DH blaming me for being tired

Seriously??

Sounded really hard, hope things got a bit better.

I think the lack of communication is key here. I think you may have needed to be much more specific in "can you watch the child so I can get two hours sleep? I can take over from 2am and do the wake ups from then". I think you were a little vague so he was very much pass the child back I want to go to sleep. Not blaming you in the slightest, just trying to assess how you've communicated your needs to him.

My DD was hard as a newborn and DH would take over from 7pm and I'd go to bed. At 10pm he'd stir me gently and I'd breastfeed whilst half asleep. He'd then stay up until midnight before coming up. At that point he'd bring her to bed and I'd take over 12am-5am. I was on maternity so not working but it meant I got some sleep albeit broken, but he got a solid 5 hours sleep to be ok for work and absolutely no resentment towards each other. Then when either DD or DS have been ill in the night since (3&4) we still adopt similar if we know it's going to be a tough night.

Agree, if it was earache it can waIt till morning and get a doctors appointment. As a mother of 2 children , I've been there and sometimes the tiredness especially with 3 children , 2 sick it takes it out of you. Just have a conversation about him temporarily sleeping on the sofa while the children are un well. Then return to normal.

I'd have said next time come back and see to your child so at least one of us can get some sleep

I never co-slept with any of my kids, and they all were good sleepers unless poorly. Your child will never learn to self soothe if they're permanently attached to you and it does them no favours short or long term. The truth is that it's just easier for you. And when you're tired it's really hard to see that you're the root cause of the problem.

Talk to your DH, both get on board with how you're going to sleep train, write it down and stick on the bedroom door, and life will get much easier for you both.

Waking up at 1am would fit in with this timescale. It is enough time for acid to travel up from the stomach. If your baby is not screaming the rest of the time, and its only something that wakes them from sleep, this may be the answer. Pain killers can help a bit, but they wont stop the acid, which is what you need to do. Both to stop the pain completely and to stop the baby's ears being damaged by acid.

I know this is not what you were asking about but sometimes acid reflux can cause very painful burning in the inner ear (it comes up from the throat). It is worse when lying down, so the pain can be a lot worse at night.

You can try an over the counter anti acid like gaviscon and if that works maybe ask your doctor for a proton pump inhibiter prescription as these will have a strong effect on the pain (although can also cause other problems like food malabsorption).

I tend to think 99% of the relationship posts on AIBU aren't really questions about reason, but desperate pleas for someone to validate the awful way their husband has behaved. And, tbh, I think it typically marks the beginning of the end of the relationship. Because if you have to ask a bunch of strangers to point out the obvious because he's done such a good job of evading responsibility for his behaviour, he's not going to improve.

On this occasion, I do think there is a slight mitigating factor. Sleeplessness does tend to make everyone a bit irrational. The question is, is he like this when he's had a full night's sleep? Obviously telling you he didn't understand at 1am was weaponised incompetence. Obviously. But the rest of it is more concerning if he's like this whether he's had sleep or not.

Only you know that. A red flag for me is you being nervous to tell him not to fuss because he'll throw a strop. If your relationship is healthy, you should be able to tell your partner when their behaviour is out of character and/or out of line. Because they should have the emotional maturity to take a step back and look objectively at the situation. If he can't do that, he's probably not going to get any better at it.

You actually have four children. Unfortunately one of them is your DH.

I will say this until I am blue in the face. Co sleeping is a nightmare. You’re treating the symptoms not the cause. Put the 1 year old to bed in their own bed repeatedly until they stay there.

AIBU to think it is a) not my fault he is tired now, and b) not really on for him to be cross at me after I did all the work last night with the baby except for the 20 minutes he had her for at midnight?

YANBU for either of those things. He doesn't get to be cross at you because he's tired or blame you for it!

Can you work out shifts between you so you each get a decent period of uninterrupted sleep?

What the heck?!

My mum was a stay at home mum back in the 80s. My dad did half of the night wakings despite a long commute and physical job because he wasn't a selfish arse and didn't want to leave her knackered looking after his child.

It's the bare minimum to share the amount of sleep you each get as evenly as you can.

This.

Will be hard work with 2 already young children and a 1yr old. Maybe you both need a babysitter once youngest is well enough and spend some quality time on each other. The being up late on his phone and on laptop sounds like he might be trying to use these as an escape of sorts from the manic life at home. Does he go out much BTW? I noticed the OP said he works from home? Could also be 'cabin fever' from both of you too, living on top of each other, sleep deprived, poorly child. Can cause a lot of stress in the house.

I think the crux of the issue for me reading this is that he is okay with poor sleep hygiene resulting from things he enjoys which seems unfair when you are putting in the effort to give him good sleep by taking night duties. It makes me think well maybe he could take over more and stop staying up late unnecessarily. Maybe it's time to split things more equally. I would say 2 night's a week he is in charge as you work less, although honestly I found toddlers much more exhausting than working from home! But 2 nights of proper sleep would really help I think as it sounds like you are just absolutely empty at this point x x

I think your parents of young children and are both understandably tired, grumpy, and playing score cards on who does what.

