to 'accidently' wake up DP during every night feed.

[jellybelly701]

Or just whenever I feel like waking him up actually.

Sorry it is so long.
DS is now almost 9 months old and the boy just doesn't sleep. All he wants to do is play and stand up, I can get him to have two, one hour naps a day but he often refuses to go to sleep at night. His bedtime is 7pm but for the past month he still hasn't been asleep my 10pm he will wake up at 3am every morning without fail and sometimes he just won't go back to sleep for two hours. Then he's awake and ready to start the day by 7am.

He is breastfed so I have always been the one to wake in the night and since he has been born I've been getting on average 5-6 hours of sleep a night and never more than 3 hours at a time. DP works FT, he does need a good nights sleep so I just get on with it on my own.

However the sheer lack of consideration from DP is making my blood boil. Weekends are supposed to be my lie in days. DS is eating solids and finger foods now so DP can give him breakfast and entertain him so I can get a few hours sleep. DP hasn't woken up until 11-1 every weekend and I have been up since 7 on my 'lie in' days.

DP always decides at about 11pm that he wants a shower before bed. Ds room is directly next to bathroom and the bath and shower are in the same place as his cot, just on the other side of the wall. The shower wakes him up because it sounds like a bloody jumbo jet and once showered DP gets into bed and goes to sleep, so I am left trying to stay awake feeding DS in a warm, dark and silent room when all I want to do is sleep.

DP wakes ds every single morning, if his two-minutely alarms going off from 5:30-7 (he just sleeps through them all even with a sonic boom alarm clock) doesn't do the trick then the banging around and shouting up the stairs certainly does.

This morning he must have actually woken up to his alarms for once because at 7am both me and ds was still both asleep, until DP couldn't find something for work and somehow thought I would know where it was. I didn't of course so a lot of banging around and him being as loud as possible has woken DS.

I'm getting fed up of it. So, WIBU to wake DP during the night and make sure he gets no more than 6 hours a night and 3 hours at a stretch so he can see how I feel?

Or failing that,

WIBU to kill him?

I might show DP this thread because the last time we argued about my 'workload' he told me that plenty of women are able to take care of a house and baby as well as some of them working, and that he doesn't understand why I struggle.

Cooking doesnt make up for all that.
I would unset his earlier alarms.
He needs to have his shower earlier (when you are feeding your baby)
If he wont agree you will have to kill him.
Not even joking.

OP, waking him up in the night is just game playing and not solving the problem, which is that your DH sees you as a hired help, that you don't 'work'. You could ignore this and continue to focus on your DS's sleep or you could take the bull by the horns and tell your DH in no uncertain terms that you aren't a bloody skivvy, that actually parenting is a two person job which includes nappy changes (that he doesn't get to opt out of) and if he doesn't pull his shit together he may well find himself without a family altogether as you are no longer going to put up with his selfish me me me attitude.

You would get more time off as a single parent. Your work is raising his child, and you should be working as a team the minute he gets home. End of.

Just because you are a SAHM does not make you a 24/7 personal servant. Your DP is showing complete lack of understanding and love for you. Sorry. If you let him continue, your life will be awful. You need to make a stand, no matter how hard. Maybe show him this thread? Nobody can keep going month after month without a decent night's sleep. And you are right; just because his work is in an office and paid does not make it harder than yours. I bet he gets lunchbreak, a hot cup of coffee to drink in peace, time to read a book on the train in the morning, showers in peace etc. Having been both SAHM to babies and WOHM to babies, I know which is by far the easier. Please be firm. Maybe suggesting he moves out for a few days will jolt him into a reality check - explaining that the late night showers and endless morning alarms are simply the final straw for you. And he can have baby at home for the weekend to make up for the time they have missed during the weekend, whilst you go to stay in a local B and B for some R and R. Is that feasible?

Also, go out, leave him with DS for a bit. Might realise how hard parenting is.

