Bedtime routine....want to throttle dh

[GlenBelt]

I'm hoping ainbu as I'm so irritated about this Ds is 8 months old and all efforts to get him into a solid routine and settle without being breastfed have not gone well! Dh said he'd shower with ds before bed at 6ish, by 7 he was still watching videos on his phone (does this every bloody day) ds was grizzly so I fed him and he went to sleep. He often wakes up several times which he did tonight so I went in to settle him, dh walks in just as he's nodding off and says bring him in the shower, I said no as I'm trying to settle him back to sleep. Us talking disturbed ds and there he was bright eyed so dh keeps arguing saying 'let me take him in the shower' I said no and rather than waking him up further can we discuss it later and dh went off in a huff calling me a 'selfish nobhead'. Ds settled back to sleep 10 mins later. Spoke to dh and he's still annoyed with me saying I could have just let him put ds in the shower but I feel it was less about getting ds to sleep and more about dh. He's always going on about not getting to spend much time with ds but he continues to watch videos upstairs for 2 hours every day then complain when ds is asleep!

Am I being unreasonable or am I being too uptight? To me, putting ds in the shower with the lights on etc would just over stimulate him and reset the whole bedtime process!

[Soubriquet]

ODFO rubbish

It's clearly tongue in cheek. She isn't going to go "I knew I was right! Where's the garrotte?"

[AlpacaLypse]

Here we go again... Don't get me wrong, I love OH very dearly, and he did learn that getting them over excited just before bed was a very very bad idea, the hard way. But only because out of sheer bloody mindedness I locked myself in the bedroom for three hours between five and eight pm every night.

To clarify, we had twins. The deal was I'd do all of it 21 hours a day, but for three hours every day the rest of family was in complete charge. Instructions were 'Sort it out between you, expressed milk is in fridge, nappies etc are over there, clean babygros are over there, short of WW3 FUCK OFF AND LEAVE ME ALONE!!!'

Appreciate that it's sometimes not so easy to leave over excited dads to deal with the consequences of over excited babies though.

[GlenBelt]

nutbrown I think you're right, it doesn't matter to them ad they don't have to deal with it. That's partly why I asked the question as I have been getting frustrated about it all and wasn't sure if the way I was seeing it was through my frustration.

As for the name calling, we probably call each other worsevwhen we're being affectionate but I did say I don't appreciate being spoken to like that.

And rubbish seriously? I thought it was a very common turn of phrase, didn't even think of it in the way you've interpreted it.

[Northend77]

my DH is another who likes to throw and swing the girls (we have nearly 2 year old twins) around before bed however we find that it works for them! They often giggle themselves exhausted and fall straight to sleep as soon as they hit the cot!

He did go through a phase of watching videos on his phone after work as well and would spend over an hour upstairs or in the bathroom winding down after work. He did the same on weekend mornings too, sleeping in and often complaining he was too tired to do anything so I'd take the girls out to a park or playdate and he'd only see them when they woke from their after-lunch nap. He kicked off his usual argument one day that he rarely gets any time with them and I just snapped and screamed that they were RIGHT NEXT TO HIM (they literally were - sat on the sofa next to him!) and that he needed to take the opportunity to spend time with his daughters whilst they were little and wanted to play. Screamed that I couldn't understand how he could spout on about how much he loves them and that they're his world but then ignore them for an hour every day and only spend 20 minutes with them and not want to see them at the weekend. He missed out on so much and I stopped showing him the videos and photos I'd take after a while. Thankfully my words seemed to sink in as he's definitely changed (that conversation was several months ago) and he even wanted to join us as a soft play centre last weekend (he hates those places!).

You need to be firm OP and ask him why he would rather spend your son's awake time looking at his phone when he can do it once he's gone to sleep

[GlenBelt]

I'm pretty sure you just typed out our conversation other morning! He was on his phone at the breakfast table (I really hate smart phones!) I brought up the fact that he had ignored his son (aside from the odd smile) for all that time and that he is the one choosing not to spend time together. I asked him to have ds for 5 minutes whilst I had a shower and he said why can't I just take him in the bathroom with me I have had ds 24/7 for i months, short of 6 hours my mum has had him. I need a bloody break and when I tell him that he doesn't get it! (Maybe coz he hasn't had to do it) The first month he was the model Dad and did everything as I'd had a csection , I don't know what happened.

Sounds like there are a lot of Dads that need to up their game, at least I'm not alone!