“My Postpartum Wife Isn’t Pulling Her Weight” He Thinks Wife Needs To Do More Around The House

One man took to Reddit to complain about the split of chores around the house after having a baby. The original poster (OP) shares his frustration online.

Fair Split Of Chores Before Baby

The OP and his wife are in their mid 30’s. Before having a baby, they used to split the tasks around the house. According to him, “We both vacuumed and cleaned the bathrooms, if one cooked then the other one does the dishes. We also have dogs and we would both walk them in the morning and at night.”

However, things changed after his wife became pregnant. After my wife became pregnant, I was doing a lot more of the chores around the house which I was fine with since she couldn’t do as much anymore due to lack of mobility and chemicals from the cleaners for the bathrooms. We still walked the dogs to get my wife some exercise during the pregnancy.”

The OP also added that he works from home most days, but that he has a deadline.

Grandparents Help After Birth

For the first month after the baby’s birth, OP’s mother and his mother-in-law helped them with house chores. This allowed my wife and I to focus on our baby and allowed me to help my wife with whatever she needed; whether it was to help feed the baby, change its diaper, or clothed the baby. However, after the month of help, both our parents went back home and everything was now on us to cook, clean, laundry, dogs, and taking care of the baby.”

Current Situation With Wife And Baby

The OP’s wife is still on maternity leave since the birth of thier baby, however, he hasn’t taken his maternity leave yet. He plans on taking his leave when his wife goes back to work. “However, I still try to help out whenever she asks me to help with the baby when I can step away then I will. So she’s not doing all the baby stuff by herself,” says the OP.

He then starts to describe why he thinks his wife should start doing more around the house. “My wife on maternity leave is pretty much a “stay at home mom” since all she’s doing is just taking care of the baby; however, that’s almost all she does.”

“I’ve joked around with her saying that she’s currently a “stay at home mom” but she’s not pulling her weight around the house other than taking care of the baby and I still help her with the baby too. During the mornings if it’s a sunny day then my wife will walk with the baby in the stroller while I’m the one walking the dogs; however, if it’s a rainy then it all falls solely on me to do it all. I’m also the one who takes the dogs for a walk in the evening. I cook dinner and I’d say 9.5 out of 10 times I’m also the one either doing the dishes or putting them into our dishwasher. I always make the bottles every night.”

OP notes that the baby is on formula and is not breastfed. He says that a normal day for his wife consists of feeding the baby every 3 hours beginning at 7AM and puts be baby to bed at 8PM.

The husband also notes that on weekends, he does half of the baby duties while still doing the cooking, dishes, and taking the dogs out in the evenings.

“I’ve told my wife that I’d switch with her at night where I feed the baby and she takes the dogs out but she brushes it off without an answer,” he complains. “I’m starting to feel burned out helping with the baby and the chores.”

Most Comments Are On The Wife’s Side

Most of the comments favor the wife’s side, pointing out that newborns and babies don’t sleep 11 straight hours at night and still need to be fed at night.

One of the replies said, “I love how he acts like the baby eats, sleeps, and poops, as if baby never cries, never needs to be held skin to skin for extended periods for comfort. This also insinuates mom is simply a baby vending machine who has no physical or emotional recovery needs after birth.” They also pointed out that the wife is probably still recovering from giving birth, “She’s not on a lazy vacation, she is healing and needs rest and time. At the same time she’s recovering from birth (which most countries outside of the US agrees takes approximately 6 months) she’s taking care of a demanding new life. Calm down, don’t wait for her to ask you to do things, and be a dad.”

My Personal Thoughts

As someone who recently went through pregnancy and gave birth, I can say healing from giving birth takes a lot more time than many realize. Since we are not given a timeline on how long ago the wife gave birth, I can only say that if it was less than 3 months ago, then the husband still needs to help her and assist her since she is likely still recovering. However, after 3 months, she should be able to cook, do some cleaning while taking care of the baby.

What do you think? Is it fair for the husband to complain, or should he give her some slack?

Read Next:

“People Won’t Check In On You After You Give Birth” – New Mom Saddened By Reality Of Postpartum

“Clean Up The House First” He Always Attaches Conditions To His Gifts To His Wife

Source: Reddit