DH - new baby and ou bedroom

[Gobbolinothewitchscat]

We have a 14 month old DS and a 4 week old DD

DD and I have been sleeping in our bedroom with DH since she was born

However, DH has said tonight that he would like DD and me to sleep in the spare room during the week as he is shattered join the fucking club

He has offered to,domFriday and Saturday nights with DD with expressed bottles so I can sleep then

However, DD is fed exclusively expressed milk (latch problem) so I'll still need to get up to express anyway in the night

DD currently gets up about twice a night. Has a bottle. I settle her and then express for about 10 minutes. Sometimes I put he on the feeding pillow and feed her and express at the same time. She is very good and I do not leave her to cry. DH seems to do a pretty rucking good impersonation of being asleep during all this

I feel totally pissed off that we are being evicted from our bedroom. DH is 6 foot 6 so saying he can't sleep in the spare room as the bed has a footboard and he can't fit in - which is kind of true.

He has moved DD up to the spare room already - which has really pissed me off. It's like a Mexican stand off as I do not want to leave our bedroom and I feel like putting the monitor next to DH's head and getting him to do the night feeds - not that he would wake up. Plus DD is then in another room from us

I'm just so pissed off. Hearing how DH is soooooo tired. Yes. So am I. We also have a 14 month old DS and I feel that I am constantly "on duty" while at least DH gets to go to work. OK - he does do a lot when he gets in but I do not think it is reasonable for him to basically order me out of our bedroom whilst chuntering on about how tired he is. When we're both fucking tired. And everything to do with the DCs feels like it's ultimately my responsability. And it's like ducking ground hog day. I'd quite like to bugger off for a week and leave him to deal with everything

And all those who are suggesting the OP wants her husband to sit beside her awake while she feeds/expresses need to assess their reading comprehension abilities.

But then, I have limited patience with those who say they can't possibly sleep unless it is completely dark, quiet and uninterrupted. I have had huge problems with insomnia in the past but once I had a child I had to learn new techniques for sleeping, getting to sleep because the old ones were no longer relevant. You have to want to do it, though.

I missed the bit about him moving the cot into the spare room.

Can you move it back into your bedroom today? If not get someone round to help you. You need to stand your ground here and make him realise that he does not rule the house! He's acting like someone from the 1950s.

I get it Gobbolino. DD was and still is a terrible sleeper. DH happily and without complaint moved to the horrible bed in the spare room so I could co sleep with her. She fed really well and slept quickly after feeds (as did I) but I was still wrecked and I still resented the "full night" DH was getting even though he often had to get up with DS at 5.30! If DH dared even mildly whinge about how the spare bed was bothering his back I wanted to deck him. When DD was 10 months we swapped and my god that spare bed is horrendous! Now I'm less foggy and angry I feel bad.
Dh did everything he could, including taking taking both kids to the park at 8 am on a Saturday so I could sleep in peace but the fact was I as angry and resentful about how bloody hard it was going to two children and nothing he could do would solve that.

I ended up with PND. Luckily I got good treatment and now DD is 1 I'm off ADs and coping much better. I am still cosleeping with DD in the spare room but it's ok, I know it's not forever.

You seem very upset. Your dh is being knobbish but he is trying.

How are you doing?

I have some sympathy with you ds4 is 4weeks old. I got very little sleep last night and had to get all 4 up dressed and to school/preschool etc. And dh is still asleep having a lie in snoring loudly as i type. He is back at work npw though and working 2 till midnight.

I did suggest the other day he sleeps on the sofa. Mainly because if he i getting 10s

Posted too soon

If he is getting 10 hours uninterupred sleep there is no fucking way he is not having all 4 when he is at home so i can rest! He has no excuse.

If the issue ia u moving to spare room then make it a lovely nest for you overnight. This wont last forever. You are doing really well and be kind to yourself

If he doesn't physically fit in the bed in the spare room then you're being unreasonable to expect him to move into it, likewise - if you fit in it, you're being unreasonable to expect him to sleep on the sofa.

If he fits, then shift him out, if he doesn't then I don't see the problem with you moving into there for a while.

Unfortunately life still goes on so he will need to go to work & it's not very good if he's in shit state because he's had to sleep on the sofa, especially if he's dealing with patients.

Hope you sort it out!

Captain, he's quite capable of buying a bed that he does fit into. If he's the one who's being disturbed by his wife feeding their baby, then he should move.

wannaBe, I've worked full time in a high-profile, high-pressure job while getting up to breastfeed twice a night. I've been at home with a newborn. I will tell you unequivocally that going to the office was by far the easier and less exhausting option, and I didn't have a 14 month old and expressing in the mix. You are, frankly, talking bollocks.

