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.

MMama18 my DH is the same. He apparently couldn’t hear DD wailing at 3am because the crib was on my side of the bed. And he couldn’t possibly look after DD overnight while I rested because he’s such a sound sleeper he wouldn’t wake up. And that’s not his fault, he can’t help it, what do you want me to do about it I can’t make myself sleep less deeply! “shrugs his shoulders”

Until I’m literally at the point of a breakdown, and now he suggests he should look after her for a night. And he’s surprised when I say no - because he’s spent over a year convincing me he can’t possibly wake up, so how can I leave her with someone who won’t wake up?

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
This is one of the main reasons I can’t leave my DH. I can’t allow him to have access and hand my child over to his nutter of a mother.

My other half is exactly like this and while hes watching DS other half is glued to his phone. I've started to take his phone with me when I go for a bath as mine is conveniently dead. You need to have a very truthful conversation about this tell him exactly how it's making you feel.

Horrible position so sorry op.... he sounds like a flake.... is it financially feasible to put little one in nursery for a few hours a week? So you can nap a bit /catch up on jobs.

Do you attend local kids groups/ baby clubs ( i find days out go quicker )

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

I think nutjob is too kind.

She sounds positively unhinged.

I can see your problem.

In an ideal world you would run off into the sunset with dd and never see your husband again.

In reality if you leave, at least 2 days every fortnight your dd will spend with her unhinged granny and a father who couldn’t give a shit.

The only advice I can give you is try and get dd to sleep through.
We did it by a type of controlled crying.

Not jumping up immediately but leaving her 20 seconds then the next time 30seconds and so on through the night then starting at 30 seconds then 40 seconds the following night.
Eventually she learned to settle herself and eventually didn’t wake for 6 whole hours.

I think you will feel much better once you are sleeping. Then I would start to plan my long term escape, getting together money, a job etc

I would have an age in mind when Dd is old enough to look after herself and being old enough for her to tell her father she doesn’t want to visit his mother

Posters who keep advising op to wean, breastfeeding after 1 is not about nutrition. Not just the reduction of cancer and diabetes risks for the mother, but it brings comfort, security and love to the child as they associate these feelings with breastfeeding. It will also ensure they get enough vitamins and minerals and is the quickest way to soothe a tired/hurt/sad/ill toddler that I know of. Plus, I like feeding my DC and DC2 is so happy that I wouldn't want to take that away from him. DC1 weaned himself off at 13 months when I was pregnant and I was sad that he didn't want to feed anymore as I enjoyed the bonding so much (Very surprising as I was adamant I was bottle feeding and mix fed DC1 at first with a view to giving up breastfeeding at 6 weeks).

Op, I think that a few hours a few times a week at nursery sound like the best solution for you since your DH appears to be an idiot. You need to think of a long term strategy though. I know you don't want to leave because DD will spend time with your MIL, but do you really think that staying in the marriage is worth it? When your DD gets to about 3/4 and is easier to look after, your DH will start taking her out more and will take her there anyway. Perhaps by that point you would have a plan in place for what to do?

If I knew you I would be happy to come over and have a playdate while you had a nap, do you know any other mum friends who might do this for you?

@GummyGoddess but the poor woman is exhausted! Nobody should prioritise BF’ing over their own health and well-being.

Some people on here are married to selfish useless bastards.

Show this post to the prick OP.

Nobody should prioritise BF’ing over their own health and well-being.

DD gave up BFing at 14 months and didn't sleep until she was two.

Giving up bf might not be a magic wand to sleep but you sure as hell know you're not going to sleep while you've got her trained into the habit of waking for a feed all through the night. Unless you take her into bed with you every night you won't get any sleep for a while yet.

You need to get tough all round OP. If you offer just water between 12-6 every night I bet it wouldn't take much more than 3 nights to retrain your dd.

I think your DH needs an ultimatum. Either he starts to learn to parent or he never has dd on his own. If he doesn't want to do it don't let him. Totally rule him out. Then use childcare/cresh/other mum play dates for a break. And work on medium term strategy for leaving. Odds are he won't want access if he's such a poor parent.

There's no way you can stay with him just because of his mother.

Have you ever spent much time with her? I'd try to get to know her more if only to get real documented evidence of her nuttiness.

@GirlRaisedInTheSouth she is, but if she wanted to have weaned she would have already. I agree breastfeeding is not the be all and end all but it's clearly very important to op or she wouldn't still be going.

If she weaned and it made no difference to sleep like pp said, she's then lost the ability to feed with all the benefits to her and baby for no reason.

@gamerchick, there's no need to be sarcastic. I realise that plenty of children have sleeping issues even if they're no longer breastfed, but if Mum is no longer breastfeeding, then Dad can share the night waking.

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.

