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.

My 3.5 year old hasn't completely weaned yet, though we are close as I'm totally done so refuse most of the time. We co-slept and fed to sleep until around 19/20 months. She had been waking as frequently as every 45 mins for long periods up until then. She was honestly a nightmare for sleep and boob dependency (but I had also made the choice to stick with the biological norm, and didnt doubt it even when on my knees). Then it was like a switch went off. She slept 6 hours for the first part of the night almost consistently. I continued to get up and feed her back to sleep, and around 2 her sleep improved again, so I no longer needed to feed her to sleep. Between then and now we've had sleeping through consistently, and periods of horror sleep. Its mainly good sleep now, and I pop her bed after stories etc, no more boob, she falls sleep happily and alone, if she wakes in the night she generally sorts herself out with some water, and comes through 11 hours later.
My honest advice would be stick with your gut, you are doing great.
And YANBU re your husband! Its completely unfair. I'd tell him your point of view, and ask him to find a fair solution.

Also some solidarity for you, I also don’t agree with might weaning, sleep training yadda yadda yadda. Good on you for parenting to your babies needs and it’s okay to still find that hard despite it being ‘your choice’.

Well, if you don’t want to sort her sleeping habits out then you are being unreasonable to expect your husband to not continue his hobbies. At 16 months, I’d expect to be able to return to normality to a degree

Why is it unreasonable of the OP on her Dh when he has clearly been part of this decision? My H never wanted to sleep train yet every one felt really sorry for him as if it was totally my decision.

I fed thru the night every hour till dd was 2 then usually once a night till she was 3. It was what I needed to do to get some sleep.

Your Dh is not doing any agreed shifts on Friday so I would have a ‘is this still what we both want to do, because if so...’ type conversation with him.

I don't understand the problem with your dh being in his shed until 3am if - as u said yourself - you want the baby to be breastfed to sleep and the baby will only settle with you etc etc.

I don't understand what your dh being in with u will help achieve. Not trying to be a pain, just trying to understand so that I can potentially offer advice. I hope your situation improves soon

So I always did and do all night wakings with mine even when I was working as they were / are also breastfed.
First fed hourly until about 18 months and from then on about 2 hourly. I was back at work at 13 months.

Second is as old as yours and feeds all night long and I don’t work now.

We didn’t split the night because the babies just wanted me and I wouldn’t have felt it fair to anyone. In return he used to get up with the first on weekends and I would generally lie in if I could. Also often I’d go to bed earlier and he’d tidy up and get things ready for the next day.

It’s honestly not something we ever really discussed (ie you do this if I do that) but it just happened that way that he’d take on more house stuff if I was up at night.

I haven’t had a full nights sleep or even close to it in 4.5 years now.

Presumably it works for the first night shift every other night of the week firsttimemamma. Op says the baby only wants breastfeeding on the second shift.

Why is it unreasonable of the OP on her Dh when he has clearly been part of this decision

Because he’s allowed to change his mind.

I disagree with a lot of the opinions on here. Babies and toddlers need milk at night for comfort, and breastfeeding at night is not bad for her teeth. That is a myth and there is lots of information on this to support night feeds. However, such frequent feeds will be tiring! I wonder whether she needs a wee, or is teething, preventing her settling from 4am? My daughter was aware of needing a wee from about that age and it did disturb her sleep. I think it is fine to offer as many feeds as you like and feel she needs, but if you want to cut down you could tell her no, and to feed when it is light outside. It is hard, I have had this with my 4 children and I had to be really worn out to stick to saying no!

But has he? Have I missed a post - apols if so.

Of course it’s not reasonable for your husband to essentially go out every Friday night until 3am if you have a baby that doesn’t sleep.

When you do choose to night wean, the best way to do that will be for him to do all the night wakes so I’ll guess he’ll have to make up for it then?

@MrsKoala yes, OP has said above it is a joint decision

3 kids all bf till 2+ you either need to night wean or cosleep with her on your own and learn to just 'sleep' feed and let her naturally wean. You are mixing two methods and being a sleep deprived mother is not good for your marriage or your child.

OP I haven't nightweaned my son either and he's 27 month, but we cosleep and he also feeds whilst asleep, and I also find it no bother to go back to sleep while feeding.

I don't think your personal situation is working. It is safe for babies to go the night without milk, and to have water instead and I think it's less beneficial to your daughter to have a parent who is exhausted, than to be comforted in other ways by both parents at night rather than offering the breast.

