# Husband/ Partner's Duties at Night



## sssheri (Oct 3, 2010)

What does your husband/ partner do at night to help with the baby?

Mine sleeps through the night until I wake him, but is responsible for all the diaper changes and swaddling. If I need, in the morning he will take our daughter so I can get a few extra hours of sleep.


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## LadyCatherine185 (Aug 12, 2008)

From 0-19 months it was all me. DH would take DS out in the mornings as well and let me get an extra hour or two. From 9 months on he put Liam to bed but I was still responsible for wake-ups. At 19 months I started nightweaning, and we moved Liam to his own bed at 20 months and DH took over nighttime. So now all nighttime is on DH.

I definitely think it is good to have Daddy involved!


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## sunnygir1 (Oct 8, 2007)

Dh has never done babies at night. Now that ds is here, dh (somewhat reluctantly) does dd at night, but about half the time I still have to get up with her, too.

If ds is sleeping in the am when dd gets up sometimes he takes her so I can sleep. He takes one or both for me to nap on weekends when I ask.


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## Parker'smommy (Sep 12, 2002)

This is us exactly!







I wake dh briefly between sides so that I can use the bathroom and he changes the diaper and reswaddles the baby. He does the swaddling 100 times better than me! This is only for the first couple of months though. When babe stops pooping at night, and is no longer swaddled, he'll get a break.

BUT...he is responsible for all other nightwakings by our other two children - age 5 and 8. They wake maybe...um, a few times a month for nightmares, potty, or water. So it's not that much. And when we nightwean...it'll be ALL him again. And oh yes...momma sleeps in one day on the weekend...heaven!


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## Llyra (Jan 16, 2005)

DH did nighttime diapers, with DD1. He also got up in the early am with her, so that I could sleep an extra hour or two-- she used to wake early. He also mostly slept with her, since she wanted physical contact at night, and I'm not a cuddly sleeper. We were very happy with that arrangement. I EPed for her, though, and I think that changes the dynamic-- I wasn't waking to nurse her. I was waking to get up and pump multiple times a night.

With the twins, he did a LOT more. I think that's the reality with multiples-- he did nighttime diapers a lot of the time, though not always. He also sometimes had to hold and walk a cranky baby, because sometimes one baby needed my whole attention for awhile. He also would sleep next to one of them, while the other slept with me, since both of them wanted physical contact to sleep. My twins both nursed to sleep, but they wouldn't nurse to sleep TOGETHER, so there was a lot of juggling. He also did all of DD1's night wakings, because I was always latched on to one twin or the other.

Since I had DD1 to take care of all day, and she didn't nap, I didn't get to nap, either. So it seemed dead wrong to both of us to think he needed more sleep than I did, at night-- we aimed for roughly an equal amount of sleep for each of us.


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## katelove (Apr 28, 2009)

I didn't vote as none of the choices fit







but this is what we do, BTW I'm assuming "night" = when everyone is in bed? DH usually settles her for the night if she doesn't feed to sleep.

DH sleeps through as all J needs most nights is feeding. We co-sleep so it's just a matter of rolling her over and plugging her in







So far I've been able to wait until she's settled again if I need to get up for a drink or the loo.

Anytime after 4am, if she wakes up and won't go back to sleep, DH takes her until either 6:30am, on days when he does an early shift, or until she needs her next feed. If he doesn't have to work he will often take her out for a walk/to the markets etc

He always says "wake me if you need me" but I am *so* not a morning person, I would much rather he was well rested and able to take her so I can sleep in.

Oh, she's 41/2 months and this has pretty much always been our routine although the waking at 4am is quite new


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## Kuba'sMama (Oct 8, 2004)

I voted for 'nothing, sleeps through the night'

My husband is a wonderful father-- when he's awake.

Sometimes I feel some resentment (like in the middle of the night), but I guess no one is perfect. Like I said, he is a model father when awake. He claims he needs more sleep than I, don't know, could be bs, maybe not. I gave up fighting this a long time ago.


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## SubliminalDarkness (Sep 9, 2009)

Nothing. With breastfeeding, I had to wake up anyway, so I saw no point in disrupting DH's sleep as well.

And now, with the kids older, I handle any nighttime issues because DH has to work in the morning. I get up at the same time as he does, but I don't have to be as "on" all day as he does.


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## cdmommie (Aug 7, 2007)

my husband always takes over the nights whenever the baby starts to night wean . Before that it's usually all me except on occasions when I'm super sleep deprived. We night weaned DD1 at 10 months and dd2 just recently at 17 months


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## 2xy (Nov 30, 2008)

Quote:


Originally Posted by *SubliminalDarkness* 
Nothing. With breastfeeding, I had to wake up anyway, so I saw no point in disrupting DH's sleep as well.

