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!!

Rod for own back, noone should be sleeping with their child at 4, it does the child no favours comments are unhelpful. Some people choose to teach their child to sleep independently from a young age, some choose to co-sleep, some choose something else in-between. One persons rod for their own back is another person happily attachment parenting. Neither is right or wrong.

It appears your wife, in the apparent absence of any previous input, has chosen something closer to co-sleeping and it is working well for your wife and your dd. You have supported this decision until now by not getting involved and leaving her to find solutions alone, you need to accept as a dad, you never being able in 4 years to put your own dd to bed is a massive oversight on your part.

You won't be able to change 4 years of routine overnight, but you can start to talk about what your joint goals and priorities are for the future.

So you want your wife in your bed. But don’t understand why your daughter is seeking comfort at night??

Shes only 4. Its very young. My toddlers were cosleeping at that age.

Since when was 4 still a toddler? Children are overly infantilised now.

School is traumatic...really?! Most children take it in their stride.

Why is every normal step seen as so traumatic to a child by parents

I think one thing to note is that your daughter is about to start school which is going to lead I think to more tantrums due to the tiredness that occurs when school starts.

Anything that you implement cannot be stop start. My fear would be at this point that something would be implemented work and then school happens and you take massive steps back to even further than before.

Tantrums are fine - usually overtired and hunger - what is your pre bedtime routine for her it maybe that is where you can start implementing things now that will continue through school.

What time, what happens etc. When does she last eat/drink. Work together to get the bit right before she hits the bed and sleep is the easiest first step. It is likely that this is actually going fairly wrong and is causing all the other things.

@Nsky

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.

I can’t believe what I’ve just read.

@Balonzette

"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.

It's hardly lovely to make another person totally and utterly dependent on you to be able to sleep.

Imagine not being able to fall asleep by yourself and always needing a certain person/conditions.

@Boatonthehorizon

Shes only 4. Its very young. My toddlers were cosleeping at that age. School at reception will make her clingyier still.

I recommend not trying to pit yourself between mother and child. You wont win.

Cant remember when we had sex. I think it was maybe once or twice a year. Possibly in the day.

A 4 year old is not a toddler, and hasn't been a toddler for a year

@Lucyintheskywithrubies. I can’t believe what I’ve just read.

I know, it's sickening. Overtones of women as service humans who exist to provide intimacy and sex to men, rather than independent, autonomous human beings.

Your wife sounds amazing and like a lovely mum.

You sound unsupportive.

“.........It's hardly lovely to make another person totally and utterly dependent on you to be able to sleep.
Imagine not being able to fall asleep by yourself and always needing a certain......”

Talk about overthinking it! Its a 4 year old who feels happy and secure falling asleep with her mum. She will grow out of it soon enough.

One of my children was happy to sleep alone in his room. The other was scared at night and always slept in my bed until around age 5 when he just gradually stopped himself. No big deal either way

OP I completely agree with you.

My SD is still like this at 7 because she has never learned to fall asleep without someone in the room with her, so if she wakes up at any point during the night she cries and freaks out.

I am surprised your wife isn't even willing to try giving her the chance to fall asleep by herself, even after a nice cuddle and story from her. Surely it's impacting her too?

My arrangement is pretty similar to your wife's. My DC3 is really independent and I'm sure would cope if I wasn't there, but it's just what we do. DH has never seen to him in the night even once, so co-sleeping just got the job done.

DC5 wakes once in the night then comes and joins us. I don't feel I'm in any position to order him back to sleep alone if I'm staying with his brother, so we all stay together. It's been a question of space really, we have new beds coming for them soon so I'm sure we'll all adapt.

However DH's sleep preferences are so particular they make me utterly miserable, and if I share a room with him I usually get the blame for his poor sleep for one thing or another. I really don't intend to share a bed with him again for a lot of reasons so as PPs have said it's quite possible this has become a metaphorically barrier between you as well as an actual one!

Why are people saying 4 year olds shouldn’t be waking up twice a night? Everyone wakes through the night at least once a night, even if you don’t remember doing it. Im 23 and wake at least 3 times a night.

Where did this toxic mindset come from that children should be able to self settle at such a young age?? My son is 3 and i lay with him and sing him songs until he falls asleep and then if he wakes in the night I’ll go in his room to settle him. 9/10 times, he ends up in bed with me and my partner. There is literally nothing wrong with cosleeping/bedsharing. Literally nothing.

@tegannotsovegan

Why are people saying 4 year olds shouldn’t be waking up twice a night? Everyone wakes through the night at least once a night, even if you don’t remember doing it. Im 23 and wake at least 3 times a night.

Where did this toxic mindset come from that children should be able to self settle at such a young age?? My son is 3 and i lay with him and sing him songs until he falls asleep and then if he wakes in the night I’ll go in his room to settle him. 9/10 times, he ends up in bed with me and my partner. There is literally nothing wrong with cosleeping/bedsharing. Literally nothing.

Surely it has to be agreed by both adults though? I'd say there is something wrong with it if one is really unhappy about it but is being blocked from making any changes.

Your wife has forgotten that’s she in a relationship with you as well as being a mum. She’s spending 24/7 with your 4 year old, ok lovely, but where’s the rest of her life? Does she literally do nothing else?
I’m sure she’s loving it but it’s selfish in a way. Marriages take two to tango as they say. She needs to nurture her marriage a bit - whilst she’s still got one.

I would have gone insane if my kids couldn’t go to sleep by themselves at that age.

