Would you also be fuming or am I being unkind ?

[justhowuseless]

DS has started nursery recently and is often ill ( almost always ).

He's often awake in the night and crying. So I go into his room and stay with him to try to calm him down. I put him with me in the bed in his room and try to comfort him.

Tonight he's been awake since 1 am and just tossing and turning and crying a little bit sometimes. When this happens, I know that if I leave to go to the bathroom or to get milk for him or calpol, he will get very upset. So I often just hold it if I need to go to the bathroom, for hours. It's what us mother do.

In any case, it just kept getting layer and he wasn't settling so I really need to get him Calpol, as the crying is getting worse and he must be in some kind of pain. Husband obviously never gets up for any of it and I also don't wake him up. But toddler is screaming quite loudly now, so husband must be awake- but still not coming to see if he can help or anything. I therefore call out to him and ask him to come in and stay with DS while I go and get milk and Calpol. He says ok..

While I'm downstairs I can hear DS wailing completely hysterically now, much worse than before and by the time I get back, husband is in the toilet and has just chucked DS in his cot and opened his sleeping bag. The very thing I had tried to avoid, was leaving him, as I know it would make it worse.

I tell husband what are you doing, I told you to stay with him and husband is like, but I needed to go to the toilet. I'm totally fucked off. What was the point. I could also have just chucked DS in his bed and left the room.

Am I being too much or does this once again show how selfish my husband is ?

Men can be very annoying and useless when dealing with a baby! The first few years are so hard as they are constantly ill. I feel your pain.

Or the dad could just get up, like an adult.

yepp. A bit of teamwork would go a long way here. They can take it in turns to go to the loo and get the milk if it really is such a problem to leave the baby alone for a minute.

Frankly, the DH is the biggest problem here.

It’s ok to leave the child in a safe place to go to the toilet or even just go and take a few deep breaths. I know exactly how you feel but honestly, you are making a rod for your own back. He won’t die from crying.

Crying makes it worse. We took him once to hospital after a massive cry and that's what they said. It may have ' come out ' at a different time, it he had not had the cry. That's what they said

But that doesn't make any sense and they shouldn't have installed this kind of anxiety in you. Croup is croup, you get the bark whether you cry or not.

When I first encountered croup I took her to hospital because I didn't know what it was. After that I just did the steamy bathroom for the rest of the kids.

In your shoes id want further testing.

@LucyOrli

Solution to going downstairs to get milk: two thermos flasks in son’s bedroom, one with hot milk, the other with cold. Mix two together in a sippy cup or whatever as needed.

She said he doesn't have the milk often so this would be an incredible waste.

It sounds like he would be crying whether you went to the toilet or not
You being there at that moment is not preventing him crying
You're describing laying still while he cries & while you're busting to go
How long does it take you to wee?
You must realise on an intellectual level
That taking 60 seconds to run to the loo is not going to cause your son to have croup
It sounds like you have developed a health anxiety around your son
Based on you finding his croup a traumatic experience for you
This is causing you to freeze & feel unable to perform basic necessary functions
Like going to the toilet & getting his medicine
IMO

I get that croup is really scary and can get worse from screaming.

But this is not sustainable.

You need to have a calm conversation about split of responsibilities when the baby arrives.

You are physically not going to be able to be with two children at once during the night.

Therefore you need to work out a plan which you are both happy with for dealing with night wakening

The poster you are replying to was being kind to you and your post is unnecessarily rude.

If you come across as a "total idiot" then it's because of what YOU have written and how you hsve portrayed yourself. How do you think you'll be able to do this:
I literally torture myself by trying to lie completely still when I feel like DS is about to fall asleep.

When you have a newborn? Honestly? Posters are trying to give you advice (which you asked for) and you're batting it all back. So good luck to you, the jump from 1 to 2 can be really difficult and you're setting yourself up for an even more horrible time.

You just sound utterly exhausted which is understandable. Is there a reason your DS is quite so sick all of the time? I know they do naturally get viruses more at this age but most just shrug colds off. The only times my DC have been up during the night with a sickness needing calpol was when it was a more serious virus like norovirus obviously or covid, never really colds. I’d maybe ask a doctor if this response to common colds is normal. Your DH should be doing more to help as well, he’s also a parent and should be doing his share.

@Natty13

The poster you are replying to was being kind to you and your post is unnecessarily rude.

If you come across as a "total idiot" then it's because of what YOU have written and how you hsve portrayed yourself. How do you think you'll be able to do this:
I literally torture myself by trying to lie completely still when I feel like DS is about to fall asleep.

When you have a newborn? Honestly? Posters are trying to give you advice (which you asked for) and you're batting it all back. So good luck to you, the jump from 1 to 2 can be really difficult and you're setting yourself up for an even more horrible time.

