Long time lurker here

I (33F) and my Husband (34M) have a beautiful baby boy who is now 9 weeks old.

Things to note -

• my husband is doing a masters course whilst working full time. He does two modules of this course at a time, with three months on, three months off. His job give him two days a week to study for this. There is some requirement to study in your own time too.

• we are currently sleeping in separate bedrooms as I am a very light sleeper, he is a deep snorer.

• he is wanting to get up early to revise for his exams/start work early 1 something which I obviously support. This is one motivator for him getting up vey early in the morning.

• I have a mild history of epilepsy, with tiredness being a potential trigger (had three fits in 10 years, so hard to draw proper conclusions as to what contributes or not)

So due to the above - we decided early on in Baby boys life that we we work sleep shifts to ensure that the other one got a good chunk of sleep each night. For the first couple of weeks we broke it into 7pm to 1am / 1am to 7am shifts to look after/be responsible for the baby. Because he was going back to work, I decided to take the later shift so he could stay in a more normal sleeping pattern.

We realised that this resulted in us spending little time together: so we e then devised a plan to handover at 4am. With me taking that first shift from whenever I went to bed in the evening, until 4. This initially worked well as the baby was up very regularly and I mostly could change him and feed him (after he woke up naturally) ahead of the changeover. We all usually went to bed at about 9pm.

As time went on, my son is mostly sleeping in longer stretches but there is no patter or even rough schedule yet. So we initially kept the 4am handover, but it then became apparent that he wasn’t always awake for then. I would text my husband (his phone was on silent) when the baby woke up and would advise if the 4am handover was on or not. It was up to him if he went back to bed or continuedwith the plan to revise for his exams/start work etc. We have pushed this back to 5, but again with a lack of pattern and the baby still sleeping in varying stretches - he is often missing this handover time.

My husband and I argued this morning, as he is happy to come into my room at a seemingly immovable time of 5am (going through two doors which are incredibly noisy and have to be shut to a) stop the dog from coming in and b) to dampen down the noise of my husbands snores) and just take the baby come what may - even if he is fast asleep.

My argument to him is that you shouldn’t wake a sleeping baby, and if I was asleep between bottle feeds, I would not appreciate getting woken up just so he can stick to his ‘schedule’ . We’ve had a big row this evening as I’ve said that I feel it is all take take take and he isn’t considering my sleep at all. I get that he is working and has a lot on - so he is getting routinely about 7 hours a night of (unbroken) sleep. I currently get about 4.5 hours a night, if very broken sleep.

So, AITAH for saying enough is enough and just come and get the baby when I call him (as long as this is after the agreed handover time)? I feel he is prioritising himself and I am just having to constantly bend to his will. I don’t think he understands how draining it is looking after a baby all day and how the mum’s rest is import too. Thanks

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