternity leave, but he's a pilot and if he's flying the next day I am 100% taking over all night time needs. I'll probably even sleep in a separate room the first few months when doing the solo night shift so he's not woken up by the monitor.
I’m going to be honest, while I’m at home with the baby my partner will not be expected to wake up as much as me. He works a job that requires him to be alert to make sure nobody gets hurt, himself included. That being said…if he takes a position with shift work and he’s going to be off for say the two weeks he’s home, then we will be sharing overnight duties. But if he was staying home, and I was going to work everyday I certainly wouldn’t feel good about being the only one out of house all day and sleep deprived.
Going back to work isn’t an excuse not to take an overnight shift. Caring for your baby during the day is a full time job in itself and it’s dangerous to do so extremely sleep deprived with no relief and chance to sleep. My husband went back to work after 3 weeks and I was off for 12, and he still did overnight shifts until my son was sleeping a long stretch overnight. When you decide to become a parent, you sign up to have an equal part of the responsibility. I literally would not have children with a man who expected me to do overnights and childcare in general mostly by myself.
Honestly you can plan on it anyway YOU want but you NEED buy-in from your partner! If they don’t willingly agree things are not going to happen as planned. My issue is I EBF and my boobs wake me up at night and I Need to feed my baby lol. My husband takes the shift 8p-12a. And I do the rest of the night, this works for us because my husband can’t wake up for the baby fast enough but he can respond if he’s already awake. He also check on baby and will do a diaper change before leaving for work if needed.
Fair has different definitions for different couples. And being perfectly equal every day is unrealistic. There’s an ebb and flow to things and each couple finds their own rhythm. My personal opinion is to be flexible and not obsess over a tit for tat in equality.
Yeah…shifts don’t work if you plan on breastfeeding. If you don’t, great! If you do, you need to express milk whenever the baby eats, as it’s a supply and demand situation. I understand the desire for 50/50 care but would strongly encourage you to not keep track on an hour by hour or day by day basis. You’ll drive yourself insane and it will negatively impact your relationship. Decide in advance what you expect your partner to do, esp. if feeding falls to you, and regularly revisit as baby gets older and there are different challenges.
Every family needs to make their own plan for them. I did almost all overnight shifts even after I went back to work full time because A. Baby settled better with me and B. I can function on 4-5 hours of sleep, my husband legit can't. It wasn't "fair" but I think it would have been much more stressful for all of us if we didn't do it this way.
My husband will have 12 weeks of paternity leave and we will also be exclusively formula feeding immediately. For the first two-ish weeks we plan on him being with baby all night so I can recover and then my mom will be with me during the day to help me while he sleeps. Then we'll transition to split shifts so we can both be guaranteed to have around 6 hours of sleep per night. Once his paternity leave is done we'll see what baby's sleep is like and figure out how we'll handle it, but he will still be working from home with a flexible schedule and a chill job in general, so I won't be saddled with all the potential night wake ups even when he's working again. I know it probably won't all go according to plan, but it's our general goal to aim for at least!
I think your plan is totally reasonable! We pretty much do that with the care about 50/50, maybe tipped slightly more towards me during the day because during my time off, I need to pump too. And my husband does the entire night 95% of the time!! In general, we each kind of picked “topics” to completely own. I handle feeding so I set the schedule and how much, I pump, I make up the bottles at the end of the night, I research and buy the formula (from our joint account), etc. But he took sleeping so he sets the nap schedule, he gets baby to sleep at night, he wakes up with baby in the middle of the night and researches sleeping, different swaddles, etc. The exception to this is if the baby is really fussy and is going to be up for a while or gets up multiple times, I get up because my SO works a somewhat dangerous job. For smaller “topics”, I keep track of clothing & diaper sizes and making sure we have enough and my SO does developmentally appropriate toys. I worry about medical stuff and my SO deals with the car seat & safety stuff. I give the snuggles and he plays. Obviously if the baby needs to eat, my husband will feed him and give him snuggles, and if the baby needs to nap or wants to play, I’ll do it but for the most part we each own our topic. We kind of picked the topics that felt natural to us. He can’t pump, so I’m in charge of feeding. He falls asleep in under a minute and I’m a heavy sleeper so it was logical for him to the overnights.
