To not keep my baby awake for my DHs benefit?

[AnotherGo123]

My DH has a v long commute which he hates. He is entirely lazy at looking for work closer to home. He's a teacher so absolutely could be working 15 mins away if he applied.

My baby is 6 months old. He doesn't nap that well during the day and by 6.30pm he is beside himself tired. My DH gets home at 6.15 (he actually manages to go for a quick swim after work. He leaves work at 4pm)

He says I'm inconsiderate because I "whip the baby away" the minute he gets home. I wfh so see baby a lot more and he says its so tough not seeing baby at all and it makes him depressed to be commuting all this time and only get 5 mins with baby

But baby cries and cries at bedtime at 7pm because he's too tired. He thinks I'm being totally inflexible and says what difference it makes. Anyone with a small baby will know it can make all the difference

I get he wants to see his baby but when I put baby ti bed and he's crying his eyes out I know that actually those tears are avoidable if I just started bedtime earlier and it makes me feel terrible.

AIBU

What a fucking joke.

He basically wants your and your new baby's routines to all fall into place around him, with no change to his routine, no matter how it affects you? And he's crying about it?

I bet his concern about MH and leisure activities doesn't extend to your MH. What would happen if you took up swimming 5 nights a week and left him to do the nights?

He needs a MAJOR wake up call.

I would be livid.

I think that it is he who is living the dream.
.
When do you get time for your mh needs?

He seems to be completely inflexible, whereas he thinks you and his child should be.

Is he always so me me me?

Agree with previous poster - “mental health” seems to be increasingly used as a excuse to be very selfish and lazy. I am not dismissing MH issues - my own dd suffers with anxiety and I also suffer with bouts of anxiety and depression. But I still work, put my dd’s needs first, and generally push myself to do stuff when sometimes all I want to do is hide or run away from my current life. Because I have to.

He doesn't need to swim every day. That's ridiculous. He can swim twice in the week and do something else at the weekend or so what many do, exercise before work by going early.

He can then put baby to sleep, overtired or not.

@AnotherGo123

Thanks so much for all your comments. Few points of clarification

1. He doesn't drive and we live in the countryside so he can't get to our local pool I'm the evening unless I drive him which obviously I can't as baby is asleep. His not driving is another bone of contention

1. He swims most days for half an hour. I actually encouraged this as he says his mental health needs physical activity. So when I say he is choosing to do leisure he gets v annoyed as he says he needs it

1. He says 6.30 is v early for bedtime and plenty of babies go to bed at 7. I know this is true but my DS struggles to nap in afternoon (our toddler is home from nursery at 3.30 and then any chance of settling baby or taking him for walk is v hard). So yes 7pm would be better buy on his current schedule he can't really make it to that time without becoming overtied

DH says I'm obsessed with sleep times and am far too rigid. My MIL is always saying to him that I'm very "structured". But Im really not. I just know my baby and I know when he's tired and I want him to go to sleep at the right time so he doesn't get upset. I mean it's pretty basic stuff

Oh DH also says he isn't looking for another job because of MH. Again.

My own dad used to work his arse off all hours so I think I struggle to sympathise. My DH leaves work at 4, gets to swim every day, never does night wakes etc so his whole hard done by thing is waring thin

I wfh by the way and we have childcare for those hours. DH says I'm living the dream.

Good god. He's a precious little soul isn't he.

He can only swim? He could come home from work, see the baby, then go out for a walk. It's still exercise. He's an adult. He can make adjustments, the baby can't.

I’m a swimmer, and I still think he’s a monumental prick

I bet he’s one of those idiots that are slow but think they can get in my fast Lane cos I’m a woman…

TELL him that if he wants to see his child he can come home after school and then go back out afterwards

Or he can man the fuck up and take a more active role day to day:.. and understand that if he doesn’t he’ll only be seeing his dc EOW and half the holidays

When do YOU get to exercise or spend downtime?

OP, you know your baby and if they will tolerate a later bedtime or not (I’m guessing no). Mine wouldn’t be shifted from their natural sleeping times and I’d have MIL simultaneously worrying about them not sleeping in a cot because their bones wouldn’t form properly (?!) and sleep was SO important and being put out when I let them nap at their usual time when we were expecting other family members who happened to be 2.5 hours late 😬

Your DH is being fantastically selfish. He needs to do better at being a member of your family. He is not the most important person in all of this, but he seems to have arranged things so that he is then criticises you when you bring it up. He isn’t even driving on his Very Long Commute so I’m guessing he’s maybe reading a nice book or listening to podcasts or having a snooze? Could he cycle his commute? He has two options: 1) stop complaining about how you’re doing the parenting he’s left you to do OR 2) change his life to fit in with the family routine. If he needs exercise every day then it doesn’t need to be swimming. Go for a run, cycle, get on Facebook marketplace and get a treadmill/exercise bike/weights bench. Lots of things he can do, but they will involve changing his thinking which may be where the problem lies.