Your child has issues with you doing bedtime and wants your DW because you haven't done enough bedtimes. It's cyclical, she won't want you unless you step up and help out. Do bed times together for a week, put the effort in, sit in a darkened room for an hour, it's not fun and I bet your dw would be relieved if you could do your share but its not a quick process.

If I were your DW I'd dread coming to bed with you though. I imagine your expectations for sex weigh heavily. She probably just want to crash out and she knows coming to bed with you means you'll be 'expectant'. I'd also stay in the child's bedroom as long as possible to avoid this.

I would suggest pulling your weight with bed times, break the 'but I want mummy' cycle, develop you bond with your daughter and take pressure off DW. Then maybe in a few months your DW will feel rested and less pressured to have sex more often and actually want to.

I don't think you're being unreasonable at all. I'm neither for or against sleep training tbh, I'm for parents doing what works for them. But I think there comes a point doesn't there? The child is getting disrupted sleep and I think sometimes that is worse in the long run. It is also affecting your relationship which isn't right either. I think there are much gentler ways to be able to encourage her to sleep in her own bed, she isn't a baby anymore.

Also, I'd be quite annoyed if my partner never let me do bedtime in 4 years because the child kicks off. You are her parent too. I'd feel horribly undermined by my wife. Your daughter has 2 parents and you are just as entitled to put her to bed as your wife.

Make a chart, Monday - dad, Tuesday - mum and so on so she can visualise who is putting her to bed.

OP you are entitled to your feelings and it sounds as though your family has just gotten a bit out of balance.

I think that the baby/child should fit in with the family, and what's best for the family is probably going to best for the child in the long run. Child needs to have better sleep habits, and Mum sounds like she needs to reclaim some time for herself and for your relationship. You sound like you need to take a more active role in the bed time routine to enable the change to happen gradually. Mum won't feel safe changing the routing unless you are making her feel supported. I'm sure she loves bedtime with your daughter so it will be hard even though it's for the best.

It is really important to take care of your relationship, not only for yourselves, but for your daughter. I'm sure once you've all found a good balance, the intimacy will return.

YABU. Your expectations of "normal childhood sleep" are not based in scientific reality. It is very, very common for young children to wake at night, and to settle best with a parent/other caregiver. Sleep is developmental, they grow out of these things eventually.

It is a myth that children need to fall asleep in a dark, quiet room (or room otherwise approximating the conditions in the iddlw of the night) in order to be able to go back to sleep in the nighttime. Ours is often breastfed to sleep and then sleeps through.

I would suggest you do some reading up on the subject, perhaps start with The Gentle Sleep Book by Sarah Ockwell-Smith. There is also no need for cosleeping to affect intimacy. If your child reliably sleeps alone until 9:30pm then you could have time together before then?

If your child reliably sleeps alone until 9:30pm then you could have time together before then?

It sounds like OP's wife is in the bedroom with DD for quite a long time though getting her to fall asleep, and then she's awake again at 9.30. Unless DD is going to bed about 6.30 there probably is very little evening to enjoy before 9.30.

@tegannotsovegan

Your wife sounds amazing and like a lovely mum.

You sound unsupportive.

It sounds like his wife is shutting him and preventing him from getting involved also

It is a problem when one parent takes on a role with a child and it is then necessary to change that. It does sound as though your wife is very protective of her role at bedtimes, and I can understand that it is hard to break into this.

TBH it is unfortunate that this situation has arisen as your child has been conditioned to one thing and it is not going to be easy to break her of that. When you have number two (!?) it might be worth remembering that there are ways of not letting this situation arise at all.

My children had a "Daddy Day" each week on his day off when I was working. They learned to do things his way and to realise that not everyone does things the same way and that is OK. It became a fun thing in the family - "Oh Mummy does not do it like that!" - and they would laugh about it. "Mummy - do you know what Daddy did today?"

Could you talk with your wife about having "Daddy bedtimes" when it is your turn to do this. Then you could both share in the task of weaning her off this routine into something that is more helpful to the adults in the house as well as the child.

I do think that children need to gradually learn that life is not totally centred around them; that they are part of a family and others' needs also have their own priority.

Clearly no child should be left in pain or fear; but neither should they rule the roost completely.

I hope that you and your wife can find some compromise here. You sound as though you love your DD but just want some balance in life.

My DSD was like this at 4. She's still like this at 10 and showing no signs of changing. I have no doubt it played it's part in the break up of her parents relationship.
It suited her mum in the early days, there was no talking to her about it, and now nobody knows how to fix it at her age and it's shit for everyone, especially the child who has zero self soothing skills whatsoever and is now old enough to be painfully aware that both parents would rather not still be doing this.
I'd advise alot of research before speaking to your wife again. Nobody wants their young child distressed and crying, but there are other ways to help them other than teaching complete dependence.

@Msti34 so you have addressed that you aren’t happy with the situation but what have you done to bring about change? I hate when someone says ‘that’s wrong’ but doesn’t actually come up with valid support to make changes. Do some research and the approach your wife for a chat about possible options with YOU helping. Don’t hat say ‘this is wrong, change it’ that doesn’t help anyone. You need to be coming up with solutions and be ready to put the work in too. However, if your wife doesn’t want to change, you need to address he other issues separately.

If the DD is starting school then leave things as they are. She will be exhausted if she normally spends all her time with her DM. It's a busy, noisy environment

I think this could be part of the problem. There's always some next stage which people assume will solve the problem..of long walks, holidays, day trips pre school didn't do it then what on earth males ultoi think.school will. School should actually almost be a " deadline" for getting issues sorted. Not be assumed to be the solution to all the problems. There's every chance starting school will make things a million times worse.