DH and I have one DC together - DS, now 14 months.
There was a time when DS used to settle himself to sleep in his cot most nights and then stay asleep until morning. Obviously we were amazingly lucky and chuffed. However, things changed completely when DS was about 10 months old. This was very much my fault - we took him on holiday and I didn't do a good enough job of recreating his usual bedtime routines. Since then DS hasn't slept through the night at all. DS will now:
- only fall asleep if cuddled up to me or DH. He will typically wake up crying when we try to detach ourselves from him and leave the room. He will not settle if left alone to get to sleep.
- wake up several times in the night, each time again only settling if he can fall asleep cuddled up to me or DH. This process can be quick if we're lucky but can also take hours before he can be left alone again.
I am doing 95% of bedtimes and 95% of the night wakings. I will admit that I do often give up and just end up spending the night cosleeping with DS on a mattress on the floor of his room after the first or second waking because I'm too exhausted to keep sooting him back to sleep and getting him back into his cot bed each time. I also do DS's morning routine / breakfast / getting him ready for nursery most days, with DH typically joining me to help out when I've already been up with DS for an hour or two by myself.
We both work full time in fairly stressful jobs. I feel on my knees from tiredness, yet DH constantly says he is exhausted despite getting way, way more sleep than I do. We have little sex life at the moment. I don't feel connected to DH because we are spending so much of each night apart. I'm pretty down. I love my DS and love cuddling up to him; I also don't mind doing most of the night stuff as I'm a fair bit younger than DH and know I do have more energy than him. Nonetheless, I would strongly prefer the current situation not to continue.
To the crux of the matter: I have told DH that I want to sleep train DS. I realised this would be controversial and I do appreciate that there are a lot of passionate opponents of sleep training. I'd done a fair bit of reading on different methods and arguments for and against and asked DH to take a look for himself to see if he's on board (I came to him with existing reading suggestions but also proposed he research it himself so that he doesn't worry that I'm giving him biased material, which was his initial concern).
DH totally shut down. Refused to read anything. Said it was cruel to sleep-train and wasn't going to happen to his DS. Was genuinely really upset about it and explained that it hurts him too much to let DS cry. Insinuated I clearly don't love DS enough and proceeded to take himself off to DS's room that night and sleep there with him. Refused to talk or come out once DS was asleep. The vibe was 'well if you won't look after him in the night anymore, I will.'
In the morning DH was shattered. He hasn't offered to have DS at night since, although ended up responding to DS's wakings before I did on one occasion when I was too slow to get up. The status quo has just continued as it was.
AIBU to think that my DH has been unfair to me and that we should sleep train our DS, or at least be able to have a detailed discussion about it without DH shutting me down? I know this might sound awful but I feel that if I'm the one primarily facing the consequences of DS not being able to settle himself, the decision on whether to sleep train should ultimately fall to me. But of course DH is important as the dad and I appreciate he feels strongly about it. Maybe I am being the unreasonable one here - I worry that I can't see the wood from the trees anymore and am being unfair. I also appreciate that I might be unreasonable automatically for wanting to sleep train at all, in which case I'd be grateful for stories of how other people have co-slept with their kids / helped them to get more independent at night without ruining their sanity and marriages!
YABU - DH is right not to agree to discuss sleep training further (either because sleep training is wrong in itself or because it is his right as the father to refuse to discuss the issue if he is strongly against it).
YANBU - DH should agree to discuss sleep training further or should leave the decision to you.