Friction with DP due to DD. Frustrated

[lanabye]

DD is 8 and has always been a terrible sleeper. Because I was single for so long prior to my current relationship, I admit that I gave in quite a lot for an “easier” life and let her sleep with me, or I’d sleep in her bed until she fell asleep. So now, at bedtime, she struggles to sleep without me sitting in her room until she nods off.

This is causing a LOT of friction between my partner and me, and last night it led to an argument because I didn’t like the way he was speaking to DD. In fairness, she was screaming at me and hitting which is obviously less than ideal.

For context, we’ve been in a relationship for 3 years and he moved in only this year.

As much as it pisses me off that she’s a terrible sleeper, I don’t get worked up and angry about it the way he does. Aibu to see this as a huge barrier to continuing the relationship?

To be honest, OP. I spoke about my niece, not to criticise you, but just to speak out against the people diagnosing your daughter with everything under the sun. Sometimes it is just circumstance that creates problems.

My niece is hard work. She really is. She’s a lovely child and I adore her, she’s very similar to me (I had parents that took no shit, however) but she is hard work. I don’t like it when an eight year old hurts a toddler to get a reaction, and is rewarded for it.

I’ve no doubt, when she’s grown, it’ll be a distant memory. But now she’s difficult. And it’s purely because of her parents, who indulge her so much. They know they do. But they can’t seem to stop. Every now and then they try and all hell breaks loose, so they cave for an easy life.

I’m not being ‘aggressive’ or ‘puerile’ either, just objecting to posters accusing me of hating my niece and also for diagnosing her with various anxieties. I dispute their diagnoses entirely. As does the child psychologist she saw some time ago. A child psychologist who wound up spending most of the sessions counselling her parents and arming them with a toolkit of how to be better for her, none of which they’ve attempted.

You want to make changes. That’s the difference. She’ll be just fine. You’re obviously very close and it’s just a bump in a long road.

👏🏻

Incidentally, the niece of which I speak, comes to stay with me for a Fortnight every summer and long weekends here and there to give her parents a break. She’s the youngest by six and eight years so the others aren’t so interested. She is good as gold. She never sulks, never goes for my kid, never hurts our animals, she eats everything she’s given, she’s helpful etc.

I don’t take any shit. That’s the only difference.

I don’t understand why you can’t see that a child - and not just any child, but your own niece - who is so unhappy that she’s hurting animals and smaller children, has been assessed by a psychologist who gave advice that was then ignored, who is the youngest of three girls (the older two being much more harshly treated than she is), who has been let down by her parents isn’t just acting out of badness. You know all this has happened and you’re still using her as an example of spoiled behaviour.

No, it’s not the only difference - she’s also away from her parents and her older siblings. Maybe that’s a clue?

You’ve chosen your narrative and you’re sticking to it. But you’re wrong.

And I didn’t say, at any point, that she was acting out of ‘badness’. You said that. You mentioned ‘inately evil’ earlier, I didn’t.

You’re forcing the narrative of badness. Not me. I’m just saying that her occasionally poor behaviour is as a direct result of her parent’s drippy approach to parenting. Nothing else.

And she isn’t l torturing animals, she’ll kick a dog if it’s there when her parents say ‘no’ (doesn’t happen very often, so neither does the extreme tantrumming) because she knows they’ll immediately cave. Same for shoving my toddler. Same for launching her plate. Same for the extremely loud screaming in a public place. She knows all of it will get her what she wants.

But this rarely happens because she’s indulged entirely the rest of the time. So there’s no need for her to deploy her learned skills.

You said there wasn’t any underlying reason for her behaviour, other than being spoiled. But that’s very clearly not the case.

Anyway, I don’t think this is doing anyone any good. Least of all the OP, whose thread has been hijacked.

And nothing about the massive change in her behaviour when she’s away from her parents and siblings?

You’re wrong. It’s her parents’ treatment of her which has caused the behaviour. Unless you know better than the clinical child psychologist? Do you?

The clinical psychologist who gave her parents specific advice that they then ignored? That one?

She is used to me saying no, to my parents saying no, etc. But to be honest, she doesn’t demand anything of us like she does of her parents and so we don’t have to. She won’t demands sweets or a soft toy if she’s seen it, she won’t help herself to a magazine and put it in the trolley, she’s just relaxed and happy and like her normal self, minus the demands. Her normal at home is to be given things constantly. And when her parents occasionally try to take a stand, she flips out and forces them to renege. It works for her, every time. It’s an impulse now. That’s what the psychologist focused on, not my niece, who is a NT, successfully, developmentally normal, intelligent little girl.

You’re really not getting it. But it’s it for you to get, I suppose. Because you don’t actually know anything.

The very same. Do you know better than her?

I’m only going off what you’re saying. She does not sound like an average, happy kid and that’s what should be the focus: helping him. Not what a brat she is. On the internet.

*helping her

See, you’re still calling her names. You’re calling her a brat now.

So that psychologist did not say ‘she’s just a spoiled brat with no issues’.

I’m just saying that her occasionally poor behaviour is as a direct result of her parent’s drippy approach to parenting. Nothing else

If that was all you'd said, you wouldn't be replying to a number of posts/posters about what you actually said about your 8 year old niece.

No. At no point have I said she’s a brat. And you know that - I’m paraphrasing what you, a member of her family, said about her.

Ugh. I actually spent time writing out what the psychologist said and explaining it for you. Admittedly it came to me third hand, via my mother, but she’s clinical herself so it wasn’t misunderstood. But then my phone died.

But there’s no point bothering. You’ve diagnosed my niece with….something. What? