No matter how prepared you think you are, nobody can truly understand the dedication and responsibility it takes to bring a new baby in the world.
Unfortunately, a new dad on Reddit is learning that the hard way.
He posed a question in Reddit's popular AITA community asking if he was in the wrong for never waking up with his newborn baby in the middle of the night.
He just started a new job, and he feels it would be difficult to navigate the "responsibilities and new politics" by not having a full night's sleep every night. And because his wife is on maternity leave, he believes that a proper compromise is he takes care of their two-month-old when he gets home from work during the week and on the weekends, but in the middle of the night baby duty is all on her!
To clarify his perspective, the man wrote:
She has a break every evening, and the whole weekend to herself. What that means is, I have zero breaks. I go to work at a new job, learn a ton of new things which is completely overwhelming for me, come home and deal with a screaming baby. The weekend comes and I'm doing baby stuff all weekend. I get no breaks except the sleep I need to function normally. And, I wouldn't even think to say anything until it was called into question. Then, after her maternity leave is over, the baby will sleep more because he's older, and I'll be more settled into my job that I can alternate with her more easily.
Unfortunately the man did not receive the justification he was seeking on Reddit.
One Redditor explained, "I mean not having a full nights sleep is really debilitating, which you clearly recognize since you yourself don't want to do it even one night a week. It's nice that you take care of the kid evenings and weekends but think about how you'd feel if you had not had a full nights sleep for two months. Also if you plan to share these overnight duties once she goes back to work, maybe it would make sense to start getting used to it now. Even just one night a week."
So this brings us to our Dr. Miles Intervention today: Is this man justified in his thinking? Is this a fair compromise with his wife? He's working during the week, at a new job as well, shouldn't he be afforded a full night's sleep in order to perform at his 100% best during the day?
Or is marriage a partnership through and through, and he should be made to wake up just as often in the middle of the night as his wife who is on maternity leave?
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