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Post by Deleted on Jul 29, 2013 6:45:50 GMT -5
Are you both getting enough sleep? It can make a huge difference. We have a 3 month old, I think we will start getting enough sleep in a few years (maybe). Now that I am back to work, we are at least sharing the early morning feeds, but I am running on close to empty probably 75% of the time. I'd hoped to recharge this weekend, but DH was sick....I dont sleep well....even if its not my "night" with the baby, I'm still waking up when she makes a noise. We have the monitor turned as low as it will go. I wish that we had the option to turn the sound off. When she cries, we will hear her. She is just across the hall from us.
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Shooby
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Post by Shooby on Jul 29, 2013 8:36:37 GMT -5
Well, i am sorry to inform you that my kids are 17, 15, and 11 and i haven't slept all night in 17 yrs! But, you do adjust to sleep deprivation after awhile.
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Post by Deleted on Jul 29, 2013 9:01:46 GMT -5
yeah, but you don't have to feed your kids at 3am or rock your kids back to sleep when they're teenagers.
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raeoflyte
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Post by raeoflyte on Jul 29, 2013 9:15:08 GMT -5
yeah, but you don't have to feed your kids at 3am or rock your kids back to sleep when they're teenagers. Well, hopefully.
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973beachbum
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Post by 973beachbum on Jul 29, 2013 9:15:41 GMT -5
yeah, but you don't have to feed your kids at 3am or rock your kids back to sleep when they're teenagers. No but I actually slept better when they were babies. I knew exactly where they were and that they were safe. I slept fine until they cried and woke me up. Now I lay awake until I hear the door open, when my 17 year old is out with the car.
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NomoreDramaQ1015
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Post by NomoreDramaQ1015 on Jul 29, 2013 9:17:23 GMT -5
I wish that we had the option to turn the sound off. When she cries, we will hear her. She is just across the hall from us.
I'd turn off the monitor if you're able to hear her cry without it. Those darn things pick up EVERYTHING, I can hear her snoring thru it sometimes. Without it on I still know if she gets up but I don't hear every russle of the sheets, sigh, moan etc. It does make it easier to sleep because I don't hear a noise and think "Shit, she's awake". You don't have to fetch her every time she fusses either. I forced myself to count to 10 before getting up because a lot of times she would fall back asleep on her own. Me moving her is what woke her up fully. So I made it a policy for the sake of my sanity to not get up unless she started to cry during or after the 10 count. I was still exhausted. I was a walking zombie during the first three months. I had days when I pulled into the parking lot here and had no idea how I got here. Talk to your DH but also keep in mind you're both sleep deprived. Everything becomes an issue when you're sleep deprived. DH and I nearly got in a fist fight over laundry during the first three months. Yeah he needed to pitch in more but our reactions were way out of proportion to the situation. My therapist advised me before bringing anything up to step back and ask myself why I was having the reaction I was and if there was a better way to handle it. Our house looked like a land mine went off in it. Anything that wasn't related to BF-ing I didn't do. DH did what was needed to keep us clothed/fed. We ate off paper plates with plastic forks for quite awhile, screw the environment we needed our sanity! Figure out your bare minimum and focus on splitting that between your DH and yourself. Then start cutting corners elsewhere. Whatever makes your life easier do it, screw what others might think. Things will settle down eventually and you can start upping your standards again.
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Post by Deleted on Jul 29, 2013 9:22:14 GMT -5
yeah, but you don't have to feed your kids at 3am or rock your kids back to sleep when they're teenagers. I am very fortunate. She is actually a good sleeper. Went to bed at 9 last night, woke at 2am and fussed for a bit, but went back to sleep without me having to get out of bed, and then she slept until 6am. Very rarely do I have to get out of bed to get her back to sleep (I can only think of one time in the past several weeks), but she does sometimes want to eat at 3:30.
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Post by Deleted on Jul 29, 2013 9:23:15 GMT -5
Well, i am sorry to inform you that my kids are 17, 15, and 11 and i haven't slept all night in 17 yrs! But, you do adjust to sleep deprivation after awhile. La la la la.... I can't HEAR you!!! La la la la la
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raeoflyte
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Post by raeoflyte on Jul 29, 2013 9:23:49 GMT -5
...:::"It's annoying though, because how can he not SEE things that need to be done??":::... THIS is exactly the attitude that causes the problem in the first place. Assuming you are NOT going to get what you want, which is him knowing every little thing that has to be done and doing it before you have to ask; the best possible second you can have is asking for it. While I get your point and am working on myself to be better, there are some situations where I have to disagree. A sink full of dirty dishes, a full (clean) dishwasher, dirty laundry that is starting to overflow from the laundry basket, garbage can that's stinky or full. that being said, I am working to not get annoyed by these things....not doing great at it yet, but certainly making an effort. I'm actually allowing myself to be pissed about this. My Dh is a very proactive, productive person at work. It's completely asinine to think that he can't tell that the basics around the house need to be done. My Dh has boards to take the first week of September, so he's getting as close to a free pass as I can muster. But the ctj talk is happening the day after he's back.
