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

Give the baby to him on a Saturday, about the time that he leaves for work, go off and have a lovely day but make it clear that you want the baby up and awake for when you get in, at roughly what time he gets in.
I doubt if he'll do his swim and then swan in after that
Selfish little turd

Yeah he lost me at swim, how selfish. If he's so desperate for time he can have baby on Saturday and you can have a day to yourself

What sort of teacher is he? Seems a bit dubious he goes swimming every day
Agree with everyone else. He’s being selfish.

i notice that you speak of my baby, rather than our baby.

Your DH is stopping himself seeing your DS as he’s going swimming. Easily solved.

He’s wholly unreasonable options are
He leaves work earlier
He postpone or forgoes the evening swim
He accepts he misses seeing baby prior to it’s bedtime

@alexdgr8

i notice that you speak of my baby, rather than our baby.

Well in your pursuit of an argument you purposefully omitted the line I get he wants to see his baby Try harder

So he has three options to improve his situation:

Look for a new job
Swim at another time
Learn to drive

But instead, he's insisting that you and your son suffer every day so that he can contribute fuck all to a problem of his own making. Balls to him.

I have been up all night with a bad stomach, am in quite an iffy mood so, sorry, but I am going to be blunt.

I have an all abiding urge to deliver a throat punch your selfish twat of a man.

Everyone else has already pointed out what types of bastard he is being to you and the baby.

Tell him to go and fuck himself. Maybe he can do it in the changing rooms after he's finished his nice relaxing daily swim

I think id tell him that there are several things he could do to see more of the baby, but he chooses not to so youd appreciate it if he stopped moaning about this very solveable issue when youve got enough on your plate. baby will stay up later and later in time, but at the moment he is choosing to return home 15 minutes before babys bedtime despite finishing work at 4pm and thats his problem not yours

Sorry to say your problems run deeper than baby bed times
Are you actually happy? You both have incompatible ideas that are causing clash

As an aside he doesn’t have to
Drive . I know it’s a mn preoccupation that adults don’t drive.
Change jobs

FFS the baby is not your DH's toy but his own person. It's cruel to withhold something as fundamental as sleep if it's going to mean, OK it sounds melodramatic but it's true, physiological damage to your child.

He should stop swimming after work; come home to see you and the baby and then go out to his local pool - 7pm is easily early enough to accommodate dinner and some kind of evening.

Given he finishes at 4 he has plenty time to get home
Plus as teacher he’ll have the holidays off to see the kids

Yabu

‘My baby’

Why doesn’t your DH start doing bed time so he gets to spend some time with HIS baby

With us babies routine is more important, I'm the one that pays if we ignore her sleep cues, so if he's not here at 6.30 I start bedtime regardless, it's not worth the suffering to her and I for a delayed bedtime. Sometimes she is happy ready for bed and playing, in which case she'll stay up a little later but if he misses it he misses it.

We leave at 7am, sometimes he helps me get her dressed at 6.45, but again that's on him.

Your husband needs to sort out his priorities

@EspressoDoubleShot

Sorry to say your problems run deeper than baby bed times Are you actually happy? You both have incompatible ideas that are causing clash

As an aside he doesn’t have to
Drive . I know it’s a mn preoccupation that adults don’t drive.
Change jobs

He does when they live in the country and his inability to drive is causing issues

Not Driving, That is part of it.yes. However it’s not the whole problem. Malaise runs deeper. Him learning to drive won’t suddenly render this a happy relationship
Currently,He’s a non driver who is an unreasonable , rigid and critical partner
With Driving lessons he’ll become a driver who is an unreasonable , rigid and critical partner

@ouchmyfeet

Having read the OP's update I think he is even more of selfish, self absorbed bastard than I thought previously.

I'll second that!

What an arsehole your husband is.

He is being utterly unreasonable.

Babies have no control over their lives.

Your husband could change many things, but doesn’t want to. He wants everyone to bend to his demands instead. If his mental health is poor, he needs to look at making changes.

@LittleBearPad

So he chooses not to get home until 6.15 when he could be home considerably earlier if he didn’t go swimming? Then he moans the baby is tired and he doesn’t see DS?

What a selfish twatbadger.

Please do tell him he’s being a twatbadger

Why can't he do bedtime. No brainer surely - get in, have a cuddle and do the bedtime story etc. Lovely way to bond with his son 🤔

@LittleBearPad

' Selfish twat badger'

Best thing I've read on the internet in a long time. Will add it to my vocabulary immediately 😂

@EspressoDoubleShot oh agreed - definitely.

Though it would be an answer to the excuse of having to swim after work. No doubt however another excuse would be found as to why he had to have everything on his terms

Also, MIL can piss off with her 'very structured'. Maybe, once in a while, it wouldn't hurt a child to have a change in routine for some exceptional circumstance that requires flexibility, but not ad hoc throughout the week.

I've studied the Montessori pedagogy and she states that young children have an innate need for order in their lives. This starts at birth and is there throughout the 'Absorbent Mind' phase, roughly up to when they turn 6. They don't know anything and are piecing together their world by making links. This gives them security and as a result, the confidence to explore. She describes one baby crying because someone came in and put a parasol on the table. When it was moved off the table to the place it was normally put, they stopped crying. OK maybe coincidence but she had a number of examples.

For a toddler, 7pm is no way too early. Perhaps so for a young baby, who are often 'nocturnal' for several months, but not a toddler. He is obviously clueless about the concept of overtiredness, but it's so real. Put a baby down soon after the first brush of a hand against the eye and they sleep beautifully. Wait until they're really tired and they become totally unsettled. Who wants (in the nicest possible way) to spend time with a child in that state anyway?

Surely husband doing bedtime routine is the obvious solution here - and it's half term soon....