Today, I got out of the house with my 3 month old for a good 9 hour stretch because my husband was tired and needed a break. Mind you, he had a full night’s sleep last night, while I went to bed at 1:00, nursed from 4:00-5:00 and was up at 7:00.

So, you can imagine my frustration when I came home tonight and there were NO. CLEAN. BOTTLES. in our house.

The most annoying part about all of this was there were 5 that were washed – that I’d washed before I left – that just needed to be thrown in the sterilizer.

He did throw two in the dishwasher, but had only started that about 10 minutes before I got home, which does not help when you have a screaming baby.

In fact, I don’t even remember the last time my husband hand washed a bottle or put a load in the sterilizer, but he is proud when he throws them in the dishwasher. It leaves me to wash and sterilize all of them on a Sunday night before work while he sleeps so he isn’t left in the lurch in the morning. I would give him a taste of his own medicine if I didn’t have to worry about my baby eating.

Did I mention that he isn’t working tomorrow, he doesn’t have a full-time job, and he is the one asleep because he is “too tired to function” right now?! Meanwhile, I’m living on about 5 hours of sleep a night, working a full-time job so we can have food and benefits, and I work tomorrow?

How do people deal with men?!?!?

Seriously?

Everyone says the first year after you have a child is HARD. I think that might be an understatement. It feels impossible to get through this. And the worst part is, I do have a husband that is more involved in housework than the norm. He does dishes, laundry, vacuuming, etc., and probably does more of the visible housework than I do, to be honest. But I am doing EVERYTHING for the baby, including all of the nighttime stuff. I can seriously count the number of times on one hand that he has gotten up with our son in the middle of the night.

All I ask is for a bottle or two if I am going to take the nighttime shift. Is that too much to ask for?

Who else is struggling in similar ways with their babies? What advice do you have?