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Shooby
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Post by Shooby on Jul 29, 2013 9:25:08 GMT -5
Well, i am sorry to inform you that my kids are 17, 15, and 11 and i haven't slept all night in 17 yrs! But, you do adjust to sleep deprivation after awhile. La la la la.... I can't HEAR you!!! La la la la la Of course you can't! Estrogen shuts off that part of your brain and having even MORE kids will seem like a great idea! LOL,
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Knee Deep in Water Chloe
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Post by Knee Deep in Water Chloe on Jul 29, 2013 9:43:46 GMT -5
Again, I don't have a good answer to this, but as the partner who now feels like the slacker of the two of us, sometimes I just don't care that something "should" be done. The house doesn't have to be perfect all the time. I just want to sit and digest my food for a moment before I start the dishes. My DH's problem with me is that "a moment" turns into 30 minutes and then he's doing the dishes when he's already made dinner. Then I feel horribly guilty. We don't have the baby issue, so We really do keep a clean house. And I do like it clean. It's just weird what bugs DH and what bugs me about stuff needing to be done.
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giramomma
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Post by giramomma on Jul 29, 2013 9:45:14 GMT -5
Do you need to have a monitor? With kids 1 and 2, we were in an 800 sq foot place, all on one floor. We found we didn't need a monitor.
We did get a monitor when we moved into our current house, but that was because we were on two floors and would do things like garden/mow the lawn while the kids were napping.
And, I'm with newyearwishMoneyJenny on the sleep thing. Course, my oldest is 9, but seriously, I can't imagine sleeping 3-5 hours a night in 1-2 hour chunks with a teen. My 9 year old doesn't need that kind of attention.
ETA: What time do YOU go to bed. If your LO is going to bed at 9, are you going to bed at 9 as well? With this LO, I found that the sleep when baby sleeps suggestion was quite useful after the initial newborn period. I even took a nap while #3 was napping this weekend. (Course, I was a bad mom because I plopped my other kid in front of the tv so I could catch a 20 minute nap. But whatever. #2 needed the down time, too.)
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Shooby
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Post by Shooby on Jul 29, 2013 9:45:29 GMT -5
Well, sometimes you are so busy that you have to let things slide a bit. And, what is wrong with that? Does the world end if you didn't make your bed? I mean, who cares?
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Knee Deep in Water Chloe
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Post by Knee Deep in Water Chloe on Jul 29, 2013 9:47:02 GMT -5
Well, sometimes you are so busy that you have to let things slide a bit. And, what is wrong with that? Does the world end if you didn't make your bed? I mean, who cares? My husband does.
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Shooby
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Post by Shooby on Jul 29, 2013 9:50:19 GMT -5
Then HE can make the beds. Problem solved!
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Shooby
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Post by Shooby on Jul 29, 2013 9:51:27 GMT -5
My DH 'cared" a lot more about a clean house when i was the one doing all the cleaning. Finally, i realized it is HIS house too and i told him if YOU want it clean then YOU clean. Funny how his standards declined after that.
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Knee Deep in Water Chloe
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Post by Knee Deep in Water Chloe on Jul 29, 2013 10:02:32 GMT -5
I'm the last one out of the bed, so I make it. My husband's standards are not and will not decline. And did you miss the part about me saying I am not the one who does all the work? The man does the grocery shopping and the laundry and gets up to make us a full breakfast every.single.morning. He makes often dinner and will often do the dishes also the same night. He does ALL of the yard work. I do the deep cleaning and the money/paper management. If I could figure out a way to not have my stomach hurt at the concept of paying someone to do the deep cleaning, he has already suggested that.
I know you put a smiley face at the end of your post, but the reality is my marriage is different from yours. I am a different person from you and my husband is different from your husband. Just because you say this is how it works, so do it, doesn't mean it works for everyone else.
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whoisjohngalt
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Post by whoisjohngalt on Jul 29, 2013 10:12:45 GMT -5
You know what it is ? Priorities and different speeds. there are times when I say "ok, it's time for kids to go to bed, would you take them" He says "sure" and then continues doing whatever he was doing. It took me awhile to go from WTF ? to realizing that to him it simply didn't mean the same thing as it did to me. 5-10 minutes didn't matter to him, while I was all "OMG they need to be in bed NOW'. Same with other house stuff. Some people have MUCH higher tolerance for certain things like overflowing laundry or dirty dishes. Or they care about different things. My Dad HATES HATES HATES dirty floors. He will crawl under the table in the middle of the dinner to pick up that crumb. At the same time he can leave a bathroom counter that looks like a flood zone with no problem. My DH can't stand dirty faucets but has doesn't see a dirty dish in the middle of the family room. Once again I say - IMHO one of the keys to a successful marriage is not just to have things in common and focus on things that you like about your partner, but be VERY OK with things that you don't like. I don't know about others, but I am not in a "changing my DH" business
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HoneyBBQ
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Post by HoneyBBQ on Jul 29, 2013 10:26:30 GMT -5
Can you get a maid or a mother's helper??
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Post by Deleted on Jul 29, 2013 10:30:27 GMT -5
Can you get a maid or a mother's helper?? Or a second wife or girlfriend, that seems to be all the rage nowadays
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Post by Deleted on Jul 29, 2013 10:46:21 GMT -5
I'm actually allowing myself to be pissed about this. My Dh is a very proactive, productive person at work. It's completely asinine to think that he can't tell that the basics around the house need to be done. My Dh has boards to take the first week of September, so he's getting as close to a free pass as I can muster. But the ctj talk is happening the day after he's back. For some reason, this post made me think of something dh did a few years ago when the boys were very little and we were both exhausted (neither of my kids "slept through the night" until they were 3). Anyway, I came from work one day to find dh vacuuming the rug with an attachment from the vacuum. He was going over that rug with a fine tooth comb. He said he had been working on it for over an hour. I totally lost it. We had NO CLEAN CLOTHES, but he had our living room rug looking brand new again. This was right before we went into counseling. LMAO! I mean, I know it wasn't funny at the time but to me that sounds like one of those moments where I'd either have to laugh until my sides hurt or take a knife out of the cutting block and start swinging.
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HoneyBBQ
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Post by HoneyBBQ on Jul 29, 2013 10:51:16 GMT -5
Wrongside - my H is like that. He can focus on the minute details of something so remote and pointless and spend all day doing it. One day he spent the whole Saturday figuring out the exact location in our house our wireless router should be so that we had maximum signal in every room. Meanwhile, our grass is dying, there's dog poop in the living room, and the clothes in the washer have been there so long they are growing mold!!
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Post by Deleted on Jul 29, 2013 11:08:56 GMT -5
Can you get a maid or a mother's helper?? Or a second wife or girlfriend, that seems to be all the rage nowadays I totally would do this....if it were legal. Heck, I would just have my sister move in.
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zibazinski
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Post by zibazinski on Jul 29, 2013 11:10:59 GMT -5
I not only would be annoyed, he'd be having the poop and the dirty clothes thrown at his head. Such nonsense out of grown adults. Were they pigs when you dated them?
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happyhoix
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Post by happyhoix on Jul 29, 2013 11:13:28 GMT -5
Chloe DH and I have an agreement that one of us cooks and the other one cleans up. Period.
So if I sit on the sofa and goof off 30 minutes or 45 minutes after dinner, we both know I will do the dishes before bedtime, if DH cooked. (Of course I do put any leftovers into the fridge right away, but I may let the dishes sit a bit).
Maybe you can work out the same arrangement with your DH - tell him you absolutely will clean up every time he cooks, but it may not be within 15 minutes, or within 30 minutes, or even an hour, but that you will get it done before going to bed, and it makes you feel guilty if he jumps in there and does it because you haven't gotten to it soon enough.
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Post by Deleted on Jul 29, 2013 11:24:25 GMT -5
I try to go to bed when DD goes to bed, if not before. Our agreement was that whoever was doing the morning did not have to do the night before. That's sort of gone by the wayside the past several nights due to him being sick and having work stuff come up. I'm not angry about that, really not. I know he'd do the same for me.
We do actually make the bed every day...otherwise, the dog gets right in the covers and, well, you know what's on dog butts? Yeah, I don't want to be sleeping on that. This is one of the things I worry about least, because its literally just throwing the duvet cover up over the top of the bed. Takes 2 seconds.
Lena, I think you've hit the nail on the head. This goes to what he was saying about the bottles. They need to be done, but do they have to be done when I want them done (as opposed to when they need to be done because we are out)?
We could probably get a cleaning person in to do the stuff like cleaning the bathrooms, etc. but the other stuff will still need to get done. I mean, unless I get someone in every day. And I don't think I can (or will) afford that. At that point, I might as well just get a nanny for DD that does all that stuff too. When we looked into a nanny, they were more than 2X daycare. And I'm not sure how much I want people in the house when I'm working. A screaming child in the background would not go over we'll with my boss and the house is fairly small.
I think another issue might be just our work style. I work in longer bursts and want everything done before I relax. He will do one thing, then sit back on the couch to watch golf. Or play with DD. I would rather get everything done right after work, he wants downtime first.
And I did want to address the equality thing. I believe in equality, but that doesn't mean all of the time. I realize that there are going to be times when one of us is doing more than the other. I really feel like those should mainly be "special" occasions though. A tough week at work, travel for work, being sick. Otherwise, I don't see why it should be anything other than equal. We both work full time, the same general amount of hours (normally about 50-60 hours a week). Why should one of us have to do more or less? It's our house and our stuff and our daughter....
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midjd
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Post by midjd on Jul 29, 2013 11:35:51 GMT -5
Monkey, do you think your working from home/your DH working outside the home plays a part? When I was in law school, I was physically at our apartment probably 15 hours a week more than DH, but spent most of that time studying or doing paid work for my boss. Although DH knew this, and logically understood that I wasn't just sitting around watching TV, in his mind, since I was "home" more than he was, I should be doing more housework than he did. Unfortunately I don't have any good answers, since the division of labor didn't really equalize until we were both working outside the home 40+ hours per week.
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Shooby
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Post by Shooby on Jul 29, 2013 11:38:51 GMT -5
I'm the last one out of the bed, so I make it. My husband's standards are not and will not decline. And did you miss the part about me saying I am not the one who does all the work? The man does the grocery shopping and the laundry and gets up to make us a full breakfast every.single.morning. He makes often dinner and will often do the dishes also the same night. He does ALL of the yard work. I do the deep cleaning and the money/paper management. If I could figure out a way to not have my stomach hurt at the concept of paying someone to do the deep cleaning, he has already suggested that. I know you put a smiley face at the end of your post, but the reality is my marriage is different from yours. I am a different person from you and my husband is different from your husband. Just because you say this is how it works, so do it, doesn't mean it works for everyone else. I am giving general advice based on what i know. YMMV. But, i will be sure to not quote or respond to you in the future.
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Post by Deleted on Jul 29, 2013 11:55:32 GMT -5
Monkey, do you think your working from home/your DH working outside the home plays a part? When I was in law school, I was physically at our apartment probably 15 hours a week more than DH, but spent most of that time studying or doing paid work for my boss. Although DH knew this, and logically understood that I wasn't just sitting around watching TV, in his mind, since I was "home" more than he was, I should be doing more housework than he did. Unfortunately I don't have any good answers, since the division of labor didn't really equalize until we were both working outside the home 40+ hours per week. It certainly could be a part of it. I routinely put in a load of laundry, but have stopped putting it in the dryer because I don't have time to fold stuff during the day. And I have no problem doing this. I think we are pretty good on "us" household duties. It's the kid stuff that is more of a "problem". Examples....he has never once gotten up to wake the baby, get the stuff together, and change her to get ready for day care. He has gotten the bottles ready (labeled and filled with water) maybe once or twice. We pick out her week of clothes on Sunday because I (wait, someone, but it's always me) have to iron in the labels to clothes that don't have them already. DH had never picked out her outfits, so I asked him to yesterday. And he did it without complaining. I just wish he would do more of it proactively. i do want to reiterate that my DH has never had a problem helping when asked (ok, maybe he grumbled once or twice). Seems like I have to either get better and more comfortable at asking or learn to live with someone else's timelines.....
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resolution
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Post by resolution on Jul 29, 2013 11:55:54 GMT -5
I can't speak to the kid stuff but I can speak to working from home. I found myself doing a lot more, keeping the count and building up resentment like you are doing right now.
My main issue was that I was doing a lot of housework on my lunch hour and when I would take a break from work it would be to put laundry in the washer rather than to kick back over coffee with coworkers. It was a great time saver for the evening after work, but while I was doing it I was resentful of my husband because he was sitting at work in his lunch room eating and chatting while I was scrubbing the toilet bowl. Also since he wasn't there while I was doing the work, he had a false impression of how much work the house actually took to keep up, and he cut back on his share.
I saw a lot of improvement in my attitude when I started taking lunch and breaks as "me" time, just like I would if I were in the office. When I do the housework in the evening, he is home and will do his share because he sees me working too. It also helps a lot to have the conversation and explain that just because you are home doesn't mean you are available to do housework.
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