Husband's down time

[Pondlife87]

We have a 16 month old daughter who is a terrible sleeper.
Both my husband and I work. He does 5 days a week and I do 3.
We did split maternity. When i was off i did all the night wakings. When he was off we shared it as past 3am she will not settle without feeding (she is breastfed).

Now we are both back at work he does the first shift (10.30-2.30) and i do the second shift (2.30-7) of her waking. She tends to end up in bed with us from about 4 as otherwise I'm up every 30 minutes settling her. We've tried having her in bed with us all night, but she just wants to feed constantly if I'm near her and won't accept Dad.

So- i get to my point. Dad has always been a night owl and stays in his workhouse every Friday until 3am doing projects. This means we have to swap the shifts. This means I am up between 10.30-3 resettling her. Then when he comes to bed, because she needs to feed I am awake hourly resetting her and she will only accept me. Then because he has been up until 3am he gets the lie in. I get the lie in the following day.
I have expressed i am unhappy about it as I get next to no sleep all Friday night because i essentially do both shifts. He argues that lots of men/ women go out every weekend.
However i do not think it is ok to go out every weekend until 3am if you have a child, so i don't see why this is different?
I've suggested he can go out but take the baby monitor to do thr first shift and he said no. I suggest he go out and come in earlier at say 12/1 and he said no.
Am i being unreasonable with my requests?
Is there a middle ground? Can you offer any otjer solutions?
Please note this is not a request for advice to help baby sleep better. I've tried everything haha.

What's his reason for not having the baby monitor in the shed with him during his hobby?

This. If he won't do that then the idea he's 'on board' is just not true.

@ZaphodBeeblerox

She was trained within days and consolidating her sleep coincided with dramatic leaps in her language and development. I think children over the age of 1 need that long continuous sleep to learn better

Wow. My child must have totally missed the memo. Slept like shit until she was 2, responsively breastfed at night past 18 months, was walking at 10 months and speaking well at 18 months. How entirely inexplicable. One might almost imagine that children are different and need different things!

Glad your approach worked for your family, but what on EARTH makes you think that it is therefore the only approach that will work well for all other babies/families?

I bf at night until around that age so I get it. The staying up til 3am and getting to skip out on a shift is the problem. If he wants to do it, then he's got to swap the time somehow. This would piss me off too.

Can someone talk me through the supposed benefits of attachment parenting and how it works?

@DalzielandPaxo

I think that’s whole new thread in itself

Just so everyone is aware I won't be reading or engaging in this post anymore.

It has been totally railroaded by people despite by specific requests. There is absolutely no respect for the boundaries I requested.

So any further comments will fall on the deaf ears of the OP and be a waste of time. Thank you and goodbye.

He wants his baby to benefit from the approach they've chosen

What benefit are you both going on about. They haven’t had a full nights kip on sixteen months. The baby doesn’t sleep more than thirty mins. There is no benefit. For any of them.

Op, did you just refer to yourself in the third person and flounce?

Not sure what was expected from OP. We could all suggest her OH was reasonable or not but the elephant in the room was the lack of sleep. She didn’t want to feed all night which is fair enough but she also didn’t want to wean baby off the breast., in her shoes I would either cosleep or teach the baby to sleep. 🤷‍♀️

@Bluntness100

Aah, accusing a poster who disagrees with you of being the OP. Original!

The benefits are many and varied, documented widely and vary from family to family. For me the main benefit was not having to fight my instinct to nurture, or fight my child's instinct to seek closeness and comfort in the first years of her life. I was able to go with what felt natural to us both instead of holding myself and her to some arbitrary schedule of pushing her away from me. I was able to enjoy her and fully dive into the life change that is motherhood.

Other people don't like that, don't want to do it. FINE. But every time someone tells me they're having trouble getting baby to take a bottle or self settle I don't take it upon myself to tell them they're doing it all wrong. I sympathise and offer what advice I can based on what they're trying to achieve. Because, you know, I don't think I'm the best mother who ever lived or that my way is the only valid way.

At 16 months I would be trying to night wean!

YANBU with your requests to your husband.

YABU with everything else. Your daughter will understand no. She doesn’t magically turn 18 months and then will willingly accept not being fed to sleep.

My third child’s instinct would have been to continue breast feeding till he was 5 or 6. He got till 14 months when I just couldn’t cope with the perpetual night wakings of which the benefits were all for baby. Not that he remembers. Not that OP’s baby will remember, or care at all.

But crack on. It ain’t internalised misogyny to point out you could be making things easier on yourself in more than one way.

I would just have her in the bed all night. When I co slept with DD she could eventually BF without even waking me . Cosleeping is very normal in many societies and worked well for me.

