Am I Being Reasonable?

It’s me, husband, SD (4 year old) and ours baby (almost 5 months). My husband works 10 hour shifts 4 days a week, sometimes does overtime too. He also drills with the Marine Corps Reserves for 6 days to two weeks at a time. On his days off (weekends and some weekdays), we typically have SD.

She’s a very polite and sweet kid, but having two kids is a lot regardless. It’s overstimulating and tiring. When SD isn’t home, my husband works so much, I’m usually parenting ours baby alone while he’s gone. It feels like there are no breaks and we’ve only gone on one evening alone since our baby was born. I am burnt out.

His parents are happy to watch the kids so we can have a date when we ask, but we just haven’t had time.

They’ve never gotten to have one-on-one time with SD before. Ever. When she was a baby, I think BM had PPA (which I understand because I’ve had it too, to a lesser extent) and she didn’t want his parents watching her. It’s fine now, but when she’s over, my husband is trying to make up for lost time.

I suggested tonight we have quality family time together with SD but tomorrow, we let his parents spend one-on-one time with SD after ours baby is in bed, so we can finally have a date. We’d only be gone a few hours and would be home to tuck SD in bed.

He doesn’t want to. He says when SD is here, he wants to be with her for every moment.

I understand why he feels that way, but I don’t think it’s fair to his parents that they’ve also never gotten to have time with her. They’re great grandparents, very loving and supportive. They were very good with ours baby the one time they watched her. And we *never* get to have dates or do anything alone together.

Am I asking something unreasonable?