Mom vs Dad Baby Duties

Sarah - posted on 08/05/2011

I am a 22 year old SAHM, my fiancee works 2 jobs, 7 days a week to provide for us financially. I looks after our 8 month old son all day everyday and my partner gets home in time to feed him his bottle before bed and we both put our son to bed. In my opinion it takes 2 to make a baby and whether your a SAHM or not the responsibilities should be shared between mum and dad. it also gives my fiancee time to bond with our son during bedtime.

Brittany - posted on 08/02/2011

I am 24 and a SAHM. Since my husband works late mornings into the late evenings, he helps out a lot in the mornings. I get our daughter up (but I get up before him), once he's up he takes over for the most part until it is time for him to go. I take over again after he leaves. Morning are my chance to get chores done that I can't do without someone watching her.

He was a God send this past weekend when I went on bedrest for a few days. He jumped right in, despite the fact he had a pile of work to do.

Stifler's - posted on 08/02/2011

I'm 22, he is 27. I stay home, he works. When he's home he's expected to do whatever needs to be done with the kids including baths, feeding, playing.

Staci - posted on 08/02/2011

I am a 28-year old SAHM to a 20-month old. For the first almost 18 months of his life his daddy was in Iraq, so I did everything. Now he's home and works 9am-9pm 3 days a week and 3pm-9pm one day. He also works any overtime he can get. I am still doing pretty much everything. He helps out when he's home here and there, but my son is so used to me doing everything that he wants me to do everything. For example, he will not let my husband put him to bed unless he knows I'm not home to do it. The only real break I get is when my son spends the night at his grandma's which is close to once a week (not always every week). My husband doesn't always understand why I can't clean this or that or do the dishes or whatever when I'm home all day with him. It makes me really angry. He even wants me to cook dinners big enough for him to eat when he gets home and have leftovers for lunch the next day. I am really starting to get tired of it, and as much as I hate to, I'll be putting him in a Montessori school and going to work in a few weeks. I think he will love the Montessori school though! He LOVES other kids.

Ashley - posted on 08/01/2011

I am 27 and have an almost 18 month old daughter. I am a nanny for 3 young boys (5, 3 and 8 months) and I bring my daughter with me. I work full time Mon-Fri 8:15-5:45ish. My husband works about 40 hours a week where he gets Wed, Thurs and Sun off. So I take care of my daughter most of the time.. He will usually take her one afternoon on either Wed or Thurs to have daddy/daughter time and lighten my load a bit. But when we are both at home, we take turns with taking her potty/changing her diaper, and he usually is the one to give her a bath unless he is stuck working late. When he has his days off where I'm not there he will usually take the time to vacuum, do laundry, mow the lawn.. stuff like that. Its easier to do that stuff when our daughter isn't around, so he takes the lead on that since when I'm home with her on my days off, naptime isn't long and we usually spend our time out doing stuff instead of in cleaning all day...
I'm lucky that he does all this extra stuff, eventhough I spend all my time with our daughter, we both work, but he wants to spend time with her when he gets home so thats why he does bath time and all that good stuff :)

Vicky - posted on 08/01/2011

Have just gone on Maternity leave so i will post now and when i worked. Im 25 with a 20 month old and 30 weeks pregnant. When i worked i worked 3 days a week 8am to 6pm. On those days i would drop my Daughter off to where she would go that day 2 out of the 3 days my husband would pick her up the other day i would as it was 2 mins from my work. the days i dont work i would do everything with her when my husband was at work when he got home he went into daddy mode. He loves coming home and playing with her. He also cooked tea the days i worked and i cooked the days i didnt he cooked on the weekend. Bathing and showering i do most of that. Weekends we take in turns of sleeping in saturdays were my days sundays were his. Now im on maternity leave his shift has changed at work so he now works afternoon and isnt home till after she is in bed so i mainly do everything now but he still gets up early to play with her before work and the days he does have off he lets me sleep in and spends the morning with her.

Vicky - posted on 08/01/2011

Have just gone on Maternity leave so i will post now and when i worked. Im 25 with a 20 month old and 30 weeks pregnant. When i worked i worked 3 days a week 8am to 6pm. On those days i would drop my Daughter off to where she would go that day 2 out of the 3 days my husband would pick her up the other day i would as it was 2 mins from my work. the days i dont work i would do everything with her when my husband was at work when he got home he went into daddy mode. He loves coming home and playing with her. He also cooked tea the days i worked and i cooked the days i didnt he cooked on the weekend. Bathing and showering i do most of that. Weekends we take in turns of sleeping in saturdays were my days sundays were his. Now im on maternity leave his shift has changed at work so he now works afternoon and isnt home till after she is in bed so i mainly do everything now but he still gets up early to play with her before work and the days he does have off he lets me sleep in and spends the morning with her.