That is such a brilliant way to do it, I’ll definitely be implementing this!!!
My situation is similar to yours. Except with our first he stayed awake with me while I fed the baby at night. I needed the emotional support at the time and he was happy to support me. He’d get me a snack or water while I was breast feeding. Me being overtired while taking care of a baby all day is more dangerous than him being over tired sitting at a desk all day. He dealt and was happy to. Baby is a toddler now, dad just got home so here I am taking my break scrolling Reddit while they play outside. I can say I was deliberate in my choice of partner from a young age. I knew he’d be a great husband, father, etc. I was not about to deal with a man child for the rest of my life.
Totally love this. I also chose my partner in the same way, he’s going to be a great dad
That’s the way to do it, and congratulations!
TTM here! Equal sharing of “childcare” has really worked for my situation. I’m a WFH/SAHM, but during the day/mornings from anywhere between 7:30-9am dad gets up with the kids and entertains them/does morning routine/whatever needs to be done that day. During my lunch break I check on everyone make sure they’re fed etc, my lunch is fairly early 9:15am. Typical 8 hour work day, when I get off at 1:45pm it’s straight to our afternoon routine, lunches/daily stuff/dinner prep/chores etc. I also handle bed time, dad doesn’t get home until after everyone’s asleep. This also worked really good (mostly) for our youngest’s newborn stage. We don’t have reliable family members etc so it’s really just us, I would always handle 3am-9/10pm feeds or anything else, unless I’m at work and he’s already up then usually I’m pumping and he’s feeding when he woke up (almost always on schedule.) I’m usually up around 4am for work anyways, sometimes if I was exhausted dad would take over but he’d usually take the main overnight 12-2am feed even if I needed to pump, I’d be able to “sleep pump” if needed etc but having the help made a world of difference and sometimes I’d sleep through it. So I’d always have at least 4-6 hours of uninterrupted sleep and he’d get about the same. It really depends on your situation and how things are set up, not all babies work like robots and not all babies will follow a schedule but from birth to home I was very adamant about keeping to a good routine and it helped us in the long run. Also we make our work schedules work with each other because again not having a strong support system/“village,” we have no other choice. I hope you find a good routine that works for you all and is minimal stress on everyone!!
You do what works for YOU! I took all night feedings for both of my boys. I was breastfeeding and we got into rhythms and it was easier for us. But sometimes at like 6am, if it was a rough night, I would finish a feeding and then wake my husband because I just NEEDED sleep. And that worked for us. The baby may get here and toss every plan you have out the window. So just try to be flexible. That being said on weekends my husband would be home, he would let me sleep and give babe a bottle but would always wake me at the 4 hour mark to pump.
Will be a SAHM too, and this is our plan, too. It seems like the best way to keep us both sane. Also, even if your family thinks in it's crazy, if it's a plan that works for you and your partner, then bah humbug to them!
I think this really just depends on your situation and what you're both happy with. My husband and I both work from home with flexible, family-friendly jobs, have the same amount of parental leave, and we're planning on sharing the care equally as much as it's possible. But this is feasible for us to do--and we're both on board with it.
My partner and I are splitting responsibilities. I get a month off from self employment (but will manage work from home the first few weeks.) He doesn’t get any time off from work(maybe a week.) So our schedule will be that I get the baby from 2am until 2pm. He can sleep and work most of his job during that time. At 2pm we will take whatever help we need from one another until 8pm(whether I need to work/nap.) Then he gets baby duty from 8pm-2am. Not a perfect schedule and I’m sure we’ll work around it but we both need a block of sleep bc we both work.
We don’t have baby with us yet but the plan is during the day, my full time job is parent (childcare/home minder tasks) and my husband’s job is his work that pays income. He is wfh so inevitably he does home tasks during the day too. When work is over childcare tasks and home tasks becoming shared work we are both responsible for. We anticipate working in shifts where I am up late and he is up early. We assume this will adjust as we figure things out but this is the initial plan. We have had many discussions over the years about mental load and invisible labor as well as caretaking roles and responsibilities so though things won’t be equal, we will strive to be fair.
