To want minimum noise when my baby sleeps

[NutCase82]

Am I making a rod for my own back as her Dad claims? And are we not going to be able to take her anywhere?

I'm talking about things like avoidable noisy door closing, clattering of cutlery or crockery, tv being on loud (I can easily hear most things on 29 but her dad has it on 42 which is nearly unbearable for me).

Baby is 5 months and I do 100% of childcare (he has fed her about twice this year, changed her about twice and never put any money towards a single item for her ever), so he is thoroughly unaffected if she wakes at any point. During night feeds if her dad is up (due to being out late) then he will talk loudly and unnecessarily, to the point our daughter (who normally never opens her eyes during night feed) stopped feeding to glare at him.

I believe he does it on purpose as I've repeatedly asked him to quieten down please, but he always says the above statements.

Is he right? I just don't want to make her suffer unnecessarily, and it's me who will face the consequences of her being woken up.

[Marcine]

I don't stay quiet when my 4 month old is asleep, but I also don't have a total waste of space for a dp so we're probably coming at this from different places.

[Casmama]

Your op raises far more questions than that one- firstly why are you with some who contributes nothing, financially or emotionally, to his daughter?

[myrtleWilson]

Hmm I'm fairly certain you're focusing on the wrong issue here nutcase... If your outline of him above is accurate and reflective of his contribution to family life ... have you not tackled him about that rather than sleeping/noise?

[PickAChew]

There's not creeping around being super quiet and there's being an arse. Sounds like your baby has the latter for a father.

[Allthewaves]

At night - quiet as possible. During the day I wouldn't avoid noise.

[c75kp0r]

I think the ideal is to have them used to sleeping despite background noise and light - so that you don't have to tip toe round and so they will go off to sleep during the day or in the summer but I just found one of my dc simply wouldn't sleep unless it was quiet - in which case, if we wanted her to sleep, it just had to be quiet, end of.

[Cheby]

Umm, i don’t think noise during naptime is your biggest problem here. How long have you been together?

[jaseyraex]

Forget the baby sleeping and think about why on earth you're with a man like you've described! He sounds awful and not at all a partner or father.

But no, I dont believe you're making a rod for your own back. My son has always slept in complete quiet. SAHM with his dad out at work long hours so was always just me and the baby. I'm a quiet person, I hate lots of unessecary noise so the house is always quiet when he sleeps and naps. He slept fine out and about too, I'd play white noise on my phone if he struggled at all. Baby number 2 on the way I imagine will be different with a noisy toddler around.

[Bambamber]

We've never kept the noise down when our daughter sleeps. We even Hoover as that's only time we really get a chance

But I honestly don't think that's the problems here. Her dad sounds like an arse

[TestingTestingWonTooFree]

You definitely have bigger issues than noise.

[tealandteal]

How would he like to try and sleep with someone talking loudly or making lots of noise? DS is 6 months and we don't have silence when he sleeps but I will try to keep loud sudden noises to a minimum, door slams etc. Reading your post you seem to have issues other than this though, no feeding, waking or changing? What does he do to parent his child?

[ForagingForFaerieGold]

Er... if he's not raising her (and he clearly isn't) then he doesn't get a say.
Get her used to average noise levels if you can, but there's no need for his ridiculous behaviour. Unless you expect her to need to be able to sleep at a rock concert.

[OhForFrigSake]

I was always one of those 'don't modify your noise levels' type of parents because I always thought that they'd habe to get used go ordinary sounds at some point if I didn't want to be tiptoeing around them forever. It worked for us and DC now can sleep through anything.

The whole issue of your OH being a completely useless fuckwit is another point altogether.

[BigBaboonBum]

I always ensured quiet when mine slept, they’re both great deep sleepers now. I think if you make them jumpy with sounds there’s more chance they’ll be light sleepers... but this is just guesswork from how mine are compared to my nieces and friends kids. Maybe it doesn’t matter at all

[BigBaboonBum]

Also I’d drop him pretty rapidly

[mintich]

I didn't keep the noise down and she has been sleeping 12 hours a night since 8 weeks. However he shouldn't be interrupting her feeding, that would piss me off!!

[April241]

My two are 16 months and I just carry on as I did pre-kids which is good as they'll sleep through anything (until my eyes finally close and then they'd hear a mouse fart).

As a baby my mum was always ensuring I had complete silence (first born!) and even now I struggle to sleep with any noise other than music playing in the room/through headphones, unless i'm post nightshift exhausted.

[Mishappening]

On the noise side, we used to vacuum around our babes; and normal household noise became just background music to them. So I should relax a bit on that score

But it sounds as though you have other problems to contend with!

[NutCase82]

During day naps I will hoover and have the tv/washer/dryer on and things like that because I don't want her to NEED quiet.

But you know when there's times you just want them to have a restful sleep. She's teething so feel even more like she needs a thorough rest.

He does play with her but it's on his terms. He wanted a baby I feel I must point out, and for the first 2 weeks he was the model father (though he still didn't do night feeds). Then I guess the novelty wore off a bit to the point he may or may not address her on a morning/when he's going out/getting in.

He is an arse and I do need shot of him but just wondered if he had a point and I'm going to ruin her with kindness if that's what it is??!

[callmybabybalonz]

Yeah nice work raising her with that excuse of a father.

Did you know anything about him before you got pregnant?

[myrtleWilson]

you're more likely to ruin her with an arse of a non active father than with kindness Op - sorry if that came across as harsh

[NutCase82]

I knew he could be an arse but since having my baby all of our issues have been amplified to me.

We had not been together long before we began to try for a baby. I was convinced I wouldn't be able to get pregnant but did straight away.

When he's with other people's kids he's great with them and everybody said what a good dad he'd make. And he can, when there's people watching! He is going away for his birthday with his mates which I couldn't do, there's nobody I'd rather spend my birthday with than my child!! Again though maybe that's me being one of 'those' mothers 😬

[mamahanji]

I don't understand the 'novelty wore off' comment. How can you raise a child with someone who views her as a boring toy...

I think sometimes people have this idea that the only way to raise a child is with 2 parents living together. But the reality is that often, 2 parents living together is harmful to the child. In this case 1 parent is completely negligent besides a little bit of playing when he feels like it. Do you not think that when dc is older, they will see that daddy quite frankly couldn't care less? You're clearly doing everything including financially alone, why drag alone a giant man child with you?

And to answer your op, I'm not neurotic with sound but I do want it to be low noise. So loud talking right next to the baby is a bit stupid while the baby is trying to sleeping.

[SuperBeagle]

Your OP reads like you're separated, but then it becomes clear you're not.

Noise during your baby's naps is the least of your problems.

[UnicornRainbowColours]

Get your baby used to sleeping through noice etc. theyll be a better sleeper ib the long run.