So tired - no sleep, can’t leave DD with DH

[MountainEagle]

DD is 15m. I haven’t slept more than a couple of hours at a time since I was 3 months pregnant. I chose to breastfeed so I had to handle every single night waking and nap myself. We’ve tried putting DH in another room with DD but the wailing is so loud I wake up anyway, and at that point I might as well bf her because it’s the only way to stop the screaming.

DH takes DD between 7pm when he gets home from work and 8pm when I take her to bed (while I cook for us both). Then he sleeps in the other room to be rested for work and I have her till 7pm the next evening. At weekends I don’t get a lie in because instead of just taking her away at 6am, he gets into bed to pester cuddle me. And when I tell him to piss off downstairs with his child he gets angry and says I don’t want to be affectionate with him any more.

I don’t get a day off at the weekend. There’s always something he needs to do around the house while I’m stuck parenting, and roughly once a month he goes out for the day with friends. I don’t try to make him take DD out for the day on his own, because I know he’ll probably take her straight to his mother’s and (long story) she’s abusive so I try to minimise contact and don’t want my child around her without my supervision.

Not to mention that DH is very impatient and shouty, and tends to prioritise himself over DD eg leaving her to cry because he’s busy with something, or feeding himself before helping her with her meal, or leaving her in a shitty nappy while he sits on the toilet for 20 minutes instead of changing her first before he sits down. I watch her all day and keep her safe then she’s with DH for ten minutes and hurts herself because he isn’t watching. I don’t feel she’ll be cared for adequately if he’s on his own with her.

I’m exhausted and constantly angry. I don’t feel like I can hand DD to DH and rest because he’ll just take her straight to his mother’s and not look after her properly. I feel like I have to put DD first and soldier on because theres nobody I can safely give her to. I’m on the verge of a nervous breakdown.

You have put yourself in this situation, time to step back and throw Dh in the deep end. How can he learn to parent if you are not giving him the chance? We all make mistakes even when doing our best to protect our kids. With you there watching him he probably doesn't feel the need to watch her every move, but if you are gone out he will have to. You should be taking off for a few hours at the weekend and just leave him to it. Arrange to meet a friend, go for lunch, shopping whatever and just tell Dh your plans. However, if you don't trust your Dh with his own child, then you have much bigger problems than you think.

If your dd is eating and drinking well during the day, at 15 months there really is no reason she should need feeding during the night. It's habit and needs to stop. For the sake of a few nights of crying while Dh has to settle her, it will be worth it. Stop the feeding and at least you can then take turns settling her if she continues to wake at night. Offer water in a cup instead. She'll soon realise that night feeds have stopped.

It was better being a single parent than living like this. Supervised contact for 7 years as well. Ex started managing meltdowns properly last year and is safe enough to have them now they are older. Getting rid of the resentment by having their dad around being useless and sometimes dangerous really helped.

He's a crap parent because you're enabling him to be one.

Book a hotel, pack a bag, and leave him to it for a night.

It won't kill either of them, and could break the cycle. If you were ill in hospital, you'd have no choice and would have to do it!

And book an appointment with your health visitor, a 15 month old doesn't need feeding at night. You've got yourself in a hamster wheel with it and need to get off, pronto. We've all been the same with 1st babies and you do kind of learn the hard way when you make it tougher than it needs to be

I had to wean at just slightly younger than your DD because I had to go on medication that wasn’t safe for breastfeeding. It was the push I needed and made a huge difference to getting enough sleep.
I was dreading it but what happened was that when the baby woke in the night I just said firmly “go back to sleep” and didn’t offer anything. I was really surprised but baby just grumbled a bit, then went back to sleep. Try it, you will feel stronger when you’re getting proper sleep. Your DD will be easier when she sleeps through properly too. Do it for her, she needs to get out of the habit for her own good.

Leaving him to it sounds like a good idea
But I would be worried that he would make something happen to make sure I never wanted to risk leaving him to it again

You need to talk to him about your expectations and societies, as a parent.
Tell him what's happening from now on, start calling the shots and make him realise what he's missed already.
can't he take over when he comes in and you go to bed. Then when settled your dh can put child in their own bed.
You don't need to be up with a 15 month old unless the odd time they are ill.

I remember your other posts about your mil and you being scared to leave dd incase your dh took her to mil.
lots of people told you that your dh was the problem and yet you are still there.
he is a crap husband and father and also abusive iirc.

For the nights, you have to agree a week with DH to go cold turkey and then stick to it.

Yes, you will still get woken and yes, she will scream when she doesn't get what she wants.

However, after a couple of nights she will start to realise that it's DH or nothing and so will get used to it.

That's how we did it with both of ours.

But you must stay strong!!! Don't take the 'easy' way out and you go to her. As soon as she sees you, she will think she's getting BF and will get even more upset. So you MUST stay out of the room.

It is hard though and sounds like DH is too shit as a dad to handle that but that's the method if you can persuade him.

It's a few nights of hell - for the next few years of sleep.

So basically he’s just bringing money to the relationship/family?

You would be better off in your own.

God I can relate to the dh putting himself before dd thing. Drives me fucking potty.

People seem to be advocating leaving him. The problem with leaving a man like this is you risk leaving the baby with him for access. Men like this are often disinterested until divorce and then push for access as a way of making a point. And then he will take the child to his mother for the whole weekend. Which is what OP doesn't want. Without documented actual abuse from him or his mother the OP won't be able to prevent it.

I don't know what the solution is.

