Wife calls husband 'total cry baby' after one night of helping with son. AITA?
They're tired, hungry, cranky... and then there's the baby.
Newborns are a fulltime job. One woman and her husband had a blowout when he offered to help with their 5-week-old baby and then completely checked out. He says he was exhausted after looking after the baby but she says this is what she does every day.
"AITA for taking a nap and letting my wife take care of our baby by herself?"
Our baby is 5 weeks old, he doesn't sleep though the night yet. Wife and I split times to wake up and nurse him back to sleep. She's a SAHM while I work in retail from 8am to 4 pm.
My wife was feeling a bit sick (she had a cold) the other day so I offered to take care of our son for the night so she was able to sleep well and get better. We did just that, I woke up every time to take care of the baby during the night.
The next morning I was wasted but still had to go to work, I managed it but was exhausted and desperately needed a nap.
Usually when I come home I take over the baby duties and she has been taking care of him alone the whole day, but this time I was exhausted. So instead I took a quick shower and went to sleep, I slept for around 1 and a half hours and woke up when dinner was ready.
She told me off for napping instead of helping her, I explained how tired I was and she told me that I shouldn't have offered to do all the baby care the night before if I was gonna be a cry baby myself the next day. She also said that she had to do all of the household work so she was exhausted as well. We split the baby care as usual that night too.
She's upset still, I think she's been unfair because I meant to help her feel better when I offered to take over the night and it was obvious I was gonna be tired the next day, I don't think I was an a**hole here but perhaps I was?
Here was the general reaction from readers:
NAH. You were both exhausted. Having a newborn is hard. Maybe work on your respective communication skills
Nothing tests a marriage like the arrival of a baby.
Communication is your friend. If you were overtired from the night before and working, you needed to communicate that to your wife, who is sick and has been caring for the baby all day, so you guys can come up with a plan to get everyone some rest and support. You don’t just get to disappear when your partner is counting on you. NAH, but work on your communication.
NAH. You are both tired and crabby.
YTA Your wife is 5 weeks postpartum AND has a cold. You take over for one night and you're 'wasted' and just disappear and nap? Newsflash, she is tired, sick and healing. This is not the misery Olympics. Do better.
And he woke up after dinner was all ready!
Working 8 hours on your feet all day after getting up all night to take care of a baby IS exhausting, don’t do that. Don't make it seem like he’s being unreasonable. When I was 4 weeks postpartum and sick I still woke up to breastfeed my baby every time she needed it because that’s what moms do.
You don’t get a day off with a newborn just because you’re sick. And when my man rocked her to sleep for me or stayed up late to put her down and had to work the next day I could see how exhausted he was and would never yell at him for taking a nap or make him feel bad for being tired.
A lot of people think you have to be up with the baby all day but newborn babies sleep 14-19 hours a day!!! I would say my man had it worse than me because I got to just chill while my daughter napped for hours on end.
You can’t say it’s not the misery Olympics and then tell him she has it worse. Let’s be understanding instead of putting fathers down for being tired. It’s a team effort and both of them need the same amount of sleep and energy to do their daily duties.
So do you think this wife was too harsh in her judgment of her husband or do you think he should have stepped up more?