This was my attitude, too.

When I was no longer nursing, he would get up with DS2 if it was a particularly rough night. DS1 was an awesome sleeper and never got up at night unless he was sick. DS2 didn't sleep through the night until he was 3yo, and he usually wanted _me_.


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## Baby_Cakes (Jan 14, 2008)

DH will help if I need him to, otherwise I handle everything and let him sleep. When I'm about to reach my breaking point he is more than willing to help.


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## MusicianDad (Jun 24, 2008)

Other...

It really depends if the person being woken is me or DH. Unless there is vomit or blood involved. If it's vomit, it's me, if it's blood it's DH.


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## texmati (Oct 19, 2004)

dh does everything since I've gotten pregnant. At the beginning he used to do everything but nurse the baby. In the middle (aaah those were the best times!) I used to be able to just feed the baby in my sleep.


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## ElliesMomma (Sep 21, 2006)

Quote:


Originally Posted by *MusicianDad* 
Other...

It really depends if the person being woken is me or DH. Unless there is vomit or blood involved. If it's vomit, it's me, if it's blood it's DH.

why would blood be involved?


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## cocoanib (May 14, 2009)

Quote:


Originally Posted by *SubliminalDarkness* 
*Nothing. With breastfeeding, I had to wake up anyway, so I saw no point in disrupting DH's sleep as well.*

And now, with the kids older, I handle any nighttime issues because DH has to work in the morning. I get up at the same time as he does, but I don't have to be as "on" all day as he does.










i've thought about asking dh to get up with her a couple nights a week, but that would be more disruptive to DD and i than anything.


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## Emmery'sMom (May 31, 2009)

It always been just me, he sleeps through the night. He didn't even sleep in the same bed with us until just about a month ago (my DD is almost 21 months old).
Before we had a baby I always thought it would be pointless for both of us to be awake at night since I was the one BFing, but once my DD came I really wished I had the help. My DD didn't sleep for the first 14 months of her life and there were days on end that I ran on 1 broken hour of sleep each night. He didn't even take her in the morning or in the evening so I could sleep. And he wondered why I resented him so much


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## Sharlla (Jul 14, 2005)

i nurse, dh does everything else.
_Posted via Mobile Device_


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## Llyra (Jan 16, 2005)

Quote:


Originally Posted by *ElliesMomma* 
why would blood be involved?

It happens to us!







DD1 gets bloody noses sometimes in the winter, if the air in the house gets too dry.


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## April Dawn (Oct 31, 2009)

I exclusively pump. When DS was younger, when he woke at night DH would give him a bottle of breastmilk while I pumped the next one. Now at 16 months I don't pump overnight but DS still wakes at night, so we take turns getting up for bottles, changing, or whatever.


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## newmamalizzy (Jul 23, 2010)

Yup. He sleeps all night long. Sometimes I get really jealous, but....he's SO good at protecting himself with incompetence! I am hyper-sensitive to DDs night-needs whereas he just falls asleep, stays asleep, hears nothing. And when he does wake up he's all confused. When DD was a newborn and DP DID take some of the night responsibilities, he'd wake up looking for her under the covers or next to the bed on the floor, unable to remember if he'd fed her or when or where he'd put her afterward. Yikes!! Nowadays DD finds DP really entertaining, so even in the throes of exhaustion, teething pain, etc. in the wee hours of the night she wakes up grinning and wriggling with glee when she sees her daddy (then goes right back to eye rubbing and wriggling with fatigue when I take her back). So, yes, if I get really desperate I will wake him up to give me 15 minutes of respite, but the sleep battles are all me, all day, all night. (Sigh.)

Note: (because I feel like I made daddy sound bad) DP gets up for work at 5 a.m. and gets home at 6-ish, doing heavy physical work for 9 - 10 hours during the day. So his tiredness is definitely justified!


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## bubbamummy (Feb 25, 2009)

He sleeps though. It takes forever for him to become awake enough to do anything, so it's just easier for me to do it. He is also active duty military and needs to be fully rested for his job and he could be recalled at any time, so Its just best to let him sleep.