[quote VeniceQueen2004]@Bluntness100

Aah, accusing a poster who disagrees with you of being the OP. Original!

The benefits are many and varied, documented widely and vary from family to family. For me the main benefit was not having to fight my instinct to nurture, or fight my child's instinct to seek closeness and comfort in the first years of her life. I was able to go with what felt natural to us both instead of holding myself and her to some arbitrary schedule of pushing her away from me. I was able to enjoy her and fully dive into the life change that is motherhood.

Other people don't like that, don't want to do it. FINE. But every time someone tells me they're having trouble getting baby to take a bottle or self settle I don't take it upon myself to tell them they're doing it all wrong. I sympathise and offer what advice I can based on what they're trying to achieve. Because, you know, I don't think I'm the best mother who ever lived or that my way is the only valid way.[/quote]
Stop implying that people can’t read

Bluntness100: Op, did you just refer to yourself in the third person and flounce

Comment was in reply to the OP stating:

So any further comments will fall on the deaf ears of the OP and be a waste of time. Thank you and goodbye

Bluntness100 quoted a PP poster and then referred to the OP. It is possible to address two different people in one post. It is you who misunderstood (or got too irate to bother to read properly)

Aah, accusing a poster who disagrees with you of being the OP

Eh, I think you need to reread, and I didn’t ask the benefits to you. Or even. Of not night weaning. I asked the benefits to the op based on her child not sleeping more than thirty mins, and her and her husband being exhausted, and clearly in disagreement. This thread is not about you.

Thanks alltheusernames.

@Bluntness100 is the voice of reason here.

I think attachment parenting sounds frankly, like nonsense and a load of hard work, which offers no benefit. And despite speak of ‘science’ backing it up as a method, I can find none. Plenty disputing it though, and saying it‘s in actual fact just a justification for a level of attachment craved by the parent, which they use a child to fulfil. 🤷🏼‍♀️ Which is probably why some who use it are so militant.

Fair point I misread. Apologies.

Yeah god forbid parents should want to feel attached to their children, how twisted of them Any minute now we'll have the one about women who bf into toddlerhood being peadophiles.

The op is angry because she knows everyone is right, that it would be better for her child to get a decent nights sleep, and that this is moved to a stage it’s more damaging than beneficial.

Every child is different, every child has different needs, there is no idealised way of doing anything, the only right way is the way that is right for the child and the family,

Sometimes you just need to climb down from your principles and focus on your child’s individual needs and forget the research.

Spot on!
Isnt this the OP from a while ago who posted on aibu something about sending her DH to the shed to live?
The DH had brought the 30mins BF toddler into OP early as he ( not having breasts) was unable to settle her.
She was furious with him but got her the same reply that actually it might be best to night wean but was incandescent at that.

I should add that I BF 3 DC until age 2ish and none of them fed every 30 minutes, even when newborn .

Don’t be stupid @VeniceQueen2004. Attachment Parenting - well, it sounds like making up a load of stuff that makes you feel like you’re a better mummy than everyone else tbh.

I can guarantee you not one single person will be able to say that being fed to sleep at 16 months of age really helped their relationship with their mother. Or that not being sleep trained was beneficial. Of course they won’t say the inverse either.

Sorry but while my children are important, I am also important. I’m not a worse parent than someone who breastfed longer than I did or who didn’t sleep train. I, and every other mother, is allowed to say that actually, the benefits to me of getting a full nights sleep outweigh the benefits of breastfeeding a 16 month old on demand.

OP clearly thinks that makes me a shit mother. I think her way makes her a martyr.

Anyway. Doesn’t matter. OP’s husband shouldn’t stay up all night. They should both be more flexible. But it’s not my nights being disturbed so what do I care that what OP wants is some gentle way to make her husband do what she wants?

Not sure what’s going on, but the ops previous threads, of which there are many, she’s stated she has tried night weaning, and the child was on water, but this little girls sleep routine has been causing some significant issues for a long time it seems.

@Bluntness100 😆 that puts a rather different slant in things. @VeniceQueen2004 thoughts?

@Bluntness100

Not sure what’s going on, but the ops previous threads, of which there are many, she’s stated she has tried night weaning, and the child was on water, but this little girls sleep routine has been causing some significant issues for a long time it seems.

This. And goodness me a massive dollop of drama llama and stamping feet thrown into most when people challenge her opinions!

I can’t help but think the husband isn’t onboard with the whole thing but is too scared to even mention night weaning so just hides instead.

With all due respects you are making this so much harder for yourselves than this needs to be. Your child is a toddler. You are acting as if she’s a new baby. Let her learn some independence and have a decent nights sleep you have taught her that every time she murmurs she needs the boob to settler her she doesn’t need night feeds at her age she needs plenty of food and water during the day and milk before bed before she goes to sleep.