@mountaineagle, I appreciate you don't get on with MIL, but, unless contact with her is likely to cause harm to your children, I'm not sure how reasonable it is that you don't want her to see your grandchildren without you personally (as opposed to your husband) present. If you divorced your husband and this was being argued about in court, a court might not support you. Conflict between the adults involved is not always a reason to restrict contact between an adult and a child that that adult doesn't pose a risk to. This is why I think you really need some independent advice. Can you talk to your Health Visitor?

Rightly or wrongly, I'm a GP, and if you as my patient told me your MIL had exchanged cross words with you and baked a ring you'd gifted her into a cake, but there was no verbal/physical/emotional abuse towards the child, it wouldn't cross my mind to do a safeguarding referral. I realise you may not be able to give the full details online, though, so I have no way of knowing if your concerns are justified - I'd suggest you talk to somebody like your Health Visitor, or take advice from your local Children's Services department.

Oh, and I think some of your gripes about your DH's parenting aren't really justified, sorry. Leaving a child in a shitty nappy for 20 minutes because you, as the responsible adult, are on the loo and can't change it isn't a safeguarding issue. Feeding yourself before your child isn't a safeguarding issue. You and your DH just have different parenting styles, and it must be very corrosive to your marriage that you've unilaterally decided that you're parenting correctly and that your DH is wrong. Again, if you divorced him and tried to limit his contact with your child, a court probably wouldn't be interested in the fact that he feeds himself before he feeds his child.

I agree breastfeeding is not the be all and end all but it's clearly very important to op or she wouldn't still be going.

But the problem is also that it excludes other people from being able to feed the baby.

Baby doesn't need to be fed by anyone else at 15 months, she isn't getting all of her nutrition from it anymore. Even if she was on a bottle she would be feeding that to herself at this point I think.

I don’t think this is about bf.

Dd exclusively bf till she was 3 years old (did eat bits of milky ways occasionally but nothing else)
But was able to sleep through without waking and wanting to be bf.

Part of your exhaustion is dd waking and is a sleep issue not a bf one.

Yes she wants to bf back to sleep when she wakes but it is the waking which is the problem.

I'm a GP, and if you as my patient told me your MIL had exchanged cross words with you and baked a ring you'd gifted her into a cake, but there was no verbal/physical/emotional abuse towards the child, it wouldn't cross my mind to do a safeguarding referral

Really.

I would say the baking cake incident reveals a side to mil that I would not want to put a child in the way of.
What would she do if Dd upset her?

I would be wondering what else she was capable of.
Saying she hadn’t done anything to Dd.

Who would know Dd is 15 months old and isn’t verbal.

What would it take for you to believe mil is a safety risk.

@oliversmumsarmy I know from experience that Social Services have a higher threshold for taking action than investigating families in which one person has returned an unwanted gift by baking it into a cake. (If the cake had been given to the child with the aim of choking them, obviously that would merit action.)

I never mentioned social services.

But now you mention it op could have fed a piece of that cake to her dd so yes I do think there is something wrong with mil and she isn’t safe to have around children.

How did she not know that op wouldn’t cut the cake and feed it to her dd

Just because she hasn’t killed the Dd yet doesn’t mean she is safe anywhere near mil.

OP, how do you know that your MIL put the ring in the cake on purpose? Is it possible that it just fell off while she was baking the cake?

It might be worth you speaking to your GP about how you're feeling. It sounds like you might benefit from some extra support, in one form or another.

@SarahAndQuack there's a spectrum between "lazy" and "abusive". OP should be concerned to find out where DP lies on that spectrum sooner rather than later. There's a child at risk fgs. As the child gets older and learns to talk etc. There's no guarantee his behaviour will be restricted to the adult partner.

If you divorced your husband and this was being argued about in court, a court might not support you
Indeed. That’s why I’ll never divorce. Because DH would have access and he’d take DD straight to MIL. As long as we’re married I know when he goes to see MIL and can make sure DD doesn’t go, or that I go with her.

FYI he doesn’t agree that MIL is toxic. Because she’s his mother and he’s already been indoctrinated and damaged by her, so he can’t see how poisonous she is. It’s only obvious from the outside.

Is it possible that it just fell off while she was baking the cake?
She’d already complained weeks before that the stone fell out and she’d had to stop wearing it. The next thing I know, she’s sent me a piece of cake and the ring is inside! Perhaps not “abusive” but nutty as shit.

there's a spectrum between lazy and abusive
DH isn’t abusive. He’s annoyingly lazy and selfish. I trust him to look after DD for a while. But I don’t trust him to take her out in case he takes her to MIL.

breastfeeding is not the be all and end all but it's clearly very important to op or she wouldn't still be going
It’s healthy. I had planned to bf to age two as per the WHO guidelines.

preggo, I don't disagree there's that spectrum, nor that the OP should find out where on that line her DP is.

But being melodramatic about risk to a child probably isn't helping her. It's quite obvious she's doing her own worrying about potential risks, or she wouldn't be concerned about leaving her child alone.