A common dilemma that arises in parenthood is deciding who should attend to a wakeful baby during the night. In a recent Reddit post, a concerned father sought advice, questioning whether he was wrong for asking his pregnant wife to tend to their child at 3 am.
A Young Family
The Original Poster (OP) is a 33-year-old living with his wife, who is six months pregnant, and their 1.5-year-old child.
OP works five days a week while his wife works part-time – two days with the child and three days at work while the child is in daycare.
He Puts Their Toddler to Bed
Every night OP puts his child to bed, and if he wakes up throughout the night, he puts him back to sleep. It used to be fairly common for his son to wake up throughout the night, so they used to divide up the week according to who would get up to settle him.
OP has been sleeping training their toddler for the past few months, so he has been the one tending to him overnight. Luckily, his wake-ups are rare now, and he almost always puts himself back to sleep in 5 minutes if he wakes up now. Plus, he wakes up only if can’t get back to sleep because of teething.
OP decided to stick with the plan of getting up and settling him in the night as OP’s wife is pregnant and really fatigued.
Busy at Work
But recently, OP has been really busy at work getting ready for a conference that ended last night. OP says he gets incredibly immersed in a conference like this once a year.
So, the day before the conference, OP asked his wife to take care of their son if he got up in the night so that OP could rest up for the big day, and everything worked out fine.
However, things took a turn when OP drank a couple of drinks before leaving the all-day seminar and arriving home at about midnight. OP was quite tipsy but not intoxicated.
He Asked for Her Help
OP says he had put his suit away and talked with his wife before going to bed.
Their son woke up around 3 a.m. and wouldn’t go back to sleep.
So OP asked his wife to get him because he was worn out from the all-day meeting and still feeling the effects of the drink.
Their son was apparently awake for an hour.
OP’s wife called him a jerk in the morning for not checking on their son during the night and forcing her to get up in his place.
She Was Angry and Exhausted
She added that she was exhausted from her pregnancy as well as from picking him up and dropping him off at daycare this week.
So OP felt bad, and he took to Reddit to ask whether he did a bad thing. Hundreds of comments poured in, saying that OP didn’t do anything wrong.
One Reddit user said that as this is the only time this happens because of OP’s yearly conference, he is not wrong.
Another Redditor wrote, “Sounds like you both have it worked out quite well. You just had one very intense week where you needed some help with your kid duties.”
A third Reddit user commented, “You’re both exhausted from parenting and better communication could have solved this. I don’t think either of you are [jerks]. Plan and communicate better in the future.”
So what is your opinion? What would you have done if you were in OP’s situation?
The post He Asked His Pregnant Wife to Get Up to Their Son Even Though It Was His Job, He’d Had a Big Day first appeared on Wealthy Living
Featured Image Credit: Shutterstock / Dean Drobot. The people shown in the images are for illustrative purposes only, not the actual people featured in the story.
Source: Reddit