Rachael - posted on 07/31/2011

29y/o full time student and mom. My husband works full time. We have one son and a dog. On weekdays we split morning duties to get everyone fed and ready for daycare/school/work. I drive to daycare and then pick him up (most days) diner is cooked by whoever gets home first although I enjoy cooking more, so it is usually me. We do the bedtime routine together because we enjoy spending this time with our son and feel it is good for him to see us both right before bed. Weekend mornings depend on who has had the more exhausting week. One of us wakes up with our little one gets him fed and dressed and playing while the other gets a chance to sleep in for an extra hour or 2. Diapers are changed by whoever notices them first or by whoever is not currently busy. When I am working as a nurse with 12 hour days more of the responsibility on those days will fall on my husbands shoulders and I will take care of more on the other days. My husband mows the lawn, and takes out trash most nights. we split laundry duties and dish washing.

Lindsey - posted on 07/31/2011

I am a working mom who recently turned thirty. I wake up in the morning at 5am to feed the dogs, shower, pack lunches and then wake up my daughter to get her ready for school. I work from 7:30 to 3:45 then pick up my daughter and take her to her after school activities, like Dance, gymnastics, swimming lessons and soon to be karate. My husband sees our daughter when he gets home around 7:30, then I put our daughter in the bath, then to bed. So I am a full time working mother and a full time mother all at the same time. If I'm ever really tired or feel sick, my husband will do bath and bedtime...but that is a pretty rare thing.

Tanya - posted on 07/30/2011

I am 27 yr old SAHM... who also goes to school... I have a 2yr old and another one on the way and I do everything... taking care my lil one all day, cleaning, cooking, bills, errands, homework etc. I have to do it all bcuz my bf works on a different island most of the time... and comes home most weekends when we can afford it.... when he is home I dont like to spend our family time cleaning or errands, we head to the beach, the park, bike riding, etc... but when he is home he spends most of his time with our son and does share responisbilities such as bed time, bath, etc...

Jessica - posted on 07/30/2011

I am 30 and a SAHM. DH and I have 3 children age 10-1. We are currently expecting #4. DH works 6 or 7 days a week all day gets home about 7ish pm. I take care of the kids durring the day pretty much the same as you. When the baby was still drinking his bottle dh would feed him before bed and put him to sleep every night. I mostly cook dinner but on dh night off every once in a while he will cook he will also clean up the house on his days off. He doesn't do baths but every once in a while I can get him to change a diaper. When babys were little he would feed them when ever I needed, and on leave from work with newborns he will do whatever needs to be done (except baths, hes never been big on that) so I can nap, shower, ect... We also alternate nights getting up with babys while hes on leave (I pump so he can feed).
I have a great hubby!! Wouldn't trade him for the world!!!

Domonique - posted on 07/29/2011

im 24 n im on my second child n my husband dont do nuthin n sumtime i wat my me time

Lady Heather - posted on 07/29/2011

I'm a 29 year old SAHM. Of course during the day I take care of all the kid stuff (we just have one 2 year old right now), but my husband always jumps right in when he gets home because well...he likes to? He's been the bath time guy since she was very small. I did more of the bed time stuff when she was really small and needed rocking to sleep. Since she started falling asleep on her own (she started at about 8 months old), we do a bed time routine all together. We used to each have a sleep in day on the weekends. Since I've been pregnant he's let me do sleep ins both days because he's awesome. Our weekend parenting is very much split 50/50.

Anna - posted on 07/29/2011

I am a 28 year old SAHM to 2 (with one on the way). My husband works an 8-5 and I am our children's primary care-giver when he is at work. For the most part though, we are 50/50 when he's home. He probably changes about half of the diapers that are dirtied while he's home. I mostly do the cooking, but he entertains the kids so I can have some sort of peace in the kitchen. I handle most of the scheduling and shopping, for the most part he handles bills and finances but there is overlap in all areas. Since I'm the one home with the kids, I am responsible for most of their activities, educational and recreational. The kids are still young, so they don't have many evening commitments. We haven't assigned jobs (except that he does trash). Our roles have generally just fallen into place. Occasionally something gets missed but not that often.

Chrystal - posted on 07/29/2011

I am a 27 year old SAHM. My husband does go out and work and financially provide for us. But in my opinion, I still feel that my husband should help with our baby when he gets home. I don't find that it is fair that he can go out work and come home and do nothing. That would mean I would never get a break! So if I ask him to help me do something, he helps. He even cooks dinner most of the time and I don't even ask him to do that. Which is really nice especially since I have been busy all day taking care of our baby. And on the weekends we take turns and let each other sleep in while the other wakes up with the baby. All in all I can say that I'm pretty lucky I guess, but it did take a long time for him to realize that I need help as well when he gets home from work. If he didn't I would end up resenting being a stay at home mom. It takes team work to raise a baby. It took two to make that baby not one. So in my opinion, sahm or not two can help not just one.