this post was submitted on 20 Jun 2023
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After crying basically every day for the last week I realised I’m not coping and that my partner has been letting me down, I have finally asked for more help. Looking after a baby basically by yourself 24 hours a day and being sleep deprived is hard.
I was trying to be the perfect mum, partner, housewife… I had this idea that if I did all the chores and cooking etc, partner would have more time to take baby when he’s home. Guess what he did instead? Play Zelda all day. Lol.
Well I’ve asked him to step it up. We have a sleep consultant coming to help with baby’s sleep. I’m going to hold MIL to her promise to come help out more. I’m considering trying to get baby into daycare earlier than we thought for a day a week so I can reclaim some sanity… we shall see.
Good on you for asking for help. I remember the early days when my husband would come home and say "I've worked all day. I'm tired. I need to relax" and I said to him "that's fine. That's understandable but when is it my time to relax because you've clocked off now when do I get to". He thought about it for about 3 seconds and went "ah let's work something out". Sometimes we don't realise what others are going through until it's pointed out. Compromise and compassion is the key here.
Yes that’s exactly it. He works long and hard at a job he wants to leave so I totally get it. But I’ve had to really start articulating that I am up every 2-3 hours at night PLUS looking after baby all day. A baby who is much harder work than the sleepy little newborn he got to know on his parental leave! We are just in this awkward phase where baby has a lot more needs so the load is heavier and we haven’t quite figured out how to distribute it.
I only just discovered the other week that if I hold baby facing away from me (not towards me) he won’t scream bloody murder. Sometimes you gotta adapt and overcome.
LOL funny and random trick but hey if it works it works
Well that all sucks. I’m sorry you’re going through it. First of all, avoid working towards perfection. Those Insta mums who sip a magic whilst doing some Dawn seaside yoga have help at home garanteed. Your job is to keep them alive, that should be the only goal.
Second of all, dads on every fucking nappy during the day! What he’s in leave and not doing anything? Bullshit. It’s his kid too!
big hugs
and yes, we can't rely on people reading our minds, if you want something you have to say it
It took me so long to learn this. My ex was just as passive aggressive and emotion driven as I am, so we were just in an echo chamber of passive-aggressiveness and expecting the other to read our minds. I made the effort to anticipate his needs but he never did the same for me.
It wasn’t until I got in a relationship with mr. Omoikiri that I realised how irrational that mindset is. Maybe it’s because he’s an engineer and very solutions-driven or maybe it’s because English is his second language and just didn’t pick up on the cues I was throwing out, but eventually he was like “this isn’t working. I can’t read your mind. We can’t address problems if you don’t tell me that there’s a problem.” It was like a slap in the face in the best possible way.
Sometimes it’s so frustrating and I just want him to instinctively know what I need because how can he not see it, but only we know what’s going on in our brains and emotions and only we can speak for them. So we need to because otherwise no one else will and you’ll just drown in it.