Aside from DH problems can you wean and sleep train?
My dh has different parenting ideas from me. He never cooks for her, can be slow to change nappies and adopts a more 'She'll learn if she hurts herself' about minor bumps etc. At the start I tried to control everything but then I stopped and she survived. Now I have no qualms about leaving them alone for a weekend.

Someone upthread asked me why i was still with my dh. MissIllusioned has hit on one of the reasons. I just couldn't risk my dd being left with my mil, which would have been exactly what my dh would have done, if I'd left him.

first things first, get yourself on long lasting contraception and ensure you do NOT have any more children with him

It will be so much harder protecting two children form him and his mother, or leaving him.

Secondly, sleep train and wean. Get yourself some breathing space. when you are less tired, you will be able to work on the other issues.

If you can pay for some nursery sessions, or a mothers help for a few hours a week, anything that can give you a bit of a break all the better

Ergh I feel your pain!

I didn’t even breastfeed DD and DH still didn’t get up to feed her in the night. He claimed to ‘not hear her’ but she’d be lying in her crib approximately 2ft from him screaming her little lungs out while I was downstairs making a bottle, and I’d come back and he wouldn’t have even picked her up to comfort her. If he did ever wake up to ‘help’ he’d be moody at the time and then the next day too so I just stopped asking. (He’s in sales by the way, not exactly a brain surgeon!)

DD is 15 months now and I’m a SAHM so to him I think that means I do all the stuff for DD because that’s ‘my job’ now.

We both do our parts towards housework so that’s not the issue, (he washes up but only after evening meal, puts bins outs and irons) I admit I’m home more so I have more opportunity to do household chores but in regards to DD even when he’s got a day off (2 a week) I get up in the night if she wakes from teething/illness etc, I get up at 7am when she wakes up, I do every nappy change and meal, I do bath and story and bedtime. He has never bathed her because ‘he’s afraid she’ll drown’, he dislikes supervising meals because ‘she might choke’. So I now never have a day off or a lie in.

Yesterday morning it was his day off and I asked him to watch DD while I had a shower, and he asked why I couldn’t take her with me (most mornings she sits in her cot with toys but any longer than 10 minutes and she gets bored and upset). I was so cross, I just wanted to have a shower for once without listening to ‘mama mama mama’ from the room next to me. Don’t get me wrong I love being a SAHM and love all the time I get with DD, but he was just sat watching television and I didn’t think I was asking very much of him!

I have no advice as I have stupidly let myself get in a very similar situation!

Can you put her in childcare for a few hours a week? I know it'll cost but you really need a break! It's a shit situation with DH but you're not going to feel at ease while he watches her so you're still not resting.

MMama18

That is absolutely awful. There's something badly wrong when you can't even go for a shower without being made to feel guilty about it. He is beyond selfish.

@lisamac28 that’s exactly how he tries to make me feel, I got ‘I’m tired, I work really hard to provide for you and DD, how do you think we afford to do x y and z, it’s my day off, blah blah blah’

I get that he works hard, I really appreciate that and his job is commission based so high pressure and if he doesn’t work hard he doesn’t get paid well, I totally get that and I’m very grateful, but it’s the insinuation that I don’t also work hard raising our DD and never seem to get any time off.

It sounds awful when I right it all down, but I do love him dearly. I just wish I knew how to make him see that his behaviour is not normal and not okay.

I don't think I could stay married to someone so useless. Did he want children in the first place? Why did he want them if he just ignores them? Sounds like a complete waste of space

@mountaineagle, I don't mean this unkindly but it sounds like this is a situation that has arisen in part due to your parenting choices. At 15 months, there's no reason why your baby needs to be breastfed or have night feeds. If you want to continue, that's fair enough, but it's a choice you're making, and you're choosing to prioritise that over sleep. Furthermore, you believe MIL to be abusive; your DH disagrees and you've unilaterally chosen to restrict contact between MIL and your child even though your DH doesn't agree. As a result, you don't feel you can leave your child with your husband in case he visits MIL. That's a choice you've made, too. If you accorded your husband's views on MIL equal weight to your own, you might be able to agree a compromise. Is your aversion to MIL having contact with your child (without you present) reasonable? If you and your husband separated, and he took you to court for contact, Cafcass would get involved if you alleged MIL posed a safeguarding risk. Is there any way you can get an impartial third party's advice on whether your restriction on MIL seeing your child without you present is reasonable?

If you won't compromise on any of the choices you've made, things may not change.

Wow at all the useless bastard partners here. I honestly can't see why people stay with men like this. I think I'd rather be on my own than live with such useless arseholes.

@MountainEagle I wonder if you had a chat with your DH regarding attachment issues. Unfortunately, fatherhood doesn't come easy for some fathers. I am not saying that your DH is without a fault but please have a conversation with him. I found an article that might bring this subject to your attention: www.google.co.uk/amp/s/amp.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/2009/jun/07/accidental-guide-fatherhood-guilt

Is your aversion to MIL having contact with your child (without you present) reasonable?
Depends who you ask. She’s huffy and imo a bit psycho, and has been unpleasant and verbally abusive towards me and my parents. I (personally, not DH) gave her a silver ring as a gift, and it broke so she sent it back to me baked in a cake! I don’t think she’d hurt my DD but she’s a nutjob.

At 15 months, there's no reason why your baby needs to be breastfed or have night feeds. If you want to continue, that's fair enough, but it's a choice you're making, and you're choosing to prioritise that over sleep

Because giving up breastfeeding magically makes them sleep? Who knew...

She sounds a bit Voodoo!