Lots of posters have written that you can leave a child to go to the toilet - as if I literally don't have a brain.

It's more complicated than that in my situation, which some posters have also identified and noted.

@SartresSoul

You just sound utterly exhausted which is understandable. Is there a reason your DS is quite so sick all of the time? I know they do naturally get viruses more at this age but most just shrug colds off. The only times my DC have been up during the night with a sickness needing calpol was when it was a more serious virus like norovirus obviously or covid, never really colds. I’d maybe ask a doctor if this response to common colds is normal. Your DH should be doing more to help as well, he’s also a parent and should be doing his share.

I keep going to the doctor. It's all normal apparently !

Sorry if someone mentioned already. Both of mine had croup.

Child 1 - I would take to bathroom and run shower/hot tap to make a steam room. This gave them relief.

Child 2 - tried the same. Didn’t work. They needed cold so would wrap us both up and sit on back step until it eased.

It’s horrible horrible and used to scare me but luckily for us it always eased fairly quickly so didn’t need hospital. Obviously not telling you to ignore medical advice if your child needs hospital but steam/cold might be a remedy to try in early stages to see if you can head it off.

My GP was really good as well. Used to say ‘croup lasts for three nights and the third night is the worst’. So if I went in after one night would give me steroids for the following nights. Maybe you could ask your GP if you can have some medication for home if it’s a recurring problem with every cold.

Sorry that wasn’t your original question - I would be annoyed in that situation too. You only asked your DP to be with DS for 5 mins and he absolutely had to go to the toilet at that point?! I agree with others who said discuss calmly in cold light of day and come up with a plan for future nights.

@SaveWaterDrinkGin

I think regardless of your husbands behaviour, the way you’re dealing with your son at night time is ridiculous. ‘I literally torture myself by trying to lie completely still’?! That’s not normal OP!

Oh god, this all over!

I think what you’re actually annoyed at is that your husband wouldn’t just suck it up and do the one thing you asked help with - which was to stay with your son for 5 mins. Of course he should go to the toilet when he needs to but at the same time he could have waited a few minutes until you were back. This is exasperated by the fact that your husband doesn’t help with the nights and you martyr yourself by not expecting him to.

Him being sick in the past has obviously made you of over anxious, the reality is if your son cries while you go for a wee or go downstairs to get calpol he will be fine. That is not going to hospitalise him.

I would start gradually weaning off this level of parenting simply because even if you want to it won’t be possible when the new baby comes and then your son will struggle much more if it is a sudden shock.

Your dh needs to pull his weight generally.
You need to use the loo when you need to.
If calpol is an issue, get some anal suppositories - they are a zillion times easier.
DD wouldn't take meds either. By about 3ish she could be bribed.

OP, you’re doing this to yourself. You’re so scared of croup you’re turning yourself into a martyr in unsustainable ways.

If your DH needed to pee, of course he puts your toddler in his bed and goes to the toilet. As should you.

Practical solutions to reduce the risk of a flare up - humidifier, Vics, Calpol nearby, getting your child accustomed to taking things from a syringe - are a thousand times more use than you torturing yourself lying frozen on a bed.

It can’t happen when you have a newborn, so you’d best start now.

And tell your lazy DH to take the toddler out for a chunk of the weekend so you can catch up on your rest. You are exhausted, you ooor thing.

@Drivingmisspotty

Sorry if someone mentioned already. Both of mine had croup.

Child 1 - I would take to bathroom and run shower/hot tap to make a steam room. This gave them relief.

Child 2 - tried the same. Didn’t work. They needed cold so would wrap us both up and sit on back step until it eased.

It’s horrible horrible and used to scare me but luckily for us it always eased fairly quickly so didn’t need hospital. Obviously not telling you to ignore medical advice if your child needs hospital but steam/cold might be a remedy to try in early stages to see if you can head it off.

My GP was really good as well. Used to say ‘croup lasts for three nights and the third night is the worst’. So if I went in after one night would give me steroids for the following nights. Maybe you could ask your GP if you can have some medication for home if it’s a recurring problem with every cold.

Sorry that wasn’t your original question - I would be annoyed in that situation too. You only asked your DP to be with DS for 5 mins and he absolutely had to go to the toilet at that point?! I agree with others who said discuss calmly in cold light of day and come up with a plan for future nights.

Yeah my sons croup is weird. He gets a normal cold ( not even a cough ) and then all of a sudden ( usually after he's been crying and screaming ) he gets stridor which sounds severe and causes him to have difficulty breathing very fast. It's not the usual barking cough in him.

