Sharing childcare while one partner works outside the home

Bangton

It depends on your baby! My little boy was a reluctant napper until about 5 months and I spent a lot of time in the day pushing him in his pram on long walks because he'd only sleep with the motion. Nap when he did? Not a bl00dy chance! ! Having said that I did most of the night feeds purely because I cope ok on lack of sleep. If i was shattered OH would cover it no problem and he'd always give me a lie in on the weekend.

now we both work full time and our 16 month old still doesn't sleep through!! We alternate night wakings now. If I'm honest I find it easier to be sleep deprived at work than at home with a baby. I can eat a full lunch at work /drink tea/have breaks. I didn't get a lot of that on maternity leave as little boy always needed feeding/ attention /changing/cuddles. I loved it though and would give anything for a day or two of that in the week (I get weekends!!)

Some people have laid back babies and I can imagine would manage to put their feet up at some point in day. I definitely didn't have a difficult baby but he's energetic and very quickly started getting into everything so sometimes I'd crash with tiredness (and sometimes still do! ) I personally think you need to be on alert with a baby too not just at work! Baby might sleep through soon but you might be like me in 16 months and to do it all alone would be very tough indeed!

AngelOfTheNorth

Bangton wrote: »

I personally think you need to be on alert with a baby too not just at work!

You do indeed. I had a couple of occasions, in the early days, where I knew I was simply too tired to be able to care safely for the baby. Luckily I had family to call on who could help, but otherwise I guess it would have been a question of either husband leaving work to do it and annoying them, or our child not being safely cared for. Sometimes that's how it is. You weigh up which is the bigger risk.

Timeflies

Thanks for all your responses. There's obviously a range of ways people share responsibilities in a situation like this, as with any other responsibilities in a household, but I've found it useful to read the range of perspectives and other people's strategies for coping.

Thank you to those that raised concern for my wellbeing after the operation; I feel like I'm steadily improving, and can now pick up and carry our daughter around the house, which helps a lot. We'd spent a fair while in the hospital, so not had that long to adjust to life at home before OH went back to work.

I think OH and I have coped well with the first day and a half (!) of him being at work, all three of us seem to be getting on ok. Thanks for the suggestions of bringing in friends and family to help - I have. She is showing signs of being a night sleeper, and has only been having odd 5-10 minute naps in the day. I'm sure every day will be different though!

I'm actually feeling quite lucky compared to some of the situations described in responses above - OH works very close to home, so I don't have to worry about him driving half asleep, and his job is not safety critical. I'm feeling less stressed about being the primary care giver, and will just take each day as it comes. We haven't come up with any rules or strategies about who does what yet with regard to night time care. Now that I'm feeling less anxious about it, I can see we're approaching parenting as a team and there's need to both of us to be flexible.