But that's your opinion. I went back to work after DS and was still getting shit sleep. I totally 'grieved' for my mat leave - I could just not do my job while knackered, and it didn't involve injecting people or using a drill on them.

:( exclusively expressing sounds fricking horrible. Your husband sounds insensitive and rude. And a dentist, so clearly evil and sociopathic.

Hope you manage to get the latch sorted, life is so so so much easier when you can BF. Milk on tap. No sterilising. BFing while asleep. Occasionally squirting your husband in the face with breast milk because your 'off' boob lets down thunderously when DC latches on (how I laughed in his face).

This is such a hard time for marriages and the tiredness competition is so destructive (and I indulge in it all the time). Working is a blessed relief for me, I actively considered going back two months early after my second child (newborn and eighteen month old). Only the finances stopped me.

You have my every sympathy, really you do. But I'm with Fairylea on this one when she says: I'm not too sure what you actually expect your dh to do... you say he can't do a whole night with your dd as you need to wake to express anyway - so your point about hiring a night nanny wouldn't work either would it?

My DS2 was similar to your DD - in our case he could latch and feed just fine, but he decided at 9 weeks that he didn't like milk. The only way I could get anything into him was to give him every single feed while he was sleeping by bottle. So, like you, I was expressing every feed.

I took the opposite approach to Fairylea. I kept going with the breastmilk, but found childcare during the day for DS1, who was 2.5 years at the time. I found that it made an enormous difference, to have just DS2 for a small number of hours per week. It meant I could sleep when DS2 did, and could just chill in front of the TV when DS1 was awake. I felt terribly guilty about DS1 being 'packed off', but in fact he was much happier too because he got to do fun things like painting and play-doh that I just didn't have the energy to contemplate, and made some lovely friends.

Worth a thought?

My dad was a great believer in the whole "it's much easier for the parent at home to do the nights cos they can have a rest during the day" thing.

He and my mum came to visit recently. Ds was sleeping really badly. After 3 days of nursery runs, gym club, baby sensory, swimming, baking and an average walking distance of 6 miles a day he commented that I don't seem to get much rest during the day!

*Gobolina" - you are being a teeeeeny bit unreasonable - quite frankly anyone who is as knackered as you must be is going to be unreasonable.

Personally I am a big fan of separate rooms with non sleeping babies - there is nothing worse than watching someone else sleep while you are not - except having them comment the next day how tired they are.

But I totally see where you are coming fromwithbeing "kicked out". Any chance you can get the foot board off the bed? With an axe if necessary? I think you might feel much more logical about it if it is your dh who has been kicked out.

If he is willing to do the night bottles at the weekend could you try leaving it 5 hours between expressing? And do that twice in the night. That will give you two blocks of "over 4 hours consecutive" which will make you feel sooooo much better.

Boobz
WHHHHHHAT???? Are you mad woman?? Full time work is a piece of piss compared to being a SAHM to a not-sleeping-through-child + toddler....
Depends what job you do obviously.

If he doesn't physically fit in the bed in the spare room then you're being unreasonable to expect him to move into it, likewise - if you fit in it, you're being unreasonable to expect him to sleep on the sofa.

The OP isn't expecting him to move anywhere. She's happy with them sharing a room. It's her husband who is kicking her and the baby out of their own bedroom!

OP have you considered putting your 14 month old in childcare for a couple of days a week so that you can catch up on sleep while your dd sleeps then?

You know the less tired he is the more you can get him to do other stuff.

'Well you slept all last night in our bed so you're doing this this this and that'

It does seem like you feel that because you're exhausted he should be too. Which kind of makes sense because you're both parents but you have breasts and he doesn't. So let him sleep and make him work harder to make up for it.

I second whoever suggested posterior tongue-tie as the possible problem. Your DC2 sounds very much like my DD was as far as feeding goes.

Also, try not expressing overnight and see whether supply is affected. I exclusively expressed for 3 months with DD. Tiredness can affect supply too. Anecdote is not data and all that, but my supply was fine if I expressed last thing (say 10pm) and first thing (say 7am). It was another mum who was express-feeding that tipped me off, so there's at least two of us out there who found it worked for us.

I can still remember the almost psychotic rage I felt when, after waking every 40 minutes all night and watching DH snore and grunt and sleep, he would wake at 6am and declare himself "knackered" .

It's not fair, it is absolutely soul destroying and it is much, much harder than FT work whatever all the Stepfords would have you believe.