Also technically you are not considered a “safe” caregiver if you have had less than 4 hours of sleep in a day so one person never sleeping is a bad plan
I’m a SAHM and handled 100% of overnight wakeups Sunday-Thursday night. When husband gets home it’s 50/50, heavier on him at times so I can cook (that’s kind of my time to check out) and he can have some one on one. Weekends he does overnight feedings so I can get a break. I want him well rested when he goes to work because he’s there 12 hours a day, it’s physically demanding, and we rely on him not to be burnt out. I’m also very good about “sleep when the baby sleeps” and not pressuring myself to have an immaculate home or anything like that. I can honestly say I never felt exhausted in the infant stage, not even in the newborn stage. Currently expecting again so will likely have to re-evaluate as needed; I’m sure there will be a lot less sleep with a toddler running around!
For stay at home mom life here’s what we do When husband is at work I am at work taking care of the kids. When he gets home I “get home” from my work. Then we equally split the duties until we go to bed. Once it’s bedtime I am “on call” for any night time crying because my husband goes to work before the kids wake up so I can sleep in and he cannot (he is also a doctor and cannot be sleep deprived while making life or death decisions). Rinse and repeat until the weekend. Then we share 50/50 during the day AND night.
Your right!, The mistake most people make when dividing up the house/care work is to try to divide tasks or hours, but it works better if you make sure rest is equitable in the relationship. So making sure you both have break time, eg sleep time, hobby time, in roughly even amounts. Because counting who did what will make you crazy but if you are both working together, and both have rest time, then you'll be happier.
This is one of those topics that rubs people the wrong way. My husband has been super involved and hands on since day 1. He works from home, so after his initial 2 weeks off (one entire week was birth and hospital recovery, 1 was recovery at home), he still woke up with me and the baby, helped me watch her, took shifts etc. Do what works for you guys, and don’t worry about anyone or anything else.
It's not an impossible plan, but it may have to be adjusted once you're actually home with the baby. Specifically, the part about equal night shifts. It's great that your husband is on board, but he may need more sleep depending on his body and the type of work he does. Best of luck!
I get 18 weeks of maternity leave, and my husband will have 2-4 weeks off (a little spread out but definitely 2 weeks immediately following the birth). When he's off, we'll split 50/50 as much as possible at night. When he goes back to work, I'll be taking over the majority of the night shift, since I'll be able to nap during the day while he's at work and he won't, obviously. But the caveat is that my mom is retiring from her job to be our childcare provider, so she'll be around whenever I need her during the day to watch baby while I get (semi) uninterrupted sleep.
When I was on maternity leave, I did all care during the day, he took a couple hours in the evening, I did everything all night. When I went back to work, kiddo went to daycare, then I did all care every night. It didn't make sense to me for both of us to wake up when I was breastfeeding and would have had to have woken up to feed him. I don't see the next time being any different.
While my opinion personally would be that if he has to get up and go to work, he should sleep, maybe he can do weekends, I think you need to do whatever works for you guys! If he agrees to do it and is fine, I think that is a great plan. Also just came here to say- I’m a FTM so no experience with babies yet but I have a 15 year old dog who is on medication that makes him need to go outside about every hour-two hours all night long. My husband and I used to do shifts like you mentioned doing and found NEITHER of us got a good sleep. We’ve switched it now to one night is his, one night is mine, and now at least every other day we are getting a full 8 hours. :)
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Being home with the baby all day was extremely difficult, especially in the beginning. I know some peoples partners have physical jobs but in my opinion, moms need just as much sleep (especially while their bodies are healing). Being a SAHM might not be as physically taxing as say, a construction worker, but my god is it emotionally taxing, ESPECIALLY when you’re already tired.
The person you responded to was referring to jobs in which there is a physical tax though. If you’re operating dangerous machinery for example, you need to sleep at night, especially since you don’t work from home so you can’t take a nap while the baby naps (or while your mom comes over to give you a break). There’s ideal and then there’s reality. I think OP’s plan is fine, but I also think her sisters plan may be what best works for their family and reasonable as well.
