A bit triggered by people calling my partner an ,amazing dad’
Just to preface this: i do think my partner is an amazing dad, but..
We have a 6 week old and my best friend’s wedding was this weekend. Naturally since it’s my friend group, he held the baby more than i did, but she pretty much napped through the whole thing, and we obviously left early.
I still breastfed her 3 times while there (twice in the car, once in a random corner) and changed her diapers because i’m much faster at it. I also held and rocked her when she got a bit fussy.
The amount of people coming up to him calling him a great/amazing dad when he literally was just holding a sleeping baby was astounding to me. Like yes, he is, but wtf. One guy i didn’t even know came up to me to specifically say: did you know he’d be such a great dad when you guys started going out? And i said something like, yeah i assumed lol. Bc truthfully i do assume any guy would hold their own baby?
When we got home he really looked so proud of himself and even said something like: are you glad i was on baby duty and you could enjoy the wedding? I’m sorry but when a baby is exclusively breastfed the dad is never fully on baby duty in my books, but ok. I just said yep, thank you, but honestly isn’t this the bare minimum?
A usual day for us (we are both at home bc he is in home office) includes me waking up every two-three hours ar night and then up for the day at 5 am, bc baby always decides to be fussy in the early morning, but thats ok, i am an early bird anyway. So i am dealing with baby until like 8-9 when he gets up.
I try to pass him the baby, but usually it’s the ,i just woke up’ shtick, him making coffee and a 30 min bathroom trip, or the baby is contact napping on me, and i am still the default parent the whole day, he will hold her and rock her when i hand her over. This is bc he is ,working’ but he doesn’t really do much during the day. He will change the odd diaper sometimes but atp i change like 10 a day, and he does 2.
During the afternoon/evening theres the witching hour cluster feeding going on, so even if i hand off my screaming baby, in 10 minutes they find me again, bc she is hungry, which she always kinda is. She usually goes down around 7-8 pm, and this is where she might sleep a long stretch so i also try to sleep. This is my partners ,shift’ as he calls it, he usually works during this time, 8 pm to about 2 am. Let me be clear he is NOT awake bc of the baby, he is simply a night owl and always worked around those hours.
During his shift, the baby wakes usually once, i feed her for like 20 min, he changes her diaper, and puts her down (she is usually very sleepy and doesnt need to be rocked or anything at this point).
After he goes to bed, the baby usually wakes 1-2 more times until 5 am, which i deal with.
With chores he is definitely pulling his weight or even doing slightly more than me but the house is still a mess.
I know this is more of a general rant and random wedding guests won’t have an idea how a day goes, i just needed to vent really, because when we got home from my best friend’s wedding, he had such a self satisfied smile on him, and i just couldn’t deal lol, i was a bit triggered. Thanks for reading lol