To prevent a gratuitous and ugly murder I started going to bed immediately after dinner. DH would feed DS expressed milk and watch TV while he slept, bringing him up to me about 11 - midnight. I would then do the night shift til 6am whilst DH slept and then pass him over for more expressed milk so I could get a couple of hours before DH went to work.

So, he lost sleep but got unbroken sleep, and I snatched sleep while I could. This felt fairer to me.

We also had the sniping female relatives passing comment "why is Mr Auditor so tired, doesn't she do anything". This from an aunt who employed a cleaner and a nanny. I have logged that little gem for the future, to deal with at a time of my choosing...and I intend to hold that grudge. She said it while I was most vulnerable and I fucking hate her for it.

I don't think YABU OP. I think you are wrecked and your DH is falling into the "she does nothing and I'm so big and important" trap. He needs to stop minimising your contribution. In saying that I would move to the spare room, with every single creature comfort from the bedroom. Nice bedding, television, all of it. Let him have his sleep and nothing else

Am now contemplating going back to uni to train as a dentist.

As obviously dentists have first dibs on our bedroom. And sleep.

Unfortunately, the course appears to be 5 years long and I'm not very good at science. So i dont think that solves my immediate problems of DH being a cock womble

Having calmed down very slightly now only 99% apoplectic I am ^sure I see the hand of MIL in this whom I think thinks I have quite a cushy number whilst poor DH is worked into the ground. Apparently FIL did nothing to help her. So instead of being pleased that DH isn't in that mould, thinks that everyone should suffer as she does. Maybe I'm being paranoid as I hate her--

We planned to put DS in nursery fir a couple of mornings a week when he was 18 months but may bring that forward.

I suffered days of toothache and lost a tooth due to an incompetent dentist. Yes, he might not be able to kill anyone, but I don't want a tired dentist anywhere near me thanks.

I'm not going to argue the merits of whether it's harder to work a full time job or look after small children every day. But if looking after small children, you can look after them at your own pace, you can flop on the sofa and have at least a doze for some part of the day, you can decide (beyond basic child caring) what you are going to do and decide to do nothing, you can arrange for someone else to take them off them.
If you're in a full time job, you have to work to the demands set by you and be totally alert all the time.

I've also done both and agree that the full time job is easier in that you get to go to the toilet on your own and can (sometimes) drink a cup of tea in peace. But you can't tell your colleagues/customer that you are knackered and fancy an hour doing nothing.

Nothing to do with being a dentist

Everything to do with it being more logical for everyone to be in beds they fit into.

It's not fair, it is absolutely soul destroying and it is much, much harder than FT work whatever all the Stepfords would have you believe.

I'm about as far from a Stepford as you can get. And I'd still rather be at home tired than at work tired.

I didn't realise parenting was a competition - who is busier, who is more tired who has the most important job. One would hope that when you are family you choose to support each other in difficult situation. In my view, the current situation is about logic - no need for both of you to be awake in the night. Why does it matter who goes to the spare room?

I'm really confused I regularly hear men say they need a good nights sleep because of work. I work full time am out of the house at least 11 hours a day including commute. I wake several times a night to breastfeed. Am in a stressful male dominated job, don't take lunch most days, express milk at work (while locked away) usually multi tasking.

It is doable, I do it because I have to do it, I am determined to breast feed my baby. They don't need a good nights sleep because of work. They need a good night sleep because a) it's not their responsibility b) they are entitled to a good nights sleep c) who knows! But dw feels bad because their dh is the main earner, thus deserving of sleep.

Sorry, but I think YABU (very understandably - I turn into a screaming loon when sleep deprived!).

You have said that, because of the expressing, you have to do all the night feeds. DH doesn't fit into the only other available bed. So isn't it a sensible suggestion that you take the baby into the other room so that the only person that can potentially get sleep, is in fact able to do so?

I, like many others, was in a very similar situation. Breastfed and one of my DC never ever accepted a bottle so I really didn't have any other options. Yes, it grated a bit if DH complained he was tired (and failed to acknowledge that I was suffering more) but he wasn't making it up, he genuinely was struggling with his tiredness + work. So I took the baby into the other room so he could sleep better. Of course I was more tired, but so what? There was nothing we could do about that except me catching up on sleep during the day on weekends. When he was able to step up more because he wasn't so tired.

If it's important to you to get recognition as to how hard you are working with the kids (it is very important to me), then tell him that you need him to acknowledge that you have the harder job, are making the bigger sacrifice etc. My DH was incredibly grateful and I'm sure yours is too. But don't confuse that issue with whether he gets sleep or not.