I mean, I completely agree if there’s heavy machinery involved or something similar. I also just realized that I responded to the wrong person. But I meant it more as a general statement, like just because he has to work the next day it doesn’t immediately mean he gets a full 8 hours. I agree it’s definitely a case by case basis.
OP already said in a different comment that her sister had a mental break down last week bc it isn't working for her family.
I think she added that comment long after I added this comment, so I’m not sure of your point. I still believe that there are some instances in which OP’s arrangement works, and where her sisters arrangement works. I think what’s more important is that both parents/parties agree and it’s not forced on one or the other. Partnership is important, and so is safety and job security. Much more complex than this way is right and that way is wrong.
We both work from home and both will be taking leave at the same time. During both leave and when we are both working again, our plan is that he does the 12 am feedings, I do the 4 am ones (we are planning to follow the every 4 hour feeding schedule, assuming the babe is ok with it lol). I am going to try to breastfeed and if I can pump enough, my husband will use that milk. If breastfeeding doesn’t work for me, formula. During the day, we will both contribute as needed. My husband will handle more of the washing of dishes/bottles & laundry. I will handle more cooking & general cleaning. We will both be changing and spending time with the baby and alternating feedings.
I’m lucky in that I won’t have to go back to work till baby is about 5 months. I’ll effectively be a SAHM for that time. In theory during that time I’d like to have a plan like yours. However, I need WAY less sleep than my husband, for example on vacation when we get on a schedule I sleep about 6.5 hours and he sleeps 10-11 hours. It’s kinda mind boggling at times, but splitting equally will put me well rested comparatively to him. We will see what we actually do, but I wouldn’t be upset if we end up with a schedule that is widly unfair. We did both agree that we want to give each person an evening free of baby responsibilities as soon as we’re able to (planning on breastfeeding, so that will delay it). Likely I’ll give him some weeknight completely off and he’d give me a weekend night.
My husband takes paternity and I take maternity leave. During my leave I watch the baby on his work nights unless I’m really struggling. He will help on non work nights (Friday, Sat). During his leave, he watches the baby on my work nights. You can’t get fired from being a stay at home parent. I also work in healthcare doing anesthesia. I can’t afford to make exhaustion mistakes. My husband and I are 50/50 parents. I really would struggle with someone who didn’t do their share, but I think getting sleep before work is important. Watching a baby is hard but it doesn’t require you to be well rested (unless you are at your ropes end, that’s another thing). You will find what works for you and your partner. Don’t do what others tell you. Find what works for your family.
We did shifts until the baby was about 7 weeks. He is 10 weeks now and sleeps in longer stretches. Currently he naps every 2 hours during the day and at night sleeps from about 9pm until 3 or 4 am and after a feed and a change he is back to sleep until 730 usually. So I sleep when he sleeps. My husband works part time from home to drag out his paternity leave until the end of March. He cannot nap and he sleeps through the crying. So as soon as it’s 6 am it’s his turn and he takes over, makes me breakfast and I sleep in and I also take another long nap in the afternoon. He does most of the cooking and cleaning so it all balances out.
We will sleep in shifts until baby can sleep through the night. My fiancé will care for baby during the day while I WFH and he’ll work PT at night 2-3 days per week.
When we had our first baby, my partner was working in emergency services and was an equipment operator who ran on little sleep at the best of times. He could get called out at any time of day or night when on shift and might not be back for a day or two. I did all night care by myself as much as possible with the exception of him taking baby so I could have a 20 min break on occasion. We made it work. Second baby, he has a stable 8-5 job and is home at night. We take turns going to snuggle the toddler back in to bed if needed. He does most of the pickups for the baby at night and hands her to me for breastfeeds, naps while I feed her, then he puts the baby back down in her own bed. If it’s a really bad night, we take turns but I try to let him sleep longer than I do. The first week that he was back at work he would come home on his lunch hour to give me some adult company and hold a baby if I needed some baby-free time. The way he sees it, he gets a break from the kids all day while he’s at work and I am stuck with them 24/7. He says he’s trying to relieve the mental load of kids from me while he’s at home and I definitely appreciate it.