If feeding to sleep works, then it works. But it doesn't work here. It might work for your baby, but it doesn't work for you.

But yes I agree tour husband should compromise because this is an issue that affects your mental and physical health.

@Wnikat that depends on the DH. Deliberate night weaning is hard at any age and takes a lot of patience - if DH is going to be the substitute for the DC's most treasured form of comfort, he is going to have to be able to put up with a lot of crying and sleeplessness without losing his temper at DC. Not all men have it in them (not all mums either to be fair!) Certainly my DP didn't so I had to night wean myself, and while it made it more difficult in some ways (the boobs being RIGHT THERE and being denied) it meant consistency and gentleness for my DD, because even though I was weaning we still had the bf relationship where I related to her and empathised with her, rather than seeing her as a problem to be solved or a misbehaving pet to be trained.

@Couchbettato it works for the OP when her husband pulls his weight (i.e. takes the wakings that don't require bf to settle). He isn't which is the problem.

@VeniceQueen2004 I meant has he changed his mind since the agreement. I’ve already said he was part of the joint decision and I said perhaps it’s time for a conversation to ask if he has changed his mind in that he doesn’t want this anymore and wants to sleep train etc.

There are assumptions he has changed his mind, but if so has he had this conversation with op? If not then he might have changed his mind about him doing the wakings but not about sleep training. I know my h hated the idea of sleep training but would have been happy for me to do all wakings - best of both worlds, no crying and a good sleep!

@mrskoala no he hasn't said he wants to change anything. He can't bear the thought of letting her cry, and I'm sure he knows when we nightwean it'll be on him for a while.
Other people are just projecting their own opinions with no evidence, and without asking. They're also denying what they've previously said too....i expect trolls

[quote VeniceQueen2004]@Babysharksmom

It doesn't sound like the OP's DH is exhausted if he's noodling away in his workshop until 3am every Friday[/quote]
Maybe not exhausted but in fairness he's doing his bit by the sounds of things. Plenty of men ( and I know of one or two) would tell op to crack on and head for the spare room. Parenting doesn't have to be 50/50 all the time. Sometimes it's 60/40.

@Couchbettato co sleeping and learning to feed in your sleep is the key isn't it if your not going to night wean. I co slept with all 3 of mine and can honestly say I only had 2/3 sleepless nights in total with each of them.

This isn’t working though is it? You must be exhausted it’s not good for your health your child or your marriage whatever some theory in a book says. I have older kids now and can tell you - this really isn’t worth it.

@Babysharksmom

Eh? How do you work that one out? Why on earth would it be OK for him to agree with OP that they want to extended bf, not night wean and not sleep train, and then wash his hands of his share of the work this entails?

If he was dead set against this approach (as my DP was after s certain point) then sure, if she insisted on it it would be on her. But he isn't. He agrees with the approach, he just wants to shirk the work.

Parenting isn't a strict 50/50 no, and I can virtually guarantee as the bf parent OP will be doing more than her fair share of the childcare (as it does tend to breed a stronger attachment to the mother). But it does have to be a compromise that works for both parents. OP has suggested multiple ways her DH can ease the additional burden on her caused by his late night hobbying; he's refused any of them. He is clearly the one being unreasonable.

Ha neither could mine op. We compromised by me doing all the night wakings and then having a 3 hour sleep sat and sun morning. I also was not working and we put dd in nursery weds and thurs mornings and I slept 4 hours on those days.

I know you work but I’d push for ringfenced sleep times which are in your days off - for both of you if required (my h needed napping too often because while I was with dd he did all - much less frequent but sometimes if someone was sick still bad- night wakings of our other 2 dc).

it’s not good for your health your child or your marriage whatever some theory in a book says

Yes, instead of your instincts and research you should absolutely take the advice of some random person on the internet.

Am i right that the OP said that her DD wont take a cup or a bottle is the only "drink" she gets breast milk OP? (not being critical just curious?

My first was bf and a terrible sleeper (luckily the second isn't quite so bad but doesn't sleep through yet).

At worst he woke every 45 minutes, that was 10 or 11 months old. I bed shared and fed to sleep so I'd get sleep. DH couldn't settle him so we didn't bother with that. However I got both weekend lie ins and got a couple of hours every weekend to go off and do my own thing. He didn't stay up till ridiculous o'clock. Maybe you could look at different options like this?

He slowly improved and eventually pretty much slept through at age 3 (I didn't night wean as such, but milk dried up in pregnancy, yes amazingly we were able to have sex still).

Oh and his teeth are fine.