All of which is pretty prevalent amongst parents. I don't think I know a single person who hasn't had a version of this argument at some point or another.

He is being annoying, sure, but sometimes marriages depend on what partner doing a silent eye roll and moving on, or having a quick snapping session at each other and then moving on.

No one wins the who has more right to be tired argument. You're both just tired.

Get two king sized beds

The woman usually takes the brunt of the mental and physical load of child rearing as well as looking after the home, and every thing in between. Often, and for so many years, it’s 24/7. And add working to that as well, part time or not. Where as the man works his 35/40 hours, gets home and is still not expected to not parent properly and not do chores because “he deserves his rest”. Whereas it’s ok for the woman to run herself ragged from the exhaustion.

It’s 2024 and yet so many people, increasingly young men and women, walking around with a 1954 mentality about gender roles and expectations. It’s truly shocking.

Please come & tell this to my 8yo 😭

You already had two young children when you decided to have a third, so you knew what it was like.

And do you honestly think you can have a "solid, uninterrupted" sleep in a toddler's bed.

This. I didn’t co-sleep with my 3 year old. We also sleep trained. He has no issue going to sleep. Yet he still wakes up several times a night. Every story is just that, a story - as many stories there are of parents co-sleeping and children waking up until their teens, there will be stories of parents who didn’t co-sleep and did sleep train and still waking up. Sleep training does indeed teach children how to self soothe, but it doesn’t stop them from waking up overnight and then being able to self soothe back to sleep.

Co sleeping doesn’t mean you have children that never sleep to PP. my son co slept 1 month - 18 months and then slept in his own bed really well. He’s 3 now and sleeps 7-7 in his own room v happily. This myth of 8 year old still waking in tbt night due to co sleeping as a baby still perpetuates

Omg I literally cannot believe the number of people who say the OP should be doing more of the nights bc she works part time. She does NOT work part time she works full time it's just half the time she is an unpaid carer. Her partner gets to work FT because she is caring for the children. Which is quite honestly FAR HARDER than being in a paid job. Looking after small children whilst sleep deprived is agonizing - being at work is like a rest cure by comparison. So the nights should be shared in whatever way works.

I agree it's not the sleep deprivation Olympics and there's no advantage in being combative. Approach it as not you against him but you and him against the problem (lack of sleep). I'm sure he is knackered and so are you. Having a non sleeping child is brutal.

I would approach it by apologizing for being snappy (you were, it upset him, that's his reality, if you don't acknowledge it you won't get any further with the discussion) and then start a 'ok we are both on our knees we need to talk about what we can do to improve our sleep'.

Tbh you were being a bit unreasonable to assume he would know without you asking that you wanted to change the previously agreed arrangement bc baby had been fussing, and he is being unreasonable by not automatically offering (did he not notice? Was he pretending not to notice? ).

My DH and I split the nights - I went to bed at 9, he is a night owl anyway so stayed up with the baby til 130 then we swapped over. And we sleep trained them (this is 26 years ago - seems to be very unfashionable now and I'm not really waving the flag for it bc it worked brilliantly for ds1 and didn't really work for dd1 and dcs 3 and 4 didn't need it so every child and every family is different).

The solution has to be what work for you. Get a bigger bed, try sleep training, split the nights more evenly, whatever - the key thing is you agree it together and try and look after each other. Good luck, and be kind to yourselves, you are shattered....

My DIL decided they would be co sleeping when DG was born. No one has had any sleep for 4 yrs because she now won't sleep in her own bed and all hell breaks out every night. When they complain they're tired, I just tell them it's their own fault and stop complaining.

It’s an unpopular opinion but sleep train. I was dead against it saying how cruel it was, my partner persisted and I’m so glad he did. Our children have slept really well from 18 months. My friends who co-slept are still having disturbed nights with 8 and 9 year olds!

That is beyond ridiculous. This is why emergency departments are overrun because that is not a life threatening emergency.

In most countries you can get antibiotics from a pharmacist to treat otitis media. Pharmacy's are also open later so they probably would have got the medication a lot quicker than dragging that poor child down to ED.

He works FT you work PT so you should do more of the work, having said that sleep deprivation is no joke. I think both of you need to be more compassionate and patient with each other. also get a single bed, it's unreasonable to think a grown man can sleep in a toddlers bed.

Another poster wrote about a schedule - I think that's a great idea. You can see Infront of both of you what is going on and that the workload is divided fairly.

To the poster who said GPs have referred into ED - yes that's true but that means the child has been clinically assessed by a professional and then it's deemed necessary to refer to secondary care - that's completely different to taking a child with an otitis media to ED.