I found this on arthousproductions.com and thought it was priceless and captured my point perfectly!
I found this on arthousproductions.com and thought it was priceless and captured my point perfectly!

As I was nursing my 6 week old at 2:30 am 2 nights ago I looked over and immediately had complete and utter envy of my husband. There he was, laying peacefully in dreamland as my eyes were crossing and I was nodding off…. yet still sitting upright. The life with an infant! In that moment I decided to hop on Austin Moms Blog’s Facebook. If you don’t follow us already you should NOW… no, seriously…do it!

Raising Townsend has been no different than raising Lincoln at this point in terms of expectations out of my husband. Since I’m a breastfeeder it just doesn’t make sense to make my husband get up when I’m already up regardless for feeding. In fact with Lincoln, there were times I’d take him to the nursery for feeding and diaper changes in order to not disrupt my hubs sleep…I know, I’m sweet, right? Well, he’s not so lucky this go around. Sometimes he looks at me in the middle of the night with that “look” of “really?” and I shrug and carry on.

I complain that my husband doesn’t help AT ALL in the middle of the night to friends and really anyone who will listen, but truth be told, why should he? He’s the one who brings home the bacon and needs to function properly in order to do so. And while I need to function properly in order to not have Child Protective Services at my house, it’s just not the same. I’d MUCH rather have his help when I don’t necessarily HAVE to be doing something. For example, rock the crying baby so I can enjoy my glass of wine, get up to put the binky back in his mouth when we are eating dinner, go change a diaper so I can keep watching our favorite TV show. What doesn’t top the list is wake up while I’m awake anyway and have no choice but to be awake. I’d rather use my “I need my husband’s help” card at a different time of day when I feel like taking a short “break” from motherhood {wait, does that exist}?

While I was on our Facebook page last night I decided to post about my sleep deprived frustration and asked other moms what arrangement they have with their hubs. Here’s what a few of our moms had to say.

Danielle: Before I went back to work and Austin came home for this month, I let him sleep until 5:30. If Ava woke up after that time, she and daddy hung out downstairs so that I could get 2 quiet, solid hours of shuteye before he left for work. I also woke him up occasionally when I “hit the sleep wall” and just needed a break. He also handles her on weekend mornings so that I can sleep in. We haven’t yet figured out how it will go down once we’re both back at work.

Loni: I know it’s hard, but I figured I could put the baby back to sleep faster than my husband. I went a whole year breast feeding my daughter and working. It’s hard, but I wouldn’t have it any other way. Coffee helps!

Becca: My husband helped if our baby was inconsolable for whatever reason, but he was never happy about it. Otherwise it was (and is) all me at night. And I didn’t birth a sleeper. It’s hard. But he just left for work and I’m still in bed, so I guess I shouldn’t complain too much.

Kristi: My husband was always so supportive. He’s a firefighter so he’s already conditioned to wake up quickly at loud noises, but he always changed diapers while I prepared to nurse and made sure i had what I needed before he went back to sleep. He still takes his share of night duty when our toddler comes yelling through the house towards our room. Now we’re expecting twins and he’s already prepared to get more sleep at work than he will at home. It was never even a question of his helping out, even when I was at home full time. Mommy needs a little time off, too!

Melissa: Greg helped with our girls at night. It was a joint decision to have kids! I would pump (and I had a lot) so I did the 9 pm feeding then he did midnight and I did 3 am (since I had to pump anyway) then he did 6 am. He was going to work anyway! Plus his mom helped us a lot.

As you can read, moms all across Austin have varying opinions on this topic… I had no idea! I know we have a lot of people that follow Facebook, but don’t check our website religiously and vice versa with our Facebook page. So I pose the question here: What worked for you? Was your husband, boyfriend, whatever involved in the middle of the night with feedings and diaper changes or was it you exclusively?

 

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