Dad slammed for demanding ‘morning off’ from parenting duties at weekends

He has a six-month-baby and works full-time, while his wife is a part-time worker and a stay-at-home mum. But now he is demanding ‘time off’

The arrival of a new baby can be absolutely joyous, but it can also create tensions in relationships as couples work out who is responsible for what when it comes to childcare.

It’s a scenario confronting one couple and a solution seems hard to come by. The man shared his gripe on Reddit, claiming he needs time out from parenting duties. There were over 5,000 comments to his post, with most being unsympathetic to his plight.

He claims to be ‘living the dream’ but he may soon be living in a nightmare if his demands for time off from household duties become a reality.

The dad said: “My wife and I have a six month old baby girl. She’s mostly a stay-at-home mum, she works two half days a week and her sister watches the baby. I work full time and go to school one day a week.”

“We’ve always had an arrangement where she takes care of the household duties , (cooking, cleaning, and now baby care), while I happily support her monetarily.”

He is very happy with the arrangement, adding: “Honestly, we are both living our dream life and my wife does an absolutely spectacular job taking care of me and our little one.”

But there is a sticking point, and it is one they cannot agree on.

“On the weekends, we share baby duty. However, our girl has hit a bit of a sleep regression, waking up every two hours -since my wife breast feeds, she’s always taken care of the baby full time overnight.

“She’s a light sleeper and unfortunately has insomnia, whereas I am a deep sleeper and wouldn’t wake up for baby cries anyways. Recently my wife has been asking me to wake up with the baby both days on the weekends so she can get an extra hour of sleep. Baby wakes up around 7am. I get the baby dressed and take over for that hour.

“But sometimes, I want to be the one that gets to sleep in an extra hour.” So he decides to broach the subject with his wife, who does her best to understand his needs, but it ends in an argument.

“She says while she’s happy to let me nap during the day, she really needs that hour because she can’t nap like I can. We got into an argument about it, and she said I’m being very insensitive when I know she is very exhausted and can’t nap during the day and she struggles going back to sleep every time the baby wakes up.”

The dad continues: “I’m exhausted too, work wears me out, and school days are long and I sometimes want the hour in the morning. I don’t want to spend my off time napping, I want to play videogames and chill out.”

Many people didn’t take too kindly to his argument on Reddit, as one wrote: “If you did not want to make sacrifices personally, physically, financially, emotionally, and mentally, then you should not have had a child. I hope you get a grip on this and sort out your priorities so that this baby has a healthy 18 years living with you.”

Another said: “I’m never certain why people choose to have kids and then complain how hard it is. Yah. Like, duh, being a parent is hard. But this is what you asked for. Once you choose to bring a life into this world, that child becomes YOUR world.”