The first few days after giving birth is a vulnerable time for new moms. Especially if she had a C-section, her body is healing from the stress of a major surgery, making it difficult to care for her baby. Recently, a Reddit user had the audacity to not stay the night at the hospital after his wife’s C-section because his back hurt.
A new dad took to the AITA subreddit to ask for input about the situation. Evidently, his wife was moved to a recovery room with no pull-out bed, so he bowed out from helping during the nighttime. Now, he wants to know if he was in the wrong.
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The husband explained that his wife was recently induced on a Sunday.
In the early January 2025 thread, the original poster (OP) explained that his wife was recently admitted to the hospital for an induction.
“We came to the hospital 2am on Sunday Morning, where she was put on a ward and started on hormones,” he explained. “The Labour wasn’t progressing very quickly so she told me to go home around 9am as she’d need me when the baby came. I came back in the evening and she told me to go home and rest around Midnight.”
On Tuesday, their baby was finally born via C-section.
The OP wrote that he returned to the hospital early Monday morning and spent the day with his wife but went home to be with their daughter around 5 p.m.
“I got a call at 1am Tuesday from her. She thought she was in labour but didn’t think the staff were taking her seriously,” he detailed. “I rushed up to the ward, baby was born 3 hours later via an emergency c-section.”
The OP stayed overnight that first day to help his wife with the baby so she could rest.
About 4 p.m. on Tuesday, the couple got settled into a recovery room with their baby.
“Both extremely tired (her obviously much more) but we managed a few hours as they had a little sofa I could lay down on,” the OP shared. “I got up throughout the night to help with baby so she could rest.”
On Wednesday, they managed to nap during the day. The husband explained that their baby “was noted to have a health problem and so has been taken for further tests.” So he “took the baby as my wife had trouble walking during the pregnancy due to pelvic pain. This has continued and so she is in a lot of pain quite often, combined with the surgery.”
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He didn't stay the night after they moved to a room with no pull-out bed.
Meanwhile, his wife was moved to a different ward that did not have a pull-out bed for partners.
“I have lower back pain so I’ve carried a cushion around to alleviate it whilst she’s been in hospital. It doesn’t do much but it means I can sit in the chairs for a bit rather than needing to lie down,” he explained in the post. “I’ve told my wife that I couldn’t stay as I wouldn’t be able to sit in the chair all night with no sleep.”
The OP noted that his wife expected him to stay the night and continue helping her during the day.
“I feel really bad about it, but I wouldn’t be able to sleep at all and sitting in the chair would just further screw up my back. Then I’d be of no use the next day without sleep and with back pain,” he continued. “I set everything up for my wife to make it easier for her during the night. I spoke to the staff and told them how anxious she is and that she’d need extra help and told my wife to ask for help when she needed it.”
Ultimately, he left at midnight and returned the next morning to take over during the day and let his wife rest.
“My argument is that I can’t physically stay awake all night and all day,” he concluded. “Although I’d agreed to stay all night with her before admission, I thought at least I’d be able to lie down. AITA?”
Reddit users were divided about whether he was a jerk.
Interestingly, Reddit users were firmly divided in the comments.
“Shout out to my husband for being able to sleep on a floor … As someone who has had a recent C section, Iād be really upset if my husband left,” wrote one person who thought the OP was marginally an a–hole. “I couldnāt even get up to pick my own baby up and that was hard to accept. I ended up having a medical emergency 2 nights after, and Iām not sure what would have happened if he wasnāt there.”
The person added that she wasn’t sure the excuse “I need a break because my back hurts” was “something I could handle hearing when I donāt get a break and had just been cut open after 9 months of pregnancy.”
Another Reddit user snarkily commented, “May this love never find me ššš.”
Still, someone else defended the OP. “[Not the A–hole]. I bet you’re gonna be roasted by people telling you ‘[You’re the A–hole] suck it up, your wife has it worse!’ And I’m gonna say that yes, of course the wife has it worse,” the person wrote. “But that doesn’t make it a race to the bottom to see who can suffer more. You gotta sleep. You gotta be vaguely functional, you’ve got another child at home that needs you – you can only spread yourself so thin.”
That same commenter pointed out that doctors and nurses would attend to his wife at night. “You’ll be way more useful in the situation with some sleep.”
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