Nothing to add on the DH issues - it's all been said. I do think you need to get out and meet some local friends though. Did you not have a mothers group? Are there any playgroups near you?

Some women don't have inconsiderate wank badgers for husbands, too.

And his comment about 'some women' looking after the child, the home AND work goes to show you exactly how he sees you.

You go back to work and he will still expect to do FA.

Agree with Expat those women would really need supportive husbands who would share the child/house work or they would need family, friends or professional support to take care of some of the work.

ok

your ds is getting too much daytime sleep imo. i'd cut back on the morning nap down to 30 mins. keep lunchtime nap as is. slowly cut back daytime naps until night time sleep improves.

he is also used to feeding through the night now, which is no good for you. slowly make him wait for the first night feed. just a little at a time. 5 mins. say you usually feed him at 3am. never feed him before that time, but tonight make him wait til 3.05. tomorrow, 3.10. small steps will soon add up.

i think you need to make it abundantly clear to your dp that you have a long hard day. plus, worse, you don't get paid or appreciated for it. so he can stfu with his ft job bleating. ask him who gets paid for cleaning up poo? it's a SHIT job. how would he like it? tell him how much he'd have to pay a nanny to do your job.

some respect is needed here.

Neither of us can move out for a few days, we are too far away from family and we don't really have the money for hotel stays.

I will show him this thread and possibly smash his alarm up

We are going to stay with the MIL for two weeks at the end of the month. All my family and friends live within a 30 minute bus journey from MILS house so I could go out for the day and just leave him to it.

Actually, I might have a word with his mum and see if she can kick his arse into gear. She knows what he is like in the mornings and used to get just as annoyed as me with his constant alarms.

surfsup there is one mother and baby group around here but I stopped going due to the patronising name and nature of the group 'little miss teenage pregnancy' I'm 21 by the way.

Eddie, a couple of hours sleep per day is not much at that age is it? Mine were certainly having 2x 2hr+ sleeps at that age and much later even.

I wonder if the Jellybaby is getting enough activity/exercise etc in the afternoons to wear him out? I know it's not easy if you're knackered, but amping up the afternoons really helped friends of mine who were similarly struggling.

His attitude sounds terrible.

Feeling entitled to sleep in until 11 am to 2pm at the weekend when you've got small children is just nuts unless he works shifts or has been on-call overnight.

I usually wake DH up if he sleeps in too late on his days off, although to be fair, DH complains about me letting him sleep the day away if I let him lie in too long.

I'd also be seriously ticked off about the alarms in the morning. Is he relying on you to help wake him, or will he be woken by the alarms if you do nothing? Either way, if it's possible to easily turn them off once they start, I'd be tempted to do that and then claim that I slept through them because I was so tired. It's likely that they'll wake him more easily if he knows that you can't be relied upon to do it.

As for all this I've been working ft & lots of women manage baby + housework + work business - has he ever been left in sole charge of your DC for any length of time? I had similar comments from DH when DS1 was tiny. They mostly stopped after the first time I went out for the day and left DS1 with DH - he hadn't realized just how demanding a baby can be until he had to cope with no backup.

Your job is 24/7. His is a lot less. How is this fair?

I worked FT for a year while DH was SAHD. I was a SAHM before this. It didn't matter who was the SAHP - we both shared the workload when we were both at home. It's not like I could put my feet up at home while he ran himself ragged!

Why do other people put up with this kind of selfish, disrespectful and sexist behaviour (and you are far from alone OP). Why do men think they can treat women like this.

OP these problems run deep. Personally I would not facilitate this or play any games, but have a full and frank discussion where I lay out exactly how it is going to be from now on. I would explain how exhausted and hurt I am, and how disrespected I feel. I would point out the terrible example he is giving your child of how a relationship should work and how top be supportive and humane to other people. If he does not change/refuses to get up out of bed in the morning etc. then I would be seriously reconsidering the relationship.

