4YO Daughter sleeping issues that wife won’t acknowledge

[Msti34]

Hi all, my daughter is 4 and her sleeping is awful. She wakes up each night at least twice from about 9.30pm, and has ended up in our spare bed with my wife every night for the past 3 years or so - my wife might spend 30 minutes in bed with me on a good night before she disappears.

My wife refuses to acknowledge there’s a problem and every time I raise it she thinks I’m a monster; she simply doesn’t want to make it any better. It’s affecting our sex life (less than once a month!), our intimacy and obviously our marriage.

My wife puts her to bed every night, she lies in bed with her singing her nursery rhymes and letting her play with her hair until she drops off. I’ve suggested that this is the problem as I feel like when my daughter wakes up she doesn’t know how to settle herself and I’m concerned that this will just go on and on. My wife refuses to try letting her fall asleep by herself; she disagrees that she needs to do this and thinks I’m totally unreasonable for asking it.

I don’t know where to turn any more. I’ve told how unhappy it makes me but she doesn’t seem to care at all and just thinks I’m being a b*stard for suggesting that my daughter should fall asleep by herself. I feel like I’m not being unreasonable by suggesting she should and that every child is like this.

Please help for the sake of my marriage!!

Say you would like to start putting dd to bed every night? Stick to it for at least a month

Forgive me for saying this but could she be avoiding you? How are things in general?

As far as sleep issues go this fir me would be massive. My kids stayed over at grand parents and even In hospital where climbing into bed with them just wouldn't have been possible.

It doesn't do the child any favours imo.

But its not unusual for for couples to have different opinions when. it comes to raising children so if you want to change it you will need to step up and do the hard work.

I think there may be bigger issues at play than this. it sounds as if she is actively avoiding you

I do not think you are being at all unreasonable. My children had a sleep routine that involved stories and songs and poems, all designed to settle them down peacefully; but I never ever stayed in the room till they fell asleep unless they were ill. I made sure that there were comforting things around them, but that was it.

They settled themselves each night from long before age 4.

We did, however, have an arrangement that if they were frightened by something in the night they could come into our room and sleep on the mattress that we kept on the floor at the bottom of the bed. But we set them a challenge to do so without waking us! They did not come in very often, and they never woke us, but they knew that this bolthole was there if they really needed it.

Honestly if I were your wife I'd leave and you'd have 2 weeks to fulfil your sex life and 2 weeks to figure out by yourself how your sex life and home life and work life all need to exist in the same time space continuum.
I'm not saying you can't make it work as a family but your approach in pitching your life against your child's and putting your wife in the middle of it is just so inconsiderate it's painful to read and if I were living it I know what I'd do.

Before you start doing the dishes in exchange for sex, have you checked if you are jealous of the amount of attention your child gets from your wife?

I mean... there's a lot to unpick here.

There's a thread on about ages kids co-sleep at. Once you've satisfied yourself that your wife is doing the best she can then maybe have a chat with her and she may have other suggestions....

Have you tried putting her to sleep? Does that work at all?
Would your wife be open to letting you try? It would be hard at first and you will have some long nights but if you stick with it, it should hopefully make a difference.

I agree with you that that's definitely an issue, not even just for your marriage but if your DD is getting up multiple times a night it will be affecting her aswell.

I'm not really sure what you can do to convince your wife though, you can't stop her from going in if that's what she wants to do, although I know I wouldn't be happy if my DP made all the decisions himself without taking my view in to account. Parenting is a team effort and you should both get a say (provided you do your share)

The ideal situation would be to perhaps go in and read your DD a story (or whatever helps her settle down), tuck her in and then leave her to settle. If she wakes up in the night take her back to her own room, give her a cuddle and kiss etc then put her back in bed. She'll be in a habit of getting to go in to the spare with your wife just now.

Would your wife be willing to perhaps stay somewhere else for a few nights and see how your daughter settles with you putting her down knowing that her mums not an option?

Some kids sleep great, some don’t. I’ve had bath. Literally zero we’ve done has made any difference until significantly older.

Are you doing some bed times? Are you doing some nighttime settling?

Thanks all. I’ve asked multiple times if there’s something else that’s meaning she doesn’t want to share a bed with me but she has insisted there isn’t.
My wife and daughter are extremely close - my wife hadn’t gone back to work so they have spent every single second with each other. I couldn’t even try and put my daughter to bed as she wouldn’t like her mummy not being there and my wife never goes out so that I’d have to put her to bed.
I keep thinking she’ll grow out of it but it’s not looking that way yet!

It's not right or wrong. It's just different. Leaving a child distressed and scared and crying in their bed is a very British in parenting method, but these days it's starting to become less popular because frankly, it's really upsetting for (most!) parents and for the child. Co-sleeping had become more popular because it allows both to sleep well. Being close to a parent makes a child feel safe and secure. While this may not be what you were used to, in many other cultures it is absolutely the norm. For example, in parts of Asia, children co-sleep with parents until at least 10!

You see your wife as the problem but she's probably having a really hard time because of your attitude too. I'd be pretty put off my husband is his desire for regular sex was meaning he was encouraging me to leave my child scared and crying each night if that's not what I wanted to do, and if I had chosen I prefer to co-sleep. I co-sleep with my 4 year old, have done since he was born, and have never had any sleeping problems. It sounds like your daughter's 'sleeping problems' are just that, like many kids, she feels scared when alone in bed.