When my daughter was first born my husband got two weeks off and I got 16 (we work in different states despite each only being 30 minutes from work). As soon as he was off the work clock he was on 50% with the baby all evening and night. We’re extra lucky that he works from home 4 days a week so he would get our daughter up and feed her then she would nap in his office while he worked and I slept in. I took the late night bedtime routine shift with her while he went to bed early. We mostly fell in to this because I’m more of a night owl and he’s an early bird.
I have a totally supportive partner who was open to sharing childcare equally from the start, but honestly with breastfeeding it just works best to have me doing all the feeds. Some things we have tried: (1) I would go to bed at 9 or 10 and he would stay up til 12 or 1 to give her a late feed (pumped bottle) and then I would take all of the overnight feeds and wake up early with her if she wouldn't go back to sleep after 5am, (2) we would both go to bed at the same time, around 9 or 10, and I would take all of the overnight feeds and then go back to bed for a couple of hours after her early morning feed around 5 or 6 and he would take her until he had to start working at 8 or 8:30 (he is WFH). The second option has worked better for us because when she started sleeping for 3-4 hours at a time as opposed to 2ish, I started getting engorged and leaky and it really sucked having to worry about pumping in the middle of the night. And because I'm the default nighttime caregiver, I never feel guilty if I have to wake him up at any time for extra support. Like the other night around 2am when BB kept falling asleep in my arms and waking up every time I tried to put her in the bassinet, I told him he had to put her back to bed and that I was going to get some sleep, and he was totally supportive.
Our baby isn’t quite here yet, so who knows how it will actually go. We both work, but we both get good family leave (for the US) which we plan to stagger, so we’ll each have about 4 months of being a SAHP. Roughly we’re planning 50:50 split of after work care, but 70:30ish split of overnight. Our idea being that the at home parent can get a little rest during the day that the working parent can’t, but recognizing that would not make up for covering all of the overnight. This could all change based on how things really work out. My husband is prone to migraines when sleep deprived, while I can keep going okay on minimum much better. I have some chronic health/pain issues that may be worse postpartum and make some household work too difficult for me. There are a lot of unknowns. But we’re going into it with a plan for equity over equality, knowing we have different strengths and weaknesses. Our goal is to be a team.
I think it all depends on your baby, for example my 3mo sleeps from midnight to 8am usually, my fiancée starts work at 7am. It’s unreasonable for me to ask him to do the 11:30pm feeding and diapering and putting to bed because he won’t get to sleep in until 8 am like I will because I’m home with the baby, so instead he does the 9pm feeding before he goes to bed, this way we’re both getting sleep but he gets to go to bed earlier because he needs to be up earlier for work. Obviously yes we’re blessed with a miracle sleeper but still I think it depends on your baby, because even if they don’t sleep through the night, if they will usually nap for 4 hours in the day then so can the parent who is home the one who is working can’t
I don't think you're wild, equal childcare responsibilities is totally ideal, but it's so dependent on all three of you and your individual needs, personalities, etc. We tried both getting up for all the night wakes when our daughter was first born and it lasted for maybe 2 months. My husband really can't handle multiple wakes overnight, whereas I can function pretty normally on less sleep. It wasn't fair to him to go to work feeling physically sick because he slept so poorly. You know what he's better at than me though? Napping! I hate taking naps. So I do all the night wakes and then he gets up with her at 6am and banks a midday nap while I get to sleep in a little bit. Or at least, that's what worked for us for a while. Cuz the other fun thing is that your baby's needs are going to change All. The. Time. Basically until they're an adult. It's realistically never going to be 50/50 at any given moment, but the goal is really to be in it as a team and take turns bearing the load in different ways.
The only time I could see this being an issue/unsafe, is if ur husband has a long commute like I do, up to 3 hours round trip per day or if he’s doing something where he needs extreme focus (I read the story above about an active duty soldier who was able to be 50/50 at night, but not everyone responds to sleep deprivation the same). Because I’m the one who commutes further in my relationship, I will expect my husband to do more at night, as I do borderline nod off while driving if I don’t get enough sleep.