But I've literally gone back and forth to hospitals and GPs about it and the hospital always says that, yes I did the right thing to bring him and he needs steroids, but that he's basically just unlucky and will grow out of it and there's literally nothing else you can do.

Except of course humidifier, steamy bathroom etc.

On the positive, he was so upset last night and did not have breathing difficulties. So this means it won't happen every time he's ill and maybe he's getting past it.

I've got interstitial cystitis now, partly caused by often delaying going for a wee when I was nursing on a ward. Please don't do this

Too many things going on here to decide whether YABU or not.

Husband is clearly a problem to some degree - he shouldn't be annoyed at being asked to do reasonable things. He should do his bit without being asked, because it's his child.

But he might perceive some of the things you want him to do as unreasonable, which would make him disinclined to oblige. Not because he's a bad person, but because a bad dynamic is developing in which you martyr yourself and then make him feel like a crap parent. You both need to give a bit of ground, perhaps.

The croup needs dealing with as a separate issue, and I'm not sure I'd be taking "there's nothing you can do" as a final answer. One of mine had a problem as a baby, and it was dismissed and dismissed until we finally saw the right person.

As PP have said, things will change again when you have a second child. You probably won't be warming milk up in the middle of the night, for starters...

@phishy

Your husband is training you not to ask him to get up.

Don’t fall for it, make him do more.

This. 100%! He really needs to get used to being an active parent at night again. I think this is a conversation you need to have with him when you're less annoyed, though.

To go against the grain here, I'd be annoyed too that he couldn't hold a piss for not even 5 minutes... unless he has a medical condition, of course. Doesn't sound like the case here. If he needed a wee whilst driving on the motorway and was 10 minutes from a service station, or if he suddenly needed a wee in the middle of a job interview, would he just pee his pants? No. He put his own comfort above a 2 year olds health, in this case. He knows your son can get so worked up from crying he stops breathing properly, but his night time widdle was more important. That is very selfish.

But staying annoyed won't help, as this all does need properly sorting out; who does what and when, etc. And being annoyed with him is going to make him less happy to sort his shit out.

Maybe suggest him keeping his phone under his pillow or something, and you keep yours on you, so you can ring him when you need him in the night rather than shouting into the abyss and hoping he hears. Have a rota? He does one night and you do the next?

This all sounds so tough, and you sound like a wonderful mum who is putting the health of her child before her own comfort. You just need some proper bloody support from your partner!

@CaliFrown

Too many things going on here to decide whether YABU or not.

Husband is clearly a problem to some degree - he shouldn't be annoyed at being asked to do reasonable things. He should do his bit without being asked, because it's his child.

But he might perceive some of the things you want him to do as unreasonable, which would make him disinclined to oblige. Not because he's a bad person, but because a bad dynamic is developing in which you martyr yourself and then make him feel like a crap parent. You both need to give a bit of ground, perhaps.

The croup needs dealing with as a separate issue, and I'm not sure I'd be taking "there's nothing you can do" as a final answer. One of mine had a problem as a baby, and it was dismissed and dismissed until we finally saw the right person.

As PP have said, things will change again when you have a second child. You probably won't be warming milk up in the middle of the night, for starters...

I probably am being unreasonable objectively speaking.

But I think there's more at play. I think he should put his need to pee to one side for just 5 minutes, once. It's not much to ask.

Absolute bat-shittery of the highest order.

Nothing to add to the thread except this made me

you're not being unreasonable to expect your husband to help. You are being unreasonable to yourself in a) not waking him and b) not going to the toilet when you need to (especially if I've understood it correctly that you're pregnant?)

It's more complicated than that in my situation, which some posters have also identified and noted.

No. Nothing you have written makes me change my mind that it is more than difficult for you because it's your baby. If you are that worried about leaving him, and your DH won't get up - take the car seat or a bouncy seat to bed with you and when you go to the loo, take your DC with you?

As other pp noted: he is going to scream and cry whether you are there or not. In that case it is far far better for you to take the toilet break.

Nobody is calling you an idiot. Not one person. But you are rude to a lot of well-intentioned people who have been through this and are trying to give you advice.

If you just wanted a moan, the comments would have been slightly different, i guess - but those criticising your DH are spot on and would have been the same.

I hope you've managed some sleep and are able to be a little more objective.

@CaliFrown What do you mean she probably won't be warming milk up in the night? Unless she's breastfeeding, she most likely will. It's probably good that she's still used to it

I don't understand why occasionally making an infant something that helps him feel better is being seen as going overboard, particularly when she has already explained why she gives him milk and calpol together, and it seems like it works much better for the child.

Too many parents here are unwilling to inconvinence themselves even slightly for the wellbeing of their very young children. Weird.

Talk about making a rod for your own back.