I agree with you op.

If my baby got fractious like that I wouldn’t keep her awake either. 🤷🏼‍♀️

He could probably do jogging or walking instead of swimming. It’s a bit more flexible so he could get home in time to see the baby.

This makes my blood boil. You're a mother, you've turned your life upside down for your babies (as you should), he gets to continue on exactly as usual - EXACTLY AS USUAL - and you're the unreasonable one because the baby doesn't want to stay up??

Why can't he swim just two or three times a week? Why does it have to be every day? The answer is literally staring him in the face. He needs to get home at 4pm on a Tuesday and Thursday, so you can jump in the car and go for a swim/coffee/whatever you actually want to do without a baby and a toddler hanging off you. That's compromise. That's sharing the load (a bit) while still protecting his mental health.

I mean, how's your mental health OP with two little kids and a big huge one to look after all the time?

Of course you can't keep baby awake!

He is being a knob. How does he get to and from work? He can manage that, he can travel for a hobby.

My ds (now almost 16) would get to 7 and be beside himself with tiredness

I actually structured his day according to GF (she who is marvellous but can’t be named) and it transformed him.

By communicating with you baby in establishing a routine, bath bottle/boob bed they know what’s coming and settle far better

6.30 was his bed time in the new routine but there was a lovely build up that he began to expect.

Babies guide you, and by learning what works you establish a system

Sure it goes to pot every so often, but you’re doing absolutely the right thing.

Your H needs to wake the fuck up, get some sodding transport moped or whatever and start prioritising family and making sure he works his routine into what works for everyone else.

Why do you live in the countryside in doesn't drive?

This set up isn't working for you all. So something needs to change.

With young children they need structure and its working for you.

He's being selfish

I was sort of with your dh untill I read the swimming part

Fuck that . That’s his choice

He needs to get a job nearer home.
He needs to swim less frequently.
He needs to learn to bloody drive.
He needs to stop being so damn selfish.

And some DCs just can't be kept up. I had friends where the DH worked a late shift on a newspaper, DS1 was able to stay up till 9pm and see his dad, DS2 just couldn't. He wasn't that baby. The DH shrugged his shoulders and did all the mornings, because he was a decent husband and father.

I wonder if one of the reasons he sticks to that job is because he can finish at 4 o'clock; I rarely managed it when I was teaching, and if I had to leave that early, I'd probably be carting home paperwork which would have been more easily done at school, but if he can't drive, he won't have a car to load up.
I wonder what will happen when the clocks go back? Not long now, and your little one's body clock won't know the difference, but once we're back on Greenwich Mean Time, he won't just be getting tired and ready for sleep, but absolutely soundo when the mechanical timepiece says 6o'clock. Are you meant to prod him awake for daddy time? If so, I suggest you hand over the squalling bundle an set out for an invigorating run. Double the fun when infant cries rouse the toddler.
The man needs a reality check.

Your DH sounds like a manipulative gas-lighting idiot. "Living the dream" my arse. He needs to put his baby's well being before his own selfish schedule. Hope your H has some other redeeming features Op, because he sounds so lazy, feeble and self-entitled that I would find it hard to respect him, and when the respect goes, so does the love.

Can he do the bedtime routine so he gets to spend time with baby? I don’t think he is being selfish by wanting to swim, self-care is important too. However, could he compromise and swim every other night so can get home earlier on some nights? If not then he’s being unreasonable as that’s his own doing.

Or if he's so upset about the baby being "whipped away", he needs to take over bedtime.

That can be his responsibility, leave him to it.

My DH gets home at 6.15 (he actually manages to go for a quick swim after work. He leaves work at 4pm)

so why doesnt he go for a swim before school then?

Lol you’re too structured yet a swim after work every day is the absolute only way he can exercise. Ok.

So your DH thinks his fondness for an afterwork swim is more important than a baby’s biological need for sleep?

You DH is a jerk who needs a reality check. He can either come straight home, or move jobs, or accept that he sees less of his child. Blaming you is pathetic.

If he won't change his swimming time, I suggest you hand the baby over to him as soon as he gets in and make him responsible for baby's bedtime. He'll quickly become inflexible about baby's needs once he's the one spending 2 hours calming an over-tired baby.

Have you told him not to go swimming?