As a new mom still under the shock of just how much time is spent feeding and changing diapers and how little time you spend sleeping, your hopes and wishes are stripped to the bare minimum.

Your eyes are burning from continuous interrupted sleep and your arms are sore from carrying your baby. Your back aches from being slouched while breast feeding and bending at very disadvantageous angles to change diapers 12 times a day.

Yes, 12, for real, on a good day. And five to eight of them are poop too.

Now the good news is, the poop doesn’t smell, not until baby is eating solids anyway. The bad news, however, it is quite frequent.

The other piece of bad news is that the diaper changing seems to be written in only one parent’s job description and under “Exclusive Jurisdictions.”

Now my husband and I have a good thing going. We have been married over three years during which we have largely learnt to keep drama at bay and partner in most of home chores and errands. He is a progressive husband who values me as a workingwoman and a homemaker, pulling his weight around the house whenever needs be and supporting my long hours and work demands.

However, when it comes to nappies, none of the above seemed to apply.

Our son became my son, his poop became my problem and the accidents became funny episodes happening to me. I am not alone in this. I asked around within my circle of experienced moms, only to find that a friend could not leave her kids with her husband for longer than three hours; the maximum time allowed between changes. Another friend’s husband could not change their babies because they were girls. Ironically my husband would not change my son’s diaper because he was a boy.

Now let me take you back to a new mom’s state of mind three weeks post delivery; you are sore all over, convinced your life beyond baby is over and you are spending four to six hours a day alone in a room breastfeeding, which is both painful and frustrating. You are traumatised at how much you have been reduced to a milking machine and you are trying to come to terms with the fact that you have only lost a quarter of the weight you put on. And you are, on most days for any given period of time, covered in shit. Then after a long night of changing and feeding, your husband wakes up the next day complaining he’s only had five hours of sleep.

Now your husband prances in and out, coos at baby and baby’s cuteness, cuddles and holds baby then hands him over to you whenever he needs to be fed or changed.

Did I mention this happened 12 times a day?

Since he can’t help with the breastfeeding all you can do is ask him to help with the changing. But you get all sorts of responses when you ask over and over for daddy to learn to change a nappy. “No way,” “that’s a mommy thing,” “I’m scared, he’s so small,” “I’m not ready,” “he’s a boy, I can’t,” “she’s a girl, I can’t,” “I’m tired now.” Tired?

Eighteen days into my baby’s life, I realized that I was at a crossroads. I could be the only one to change diapers and resent my husband forever or I could pull the most dramatic, theatrical, confrontational and slightly angry fight out of my bag and put an end to it.

It worked, mostly because my husband could tell that I was utterly shattered, but also because my husband is the most loving, giving man I met.

Of course, he expected quite the standing ovation whenever he changed our baby and would remind me endlessly that he already changed him once this week. But slowly he became more at ease with the idea.

Since I went back to work my husband has woken up with my son and changed him at 7am almost every Friday to let me sleep for a few extra hours. He also bathes my son with me on most nights, puts him to sleep almost every night, which takes around three hours, and watches him for a few hours every weekend when I need to get things done.

I can now happily say that we are taking care of our son together and that I don’t fully trust anyone else with my son and couldn’t imagine doing this on my own.