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## SilverFish (Jan 14, 2010)

"protects himself with incompetence" hah... i like that. that is my DH. he brings the baby to me to nurse (if she's sleeping in her crib) and will help if we have a serious issue (screaming, mess etc) but otherwise is kind of useless. i find it annoying. he definitely could learn to swaddle or rock her effectively, but "can't" do it. and i have to remind or specifically ask him to change her diaper in the morning, even though i've been asking him to do that pretty much every morning since she was born.

not sure what i need to do about that yet. fortunately dd is over all a really great sleeper, so i am surviving doing most of the night time parenting right now. i don't know what he thinks is going to happen when we have another baby or if i go back to work (which he wants me to).


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## MusicianDad (Jun 24, 2008)

Quote:


Originally Posted by *ElliesMomma* 
why would blood be involved?

Because kids are interesting critters and can bleed for no apparent reason... Or someone fell out of bed and is now bleeding.


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## justKate (Jun 10, 2008)

Quote:


Originally Posted by *Llyra* 
It happens to us!







DD1 gets bloody noses sometimes in the winter, if the air in the house gets too dry.

This happens to ME.









As for Huz, his involvement has changed as DD has gotten older. First three weeks, he changed every diaper.

3wks to whenever we got over that new parent change-the-diaper-when-she-pees-at-night phase, he got up, changed DD, and brought her to me to nurse. This might have been different if I hadn't gone back to work FT.

~6 mos. - 16 mos., we took turns equally putting her to sleep and keeping her asleep throughout the night.

17 mos. - present (20 mos.), she rarely needs a diaper at night and only wants mama anyway, so I do 98% of it. But she also started to STTN, which makes a huge difference.

On weekends, we each take her one morning so the other can sleep in. It works for us.


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## SeekingSerenity (Aug 6, 2006)

With I was with the kids' dad, it was all me, all the time. Not just for baby-stuff or at night-time, either, but for the purposes of this poll, the night duties were completely on me. Absolutely the only time he'd help is if one of the co-sleeping babies was sick and threw up... then he HAD to get up and do something.

Even my first husband, who is an amazing father to the older three kids, checked out when it came to night-duties. He slept through screaming fits, fevers, ear infections, you name it. In his defense, the man could have slept through a freight train crashing into the house, though. He _wanted_ to be woken up, I just never could manage to bring him around.


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## Juvysen (Apr 25, 2007)

Dh is in charge of the older two at night... which means he's up usually about once a night, though sometimes it's like 5 or 6 times. I deal with the baby b/c it's just nursing that he wants at night and we sleep cuddled up together - no handing to do.


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## laurata (Feb 6, 2002)

All of the above!

Most of the time, he sleeps. However, with our fourth, he would move her to her crib when he came to bed, and then get her for me some of the time the first time she woke. How much soothing, diaper changing, etc, depended on how worn out (or sick, or sore) I was and how many hours he was needing to put in at work.


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## november (Mar 22, 2009)

Well, I don't breastfeed so I'm not the only one capable of feeding DD. He gets up to change her, feed her, retrieve the pacifier, or bring her to bed with us - everything the same as I do. Honestly, he's probably the one that hears her first 60-70% of the time. It works for us and I'm glad he helps so much. He's told me on more than one occassion that he's not comfortable letting me do 100% of the night time parenting just because he's the one who works. To quote him "my role as a daddy doesn't end at midnight". I do the bulk of the parenting, obviously, being the SAHP - from 7am until 6pm, so he doesn't think it's fair to expect me to do it all during the night, too. Love that man! :0)


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## newmamalizzy (Jul 23, 2010)

Quote:


Originally Posted by *november* 
Well, I don't breastfeed so I'm not the only one capable of feeding DD. He gets up to change her, feed her, retrieve the pacifier, or bring her to bed with us - everything the same as I do. Honestly, he's probably the one that hears her first 60-70% of the time. It works for us and I'm glad he helps so much. He's told me on more than one occassion that he's not comfortable letting me do 100% of the night time parenting just because he's the one who works. To quote him "my role as a daddy doesn't end at midnight". I do the bulk of the parenting, obviously, being the SAHP - from 7am until 6pm, so he doesn't think it's fair to expect me to do it all during the night, too. Love that man! :0)

Ummm...I think I love your man, too


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## sssheri (Oct 3, 2010)

These responses are so interesting, and so helpful for me to assess our own situation. Thanks everyone!


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## revolting (Sep 10, 2010)

Right now? I take care of both children at night by myself, unless both happen to be up at the same time and the older is being too noisy for the younger to go back to sleep. However, he cleans the kitchen to let me go to bed with the baby, so I think it evens out.


