Becoming a parent is one of life’s most exciting chapters—and one of its most exhausting. Sure, watching your child experience the world for the first time fills your heart in ways you never expected. But the feeding, the cleaning, the crying? Those will test every last reserve of energy you have, and that is just part of the deal.
So one dad took to Reddit to vent about how bone-tired he’d been feeling and insisted he deserved a little extra sleep on weekend mornings, even though his wife is the one dragging herself out of bed every single night with the baby. The internet was quick to give him a reality check.
Read the full story below, along with a conversation with Giles Alexander, author of the parenting book You the Daddy.
One exhausted father felt he should get to sleep in on weekend mornings rather than take care of his newborn
Image credits: Felipe Salgado / unsplash (not the actual photo)
The catch was that his wife was the one getting up with the baby every single night
Image credits: Kelly Sikkema / unsplash (not the actual photo)
Image credits: Sam Pak / unsplash (not the actual photo)
Image credits: tireddad667
“Nothing can prepare you for the insane levels of bleary-eyed exhaustion you’ll experience during those first few weeks and months of parenthood”
To learn more about what it’s like to be a new parent, we reached out to Giles Alexander, a father, blogger, and author of You the Daddy: The Hands-On Dad’s Guide to Pregnancy, Birth and the Early Years of Fatherhood. Giles was kind enough to speak with Bored Panda and share just how difficult it can be to get enough sleep when you have a newborn.
“Nothing can prepare you for the insane levels of bleary-eyed exhaustion you’ll experience during those first few weeks and months of parenthood,” the father shared. “It’s no coincidence that sleep deprivation is used as a form of torture, because that’s exactly what it feels like.”
“Sleep, or your lack of it, will consume most of your daily thoughts and conversations,” he explained. “Everyone you see will ask if you’re getting any. And you’ll compete with your partner over who’s had less of it (if she’s breastfeeding, she’ll win this argument every time).”
According to a survey from Snuz, 70% of parents lose an average of at least three hours of sleep per night during their baby’s first year of life. And while plenty of people love telling new parents to “sleep when the baby sleeps,” that advice is often much easier said than done.
Nearly half of new parents say they are unable to catch up on sleep during the day with naps, often because household chores keep them busy and awake.
Even getting babies to fall asleep can be a challenge. Nearly a third of parents admitted they have driven their babies around in the car in an attempt to lull them to sleep.
The Bump also reports that bedtime becomes a source of stress for 88% of new parents, while 77% say they start feeling anxious as nighttime approaches and they begin to worry it will be another sleepless night.
Image credits: Isabella Fischer / unsplash (not the actual photo)
“It’s unreasonable to expect the weight of parental responsibility to land solely on a mother’s shoulders”
Giles urges parents to remember that, although this stage can feel brutal, it will pass.
“Your Sunday morning lie-ins are not lost forever,” he noted. “If you work together to establish a routine and support each other, there will come a time, in the not-too-distant future, when your baby will learn to sleep through the night.”
The parenting expert also touched on why it is so important for parents to split responsibilities fairly.
“Parenting really is one of the toughest, least appreciated, and most physically and mentally exhausting jobs around,” he told Bored Panda. “And yet, society still massively undervalues the huge amount of work it takes to raise the next generation.”
“Given that gender inequality at work is still commonplace, this often leads to the bulk of the parenting and domestic load being heavily biased against new mums, who end up taking on the lion’s share.”
“As modern fathers, we shouldn’t just accept this as the status quo,” Giles said. “It’s unreasonable to expect the weight of parental responsibility to land solely on a mother’s shoulders.”
“Add to this all the other daily tasks we all need to complete just to get through the day—the laundry, shopping, cleaning, cooking and general life admin—and it’s even more unrealistic to expect one person to do it all alone. There simply aren’t enough hours in the day.”
“You both made this baby together, and it is only fair that the responsibilities of parenthood should be a 50:50 partnership too,” the father added. “Sharing the physical and mental load of parenting, as a team, is the only way to make it through in one piece.”
“Just because one parent works outside of the home and receives a salary doesn’t mean the parent at home should work 24/7”
Image credits: Mikael Stenberg / unsplash (not the actual photo)
Giles also shared some advice for new fathers.
“If you’re being paid to work full time outside of the home, and your partner is working full time raising your baby at home, think of yourselves as having two distinct jobs—your paid job and her unpaid one, focused on childcare and household tasks,” he noted.
“Both jobs are a Monday to Friday deal, with the same hours worked. When you’re both at home in the morning, evening and weekends, the job of childcare and household tasks is a team effort, split between you equally. Just because one parent works outside of the home and receives a salary, it doesn’t mean the parent at home should work 24/7.”
“Be responsive to calls and messages from home during the working day, so your partner doesn’t feel forgotten or unsupported,” the dad suggested. “And check in regularly if you haven’t heard anything.”
“If your partner gets ill, try to find someone to help her with the baby at home or better yet, ask to take some sick or compassionate leave yourself to help out until she gets better. If you wouldn’t go to work when ill, she shouldn’t be expected to.”
“And don’t expect praise or a thank you from your partner for being hands-on. She will have gone the whole day at home without any recognition for her hard work, so praising you might not be front of mind. Show her gratitude daily, and you’re more likely to get it back,” the father said.
The challenges of parenting also make it especially important for couples to prioritize their relationship. “It doesn’t matter how close-knit you are as a couple; the pressures of family life will test the limits of any relationship,” Giles warned.
“Parenting is hard work. Arguments, petty irritations, and heated conversations are to be expected. It’s how you react to them in the moment and reconnect afterwards, that’s most important,” he said.
We’d love to hear your thoughts on this story in the comments below, pandas. Do you think this dad was wrong for asking for mornings off?
Readers had no doubt about who was in the wrong here, and the comments section made that very clear
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