"Have a word with his Mum….used to get as annoyed with me with his constant alarms".

FGS is this a man child??

Jelly, could you speak to your GP or similar about starting a mothers' group? It sounds like there's a real gap there!! I was 32 when I had DS2 and I was probably the youngest at our local playgroup - there must be other mothers who would like to have somewhere to go but don't quite meet the criteria for the other one!

Hmm - I think if you disappear for the day at MIL's, his mum will just step in for the day and look after his grandson while simultaneously turning out a full roast dinner and crumble thus proving his point that "you can't cope"

If his alarm goes off for 1.5 hours that's mad. He knows he doesn't have to get up until then, so a 5-10 mins warning is enough. He needs to grow up or sleep in the sodding car.

Sadly I agree with expat. You need to grow up too imo [sorry] and start realising that you are being treated like shit and take positive steps to address it before you find yourself out of the workforce for multiple years, with several children and married to a totally inconsiderate cock. Get a job, one that involves overnight travel.

Say what now? Your mother/baby group members called you names? That's awful, and just plain ridiculous! What are they, 12? So sorry about that. Maybe start your own?
ALso, I'm with some of the other posters in wanting to suggest that you just leave ds with your husband for five hours one weekend day and bugger off for a nice slice of cake and a wander in the park. He might be upset when you get back, but hopefully (a) ds will still be alive, and (b) he will have a better idea of what it is like for you all day, every day.

He is being completely selfish and I would tell him about it in a direct way.

Having said that I would try to get your son down to one daytime nap.
The noisy showering and the repetitive alarm are ridiculous.
Show him the thread if you think he would read it.

The one piece of advice I can give is don't have any more children with this man until he becomes more supportive towards you (if he ever does)

I had similar issues with my ex and it was a huge factor in our marriage ending. I found that I couldn't give any affection to a man who showed so little respect and consideration towards me and our children.

Your DP needs to understand how serious this is, so you have to tell him that you are at breaking point.

"I might show DP this thread because the last time we argued about my 'workload' he told me that plenty of women are able to take care of a house and baby as well as some of them working, and that he doesn't understand why I struggle."
Perhaps, Mrjellybelly, your wife struggles becasue she is so SLEEP DEPRIVED?

OP, the alarms from 5.30 have to stop. Today. Throw the fecking alarms in the bin, or out of the window as suggested earlier. Or he sleeps on the couch, simple as that. You need your sleep just as much as he does, more so since you've been short-changed for so long. If he is late for work, so be it. He is an adult and it is time he took responsibility for himself. His boss will not be so accommodating as you have been.

And yes, you have been accommodating. And he has not appreciated that. I would go and buy a new waterproof mattress protector (M&S do a nice one) and next time you need to get him up, a pan of cold water over the head should do the trick. To hell with sleeping until 11am/2pm on the days when ity has been agreed that it is your day for a desperately needed lie in. No more mister nice guy. You've tried and tried with that and it hasn't worked.

Surfsup1

it doesn't matter what your or my baby needed at that age. if jellybelly's ds is waking up in the middle of the night and wanting to play, he's getting too much daytime sleep. cut back the day naps and the night sleep will be much better.

travel no the group is called ' little miss teenage pregnancy' although I'm not a teenager I thought I would give it a go and walked out half way through the second session because I felt like the staff was judging us all and was treating us like we were clueless kids. I think the youngest there was 19.

Crikey, I am surprised you haven't killed him after 9 months of this.

Your baby is NOT the problem. Granted, he might not be the best sleeper, but he's very young. Personally, with you being so knackered and having zero support from your husband I would think sleep training is the LAST I would recommend. In theory it should be more straight forward to change the behaviour of your husband which will really help. Maybe when you DH changes his behaviour the baby will me calmer at night.

It is completely and utterly selfish to have NO consideration for a sleeping person as you go about your business, especially when that person is sleep deprived.

I'm SO angry on your behalf.