I'm not saying there's anything wrong with people who do the whole 'cry it out' thing but it is NOT for everyone and if your wife is a parent who prefers to co-sleep then why is your preference more important to hers? Co-sleeping is clearly working for the two of them!

And what have you done to try and resolve the situation? Do you ever put your daughter to bed or go to her if she wakes in the night? Your post reads very much like it’s your wife’s problem and not something that you tackle as a team. I expect that your wife is pretty sleep deprived and sex is the last thing on her mind tbh

What’s your relationship like the rest of the time?

Have you tried putting your daughter to sleep?

Some children unfortunately even at 4 need someone for comfort so they nod off-I know my child was exactly the same and were a lot older then 4 before they finally were able to go to sleep by themselves.

"My wife puts her to bed every night, she lies in bed with her singing her nursery rhymes and letting her play with her hair until she drops off."

Your wife sounds like a really lovely mum.

Why aren’t you having sex?

Maybe you should practice putting her to bed and building up your time with her to make her more comfortable with you around.

Honestly I’d be more worried that your relationship with your daughter doesn’t sound very close rather than you’re only having sex once a month.

You need to build up your relationship with your daughter.

Even when I was on maternity leave my husband did bedtimes, night shifts, nappies etc. He’s a completely equal parent.

I would try to get to this stage so she’ll accept you putting her to bed etc.

Honestly that doesn't sound healthy fir any of you.

I would back off from making it about sex and the relationship, that alone would be enough to give me zero inclination to change anything I'd be worried that the suggestions came from wanting to get laid as opposed to what's best for the child.

Why doesn't your wife go out. Does she have friends ? Family ? Are we taking just evenings she never goes out or in the day either ? Because that sounds awfuly lonely tbh.

Do you go out ? Do you contribute in other ways that would enable her to go out should should want to?

How is your dds behaviour/eating etc is the Co dependency/lack.of sleep affecting her in anyway do you think?

Some children unfortunately even at 4 need someone for comfort so they nod off-I know my child was exactly the same and were a lot older then 4 before they finally were able to go to sleep by themselves.

Also this - my son was 6 before he could and still doesn’t like it at 8 but will put up with it.

Ah cross posted with your reply. I agree that you need to build up a relationship with your daughter. Even if your wife is a Sahm you need to be doing 50/50 of the hands on parenting when you’re at home. Also if she’s 4 surely she is starting school imminently? If so I would suggest this is not the best time to tackle sleep issues

It's only affecting your marriage because you're cross you're not getting sex. I'm on the other side of a similar situation - my DH and I agreed that we'd try and get our 4.5yo to sleep in his room all night, so low and behold it's me that sits on his bedroom floor at midnight getting him back to sleep. We had sex one night and the next night? DH didn't even come up, he slept in the spare room. Honestly I am starting to resent that he pesters me and pesters me about it, bit doesn't want the affection, or closeness. I appreciate it's hard for some men to see why we get so fucked off with this demanding tossery but there you go. Honest answer for you.

This isn’t about the sex thing, that’s a bi-product. It’s more about my daughter waking up multiple times and is all having disturbed sleep. We’re all knackered and she’s going to school in a couple of weeks which is my biggest concern - although part of me is thinking she may tire herself out so much at school that she starts sleeping through.
It seems that there’s split opinion as to whether the co-sleeping should continue or whether we should try and get her to sleep by herself .
I think maybe trying to persuade my wife to actually go out might be a good plan as this would then allow me to put my daughter to bed.

There as so many issues here.
You need to develop the relationship you have with your dd.
What’s the history here? Did you do the night shift? Nappy changes? Getting up up at 2am and 4 am to feed dd as a baby.
Do you know what it’s like at 2am and the toddler ways up screaming and it’s dark and cold, and you were just asleep and you can barely
keep your eyes open, and you’re already tired from yesterday and tomorrow. You’re all touched out.
Of course it’s easier to co sleep then keep on getting in and out of bed to settle them.

Where are you? Are you asleep or Moaning? Or supportive.

It’s not easy and is often counter productive to leave a 4 year to cry it out.

You need to talk to your wife about how you can better your relationship with your dd, and then she might be more open to you putting her to bed.

I think a sleep programme is needed. She needs to sleep independently at 4
Yes children need comfort at and times, and men need affection and sex.
I never allowed my sons past 8 weeks were to sleep in their own beds, comforted and then returned.
When babies more than 20 mins they were tended to.

Well your dw has made one hell of a rod for her own back there and YANBU to want things to change. However it will be a lot of work to undo these bad habits and I can understand why your wife is reluctant to do it. I think that you need to be prepared to put the work in yourself to get your DD falling asleep by herself and staying in her own bed. Maybe your dw is annoyed because she thinks you have no right to moan at her if you aren't willing to put the effort in to change things?

You are both doing your DD a disservice by letting these poor sleeping habits continue. It's not fair on her, what happens when she needs to spend a night away from her DM in an emergency for example?

I do have to say that I agree with pp's that it sounds possible that she's avoiding you and there could be a lot more to this than you realise?