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## sere234 (Feb 7, 2009)

Since I breastfeed, I pretty much do everything at night. DH is sooo willing to help though, I love it







If he wakes up from DS crying (since I won't wake DH up if I can help it), he wants to change diapers, swaddle, or walk him. Most time I can keep DS quiet enough that DH doesn't wake. I'd rather he sleep since he can't nap at work like I can at my job (SAHM!).


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## blake201 (May 20, 2010)

My husband and I made a deal--I'd take care of all nighttime parenting within reason, and he'd do ALL the household chores. I mean, ALL of them--the laundry (including diaper laundry, because we cloth diaper), dishes, litter box, vacuuming, cleaning the bathroom, making the bed, grocery shopping, most of the cooking... I think I've done dishes three times in the last four months, and vacuumed once. I've cooked a little more often because I love to cook, but usually she wants to cluster nurse around dinner time.

It feels like a good deal now, though it didn't always. I mean, I'm nursing, so there's not much he can do when she wakes up in the night these days anyway. Now that she's 3 1/2 months old, she rolls over to my breast, nurses side-lying, and goes right back to sleep. She doesn't even cry like she did as a newborn--I just magically wake up right before she does, somehow. I don't even bother changing her diaper since she never poops during the night anymore. I'm still incredibly sleep-deprived, since I work full-time and she sometimes wakes up several times, but whatever--my husband works full-time, too.

It did NOT always feel like a great deal at first, though. In the first two months, night waking also involved hours of swaddling, shooshing, rocking, etc, and lots of poopy diaper changes. And I used to look over at my blissfully snoring husband and feel really cranky. But my husband took 11 weeks unpaid FMLA leave (I took 12), so at 7 am each day I'd hand her to him and go back to bed for a long nap.

Or try to, anyway... I'd wake him up at 7 am, and it would take him FOREVER to get himself hot coffee (which he couldn't drink near baby) and a shower and eat his breakfast... and then he'd take her around 8 or 8:30 by which time I'd probably need to nurse her again. But that's another story.


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## sunnygir1 (Oct 8, 2007)

I should add that both of our babies were born at 35 weeks, so the first 6 weeks or so were pretty rough. There wasn't much sleeping at night for a while. When they were little, and especially when he was home on paternity leave, dh would take the bedtime shift -- I'd go to bed at 7 or 8 or 9, and he would try to keep the baby reasonably happy for 3-4 hours so I could get a good stretch of sleep.

Once he was back at work and we were settled in a little, I have been the full-on nighttime baby mama...frankly he would have had to figure out how to soothe them earlier on...they wouldn't have anything to do with him in the middle of the night anyway. Of course, that may have been reenforced by his general attitude.


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## Kally_ann (Feb 23, 2008)

His job is to cuddle the 3 year old and receive all her kicks/ elbows to the gut! LOL I sleep peacefully while nursing the 9 month old!


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## KSDoulaMama (May 6, 2009)

In the beginning, DW did everything besides breastfeed. I was very very sore after the birth and couldn't really stand. So she did all the changing and whatnot. And although she induced lactation, I did all the feedings for the first few weeks to let my milk supply get established, and I still did all the night feedings for a good 4 months.

These days, DD is 4.5 months and DW has been doing one early morning feed, around 5am. I do the rest... sometimes that's feeding every hour and sometimes (rarely) she sleeps until DW's early morning feed. On the weekends, she does all of the morning feeding and lets me sleep in late!


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## minkajane (Jun 5, 2005)

XH was the swaddle man. I am terrible at it. I LOVE the velcro swaddlers! But before we had them, XH would reswaddle DS and we'd take turns changing his diaper. He also got me nipple cream or water or anything else I needed while I nursed. That only lasted the first week at home, though. After that, DS was latching well and I dozed through feedings, so none of us got up unless he had a wet diaper that seemed to be bothering him.

With this little one, it will probably be a bit different. DH is a night owl anyway, so he'll probably be in charge of all night-time duties except feeding, since he'll already be awake. Crying, changing, whatever.


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## StrawberryFields (Apr 6, 2005)

Dh does not need to get up with the baby. I don't see any reason for him to get up too since I need to feed her. His nighttime duties are to take care of the older kids if they call out.


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## c'est moi (Sep 8, 2009)

we approach nighttime parenting as an equal partnership. sometimes we had a go with the flow division of parenting. other times, we democratically established a "schedule." i.e. on M/W/F you get up with the baby and on T/Th/Sa I will. we'll alternate sundays to sleep in.

during the earliest weeks and month where breastfeeding falls mostly on me, we balance it out by him doing more of the diaper changing and non-feeding sothing in the middle of the night.


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