Everyone knows that a new baby is a lot of work, but sometimes we forget just how much.
In this story from Reddit, we hear from a new mother who misses some of the simple pleasures in life – like an uninterrupted shower.
She has a partner, so you might figure it should be easy enough to find 10 minutes.
But you would figure wrong.
My husband and I had a baby 2 weeks ago.
She is strictly breastfed and not only does she cluster feed but she also just finds comfort in being close to me.
Therefore, there’s not much I can do without her and more often than not, I’m completely okay with that.
But one thing this does mean is that I don’t get to shower by myself.
I’ve showered once by myself since having her and it only lasted long enough for me to soap up before she was crying and my husband was bringing her in to me.
I think I literally had all of 2-3 minutes.
A new mother not having a moment to herself is not surprising, but you have to wonder how her husband’s routines have been affected.
With that said, my husband of course hasn’t had to change his life around at all.
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Of course.
Every day and nearly every night he is taking 30-60 minute uninterrupted showers.
He doesn’t understand the frustration I get whenever he showers. That’s the only thing that bothers me. I want to shower.
I want to sit under the water and relax my muscles.
There has to be a breakdown in communication somewhere here.
But like I said, every time I attempt it, the baby starts crying and he brings her in to the shower with me instead of trying to calm her down himself and he says it’s because he knows that showers calm her down and he doesn’t like her crying (he feels bad- like it nearly makes him cry whenever she does).
So I get his thought process but it feels like a cop out at the same time.
It sounds like her cares, but doesn’t know how to handle the challenge of a crying baby. Time to call in the reinforcements!
So I called my mom and asked her to come watch the baby so I could shower and shave my legs because I’ve literally been attempting to shave my legs for 5 days now and it’s all patchy because I keep having the baby handed off to me.
I need to self care.
My husband was home when I asked my mom to come by.
I didn’t tell him. She shows up and takes the baby and I go to shower.
My husband comes in at some point and asks why my mom is here and I tell him I asked her to come by so I could shower without the baby being handed off to me.
Will the husband understand or overreact?
He says “I could have watched her, why would you do that?”
So I said “every time you watch her while I shower, she ends up in here with me within 2 minutes of me being in here because you don’t even try to calm her down.”
Now he thinks I’m an AH because I “never told him to keep the baby out of the shower”, despite me specifically saying I wanted to relax and self care multiple times.
She wasn’t specific, but it sounds like she was pretty clear.
AITA? He says I’ve now made him look bad to my mom.
The husband is upset because he looks bad, but I wonder who the folks on Reddit think is the real villain in this story?
Let’s find out.
Top comment reminds the author that it’s okay to let your baby cry sometimes so you can take care of yourself.
Many comments agreed that being a new mom is hard, and her husband needed to do more to allow her some down time.
Multiple comments were curious as to why the husband was more worried about he looked to his mother-in-law than how his wife was feeling.
Another comment questioned the maturity of the husband.
There was also lots of great advice shared from other moms on how to handle this situation and others that may arise.
And some of the best advice was to not treat basic needs like luxuries.
This new mom is discovering that she has to raise two children after giving birth to one!
It’s all too common a tale.
Categories: STORIES
Tags: · aita, baby, babysitter, bad parents, daddy issues, mom advice, mother in law, new dad, new mom, newborn, picture, reddit, self-care, top, women supporting women