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!!

Maybe you should give your wife a night off the bedtime routine, let her take a bath chill then she might feel relaxed enough to enjoy sex.
Maybe you could be doing 2/3 nights minimum with the same effort.
Some DC need extra support and cuddles sleeping especially if they're in a room alone.

To add if your DW was away/ill the DC wouldn't be comfortable with you.
BTW it is lovely watching them drop off sleeping.

Thank you everyone. There’s been some really constructive advice amongst lots of people making wild assumptions about me being some sort of sex pest and/or a shit dad. I have total respect for everyone; co-sleepers and non co-sleepers. Everyone has their own ways and views and no way is right.

I’ll admit I’ve probably taken the easy route as much as my wife has - it’s become easier to let her deal with things during the night as it gets us all to sleep quicker. It’s also become easy for her to fall into that routine as she gets to cuddle her daughter all night - she’s a lovely mum and they’re so close and I don’t want that to change. I’ve lost a lot of confidence though. What’s irritated me has been her attitude towards me wanting to change the situation a bit. When I’ve suggested trying new things she’s batted them away and suggests nothing needs to change as it’s all working ok. The posts on here have made me realise that perhaps I need to make more of an effort with this change rather than just expect her to change and my daughter to ultimately benefit from that change. There are mitigating circumstances which I could go into but I won’t open myself up for more character assassination.

Tonight I asked me daughter if I could stay in her room while she fell asleep and mummy was in bed with her (rather than me leave the room) and to my absolute delight she said yes; I had a tear in my eye. This small success sounds crazy probably, but I’ve just let things slide and taken the easy route so it was big to me. My wife came back in the room and I told her - immediately my wife suggested it wouldn’t be a good idea as they’ve got a busy day tomorrow so maybe another day would be best. I said that given that my daughter agreed then we should use that and just go with it.

I stayed in the room while she went to sleep; there were no tantrums and she fell asleep as normal in her bed with my wife but with me sitting on a chair in the room.

It’s a very small step on what will be a journey but hopefully it will help things. There are so many things I could write and talk about but just thank you to everyone who gave me the confidence to try and change things.

@EmeraldShamrock

Maybe you should give your wife a night off the bedtime routine, let her take a bath chill then she might feel relaxed enough to enjoy sex. Maybe you could be doing 2/3 nights minimum with the same effort. Some DC need extra support and cuddles sleeping especially if they're in a room alone.

He's not allowed too!

Msti34

That sounds like a great first step. It seems as though your daughter is more accepting of change than your wife. However, i'm pleased she backed down after initially trying to talk you out of it. Hopefully as time goes on she'll let you be more involved in your daughter's bedtme routine. If you need any more support or advice please do continue to ask for help.

Tonight I asked me daughter if I could stay in her room while she fell asleep and mummy was in bed with her (rather than me leave the room) and to my absolute delight she said yes; I had a tear in my eye. This small success sounds crazy probably, but I’ve just let things slide and taken the easy route so it was big to me.
Good for you that is really sweet.
She might ask for DM before she drops off but that's okay at least you've started a new pattern..

That is good to hear - a small step but the first in trying to break the pattern.

@Msti34 well done! It's a start!

I really recognise your wife’s response. On the one hand it looks as though she’s pushing you out, but she’s actually saying ‘I’m already really tired and I need our child to go to sleep as quickly as possible’ and ‘I don’t want her to be up too late because it means I get no evening or have to stay up even later to get some adult time and we have a lot on tomorrow’.

It’s a good first step to be in that room - if you take charge and act like a team member you’re more likely to get somewhere. At the moment your wife feels like she carries this burden and it is her problem to fix it.

You will need to follow through and it’s often better if your wife can pop out, to a friend’s house perhaps, or even just to the supermarket.

It sounds like there are tricky dynamics at play, OP. Glad your little one was happy to have you there tonight, and I think you were right to stay. Good luck with it all.

My husband used to sit with our toddler for ages while she fell asleep. I didn't like the impact on our evenings and I felt that the bed time routine was perpetuating her multiple night wakings. Because neither of us was happy with the situation we just jumped right in to me doing every other night, which resulted in a lot of tantrums but she did accept it (though still prefers her dad) and her sleep did improve (still not great). She was younger though- almost three at the time. It's obviously a lot trickier if you and your wife have different goals in the situation.

Also, FWIW, and respecting that your post is about a lot more than sex, agree with PP that afternoons much better than evenings.

Azilliondegrees
I really recognise your wife’s response. On the one hand it looks as though she’s pushing you out, but she’s actually saying ‘I’m already really tired and I need our child to go to sleep as quickly as possible’ and ‘I don’t want her to be up too late because it means I get no evening or have to stay up even later to get some adult time and we have a lot on tomorrow’.

Those of us outside your marriage can only guess what your wife is actually telling you. But did you take the time to find out? Or did you dismiss her words as mere pushback/parent stuck in routine/ controlling mom martyr showing up?

I found an article you might find interesting as I was working this morning. The first steps are really positive and achievable, involve no crying or leaving the child it describes as a case study. Might be a good starting point for talking about moving forward with your wife? It emphasises the parents being comfortable with the approach taken.

Moore, M. (2010). Bedtime problems and night wakings: treatment of behavioral insomnia of childhood. Journal of Clinical Psychology, 66(11), 1195–1204. doi.org/10.1002/jclp.20731

It sounds like your wife is making things difficult for herself.
Your child knows that if she wakes, your wife will get to sleep in the same bed as her. Kids learn habits young.
My daughter used to do this regularly too but when I became pregnant with my second child, I knew it had to stop before my second child came along so whenever she woke at night, I would take her back to her own bed. She kept still trying it on for about two weeks so was very exhausting but after two weeks she began to sleep through in her own bed.
They say it takes about 2-3 weeks to break a habit

What are you doing to support your wife abd child, instead of being resentful hat your child is getting in the way of plenty of sex for you?

Ah Msti34 indeed a small step forward but a step forward nonetheless!

Keep doing what you're doing every night.

Even if wife doesn't initially want you there ,your daughter had expressed that she would.
That's lovely.

Keep hanging around. Let your daughter see you at sleeping time consistently.

Perhaps there will be a day in the not too distant future where you will be putting her to sleep by yourself.

I hope your wife can find some Interests outside the home or even a friend to meet up with so she can have some time to herself,leaving you some quality time with your daughter.

She is 50% yours, you deserve that time to strengthen your bond.

Hope bedtime was better tonight!

@Oldtiredfedup

What are you doing to support your wife abd child, instead of being resentful hat your child is getting in the way of plenty of sex for you?

I suggest reading past the opening paragraph

@Oldtiredfedup

What are you doing to support your wife abd child, instead of being resentful hat your child is getting in the way of plenty of sex for you?

For goodness sake have you tried actually reading what the OP has said or have you clocked that the post was made by a man and immediately decided to project your baseless nastiness onto him?

I read the entire opening post.

@Oldtiredfedup

I read the entire opening post.

Oh ok so just trolling then.

@Oldtiredfedup

I read the entire opening post.

There's a handy see all button to read just the OPs posts. Commenting several days after the OP started the thread, and not taking the time to read their additional posts makes you look like you have an agenda. Especially since the OP has actually updated posters with what he's doing to help.

@Oldtiredfedup

I read the entire opening post.

Try reading all the OPs posts at the very least. By not doing so, you're making yourself look very ill informed!

@MayorGoodwaysChicken

That is what I got from the post. I certainly was not trolling.

Perhaps 17 years of domestic abuse has created a lens for me. I will think about that. But certainly not trolling.