'AITA for telling my wife she has to take care of the baby all night on the trip she insists we go on?'

"AITA for telling my wife that she has to take care of the baby all night (if needed) on our upcoming trip?"

My (M36) wife (F36) is a physician who works in the ER and has a very stress-full job. I work from home for an IT company. We have two kids: A 3yr old boy and an 11 month old baby girl.

Because of her work hours and stressful job I’m taking the workload of taking care of the kids. The boy goes to daycare while I watch the baby all day. Breakfast lunch and dinner for the baby and breakfast and dinner for the boy. I also bathe them both and do bedtime with the boy.

Recently my wife got an opportunity to go to California for a medical conference and I told her that she can go alone if she wants and it can be a nice break for her.. but she insists on us all going. She said she doesn’t need to go but it will be a fun trip and she can use that time for a trip as it won’t be part of her PTO.

Now I would rather her be home to help me with the kids but she was so excited to visit as she’s never been there. I insisted on her going alone. It will be less stressful for her. She can explore after conference hours. It will suck for me but at least we’ll be in a controlled area which is our house.

There’s space, all their toys, kitchen, my desk with a monitor setup etc. as opposed to the ‘vacation’ where we’ll be cramped in a Hilton hotel room. The kids have never slept in the same room ever.

And not only do we have to worry about taking strollers and car seats with us on the flight (which I’ll be doing since it will be too heavy for my wife) we have to carry two kids.

We have to make sure there are two cribs at the hotel room, a functioning freezer for my wife’s breastmilk, activities for my toddler boy since wtf is he going to do in a hotel room all day while his mom is at a conference and his dad is taking care of a baby while making zoom calls to work.

I’ve begged my wife to reconsider this but she said she’ll take some conference days off or she’ll leave early if things are overwhelming for me since it will be down the street from the hotel that we’ll be staying at. And I dunno I’m so exhausted lately I just gave in and agreed to the trip.

But now I’m rocking the baby at midnight and I’m just fuming that I’m not only watching the baby and the boy during the weekend (she has weekend call at work that she signed up for because it’s extra money) I’m also rocking the baby back to sleep. I angrily texted my wife that when we go on the trip..

you have to stay up all night to rock the baby or contact sleep the baby in her arms while you stay up all night. She felt really bad and said that she’ll swap with me.. but she has work tomorrow and I don’t so I said it’s fine. But I can tell I made her feel like shit and I feel bad about that.. but at the same time I don’t know if I’m actually being an asshole. Am I actually being one?

What do you think? AITA? This is what top commenters had to say:

AmbitiousForce said:

NTA As soon as I read that your wife's plan, I thought about all the posts I've read from women who to on family "vacations" to cabins or airbnbs and end up doing the same drudge work for more people in less hospitable environments. Tell her you need an actual vacation, and her conference would not be it.

"I’m so exhausted lately ..." That's what needs to be addressed. You can't work from home and watch an infant, that's two separate jobs. You and your wife need to come up with a more equitable division of labor and probably get some additional help too. Have you considered something like a "mother's helper", someone who could work for a few hours every day to help with the kids and housework?

Dwinxx2000 said:

I am feeling your pain. Don't go on the trip. Whatever fantasy your wife has about how fun it will be for her is a fantasy and it is operating at your expense. You and your wife need to have some time alone together with someone else watching the kids to discuss how your household is running.

Then go out to dinner or do whatever you do for fun because you are both at the end of your rope- especially you. Hang in there. Say absolutely not to the trip. NTA

BeckyDaTechie said:

NTA. She's never traveled with her kids and it shows. Unless you can both have 24/7 with the kids on a vacation, it's smart to get another (paid) set of hands, especially if the littlest is a fitful sleeper.

Show her this post. Don't do this to your kids OR yourself. She might feel guilty about going away for a few days, but at least she won't wear all 4 of you entirely out for a whim and turn it into something completely unenjoyable.

And ChickenScratchCoffee said:

NTA. Hire a nanny to give you a break or have grandparents take the kids while you and your wife go have a vacation.

This is OP's response to the comments:

Oh man I’m getting a lot of responses! I will have a chat with my wife. I really don’t want to go on this cross country flight.

Also I’m getting a lot of worried responses about calling my son “the boy”. I’ve been his primary parent and watched every minute of every day since he was born till 1.5 yrs as I work from home and took care of him. I call him “the boy” as a descriptor for this post and also I was typing this up at like midnight while holding my daughter in the rocking chair.

I’m also getting a lot of responses about childcare. We’ve been looking for a nanny and where we are (east coast) nannys have a pay rate of $30/hr. Which is not unreasonable as they do a lot. But it’s not in our budget right now. Yes we’re both high income earners but my wife also JUST became a doctor so her high salary started a year ago.

Plus we bought a house in this economy with high interest rates and our mortgage is burning a hole through our account alongside daycare costs, student loans repayments etc. So I’d rather take the hit and keep her home as opposed to paying $57k a year for a nanny.

I guess we could put her in daycare but she’s too little for that imo. My job has great flexibility in that there’s a lot of downtime and I can do my work at nights when they sleep so I figured at home care is good for now.