Parenting is no easy feat, but the first few months with a new baby are particularly difficult.
Unless you’re raising a robot, your newborn baby will very likely not sleep through the night.
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Sleep deprivation is a very normal part of parenthood initiation, and in a two-parent household, it only makes sense for nighttime feeding duties to be shared.
Traditionally, nighttime duty has been the mother’s job.
But it’s 2019—forcing gender roles upon parents is such an outdated way of raising a family.
If parents want to take on those roles, they absolutely have every right to. However, both parents should have shared responsibilities. Dads are co-parents, not just babysitters .
One Reddit user has very particular opinions when it comes to his role as a Father.
This new dad and his wife aren’t just navigating one baby—they’ve got three-week-old twins.
That’s double the feeding, double the crying, and double the work.
All the more reason to share parental responsibility right? Dad doesn’t think so .
He says he shouldn’t have to get up with his babies in the middle of the night.
His reasoning? He works a day job and his wife is a stay-at-home-mom.
To him, this affords her more of an opportunity to rest and take breaks throughout the day, while he can’t take the same amount of breaks while at his job.
Then there’s the Nanny.
“The nanny is here 8am-3pm on weekdays,” he explains, “She’s our housekeeper who has taken on the nanny role also. 100% of the housework is taken care of by the nanny”
“The reason we have is nanny is so my wife can sleep throughout the day”
The Nanny was apparently given “a 50% pay raise when she switched duties”.
They say it takes a village to raise a child, so it makes sense that these parents would need a little help with their twins.
Naturally, a lot of people had an opinion on whether or not this dad should be helping his wife with nighttime duty.
Some Redditers mentioned the fact that it has literally only been 3 weeks since his wife gave birth , and that he should be stepping up to help while she is still physically healing.
As one person put it, “you don’t recover from something like that lickity split”
Being a Stay-At-Home-Mom is no small task
Though rewarding, raising children full time is an emotionally and physically grueling job and deserves to be acknowledged as such.
Another Reddit user pointed out that they’ve never met newborn twins who sleep at the same time, so when is the mom getting all this “rest” that her husband keeps going on about?
But other people came to the husband’s defense
A lot of commentators agreed that since the nanny does the bulk of the housework, the wife absolutely has more time to rest than her husband does.
“What does the wife bring to the table?” @curvy11 writes, “Not the typical ‘she had twin babies.’ So did my mother, and she cooked, cleaned, took care of us and cooked dinner while my dad worked”
Another Mother of twins even weighed in.
“I have twins. Had no help, and did not expect my husband to get up on work nights, she explains.
“Now, weekends, yes, he helped. I started back work and still did all nightly feedings, why? Because I had a desk job while my husband had to be out and working heavy equipment”
The best option? Compromise
Finally, one Reddit user’s opinion seemed to be the beacon of light in a dark storm:
Your wife is probably trying her best as are you…I don’t think slinging blame or bringing it up again is going to help this situation. I think you just gotta try your best and get through it, even if that does mean having a poor night of sleep once or twice a week.
Luckily, the newborn phase won’t last forever. Best of luck to these sleepy parents!