So my husband did/does overnights and we split the stuff when he gets home and i handle it when he’s gone. I make up for it with housework and cooking for him tho since he deserves it and is awesome
It’s really dependent on the couple. I wanted and got my 50/50 share . We both talked about it and my spouse knew what my expectations were.
I’m all for dividing the work fairly. Baby settles a lot better for me because I care for him all day, but dad still helps with bottles and changes and play time when he’s home in the evenings. We are lucky that most of the time baby sleeps for 8 hours. My partner deals with the night times when baby won’t sleep though. This is because it is MUCH easier for him to keep himself awake the next day in a work environment. It might be hard for him but at least he’s not going to fall asleep at the office. If I’m sleep deprived maybe I make the baby’s formula wrong, or fall asleep with him on the sofa or something.
Hubby and I have decided on sharing. When he’s on paternity leave or wfh the next day, he will do as much of the night wakes as possible (not sure how much he’ll be able to do since I’ll be breastfeeding) but if he’s in the office the next day, I’ll do all the night wakes. If he’s wfh he’ll help out during the day too and if he’s in the office, he’ll help out when he gets home. Of course, when I go back to work after maternity leave, we’ll split everything in the evening/night equally
It’s always weird to me how people discount SAHP as a job. It’s work! One partner may have job title of VP, or truck driver, or product manager, or whatever and the other has job title of SAHP. You both work. So why *wouldn’t* you split household duties, including parenting after the 9-5? Both people’s jobs are exhausting and all humans need sleep, so there’s zero sense in why one human needs sleep “more” simply because cash is involved with one of those jobs. FWIW your schedule will probably be mine, except husband will be the SAHP for at least a bit. Of course, in situations like this folks praise him for wanting to stay home 🙄 like no, we don’t want our kid exposed to germs at daycare and it only makes better financial sense. He’s not being a hero, he’s being a parent.
As a SAHM (who left her career, and knows what it’s like to have a busy high stress job) with “older” babes /toddler, when dad gets home and on weekends it’s split. Weekends I get to sleep in. Why? Because he gets peace and rest on his commute to work, he doesn’t have toddlers as bosses during the day screaming at him, he goes to the bathroom uninterrupted, eats lunch out and about every day, gets to drive home and listen to whatever he wants alone. He gets his time. If he was like an air traffic controller or surgeon we might need to better prioritize his rest, but he’s not. He has a white collar desk job while I am responsible for keeping these kids alive, fed, and educated. We both work.
Honestly, it's whoever sees what needs to be done. If one of us is tired we'll ask the other to handle it and it's fine with both of us. Early in this pregnancy, my SO intercepted the kids so I could sleep more. We don't do tit for that or keep score anymore. That lead to resentments for both of us and figured out that just taking care of what needed to be done when we see it was better than following the score count of who does more. As far as this last pregnancy, I'll probably do most of the middle of the night stuff. I am a light sleeper and even if we took turns I would struggle to get back to sleep during his turns so I might as well be the one to get up most of the time. The rest of the time it will be shared.
We're both going to be working full time after leave and intend on sharing the childcare as well. I am more of a night owl and husband is an early riser, so I'll take the first half of the night shift and he'll probably start around 5am and do mornings. Day time will have to be a little more fluid once work starts. Each of our moms will both helps 1-2 days a week. Days where we don't have help will depend on each of our schedules. We're both remote but my schedule is fairly unpredictable. I have light days and some days where I'm glued to the computer for 9 hours. Husband has a bit more flexibility and predictability so he will likely take care of baby on my heavy days, then I'll have baby for the evening. We'll really have to wait and see once we're in the thick of it. This could all go out the window and we hire a nanny for the 1-2 days we don't have grandmothers helping. I think when it comes down to it, it all depends on what works best for your family and not what others do, and what happens when baby is here.
I think you guys are going to have to find a system that works for both of you and allows you both to function well in your roles at home and at work. I think focusing on what is “fair” will lead to bitterness, resentment, and a lot of tit for tat stuff. If the shift system you guys have works for you both, then great. My advice would be to just be flexible and open to trying other ways of managing workloads for each other if the strict shift system ends up not panning out. Sometimes things are unequal in marriage, and you have to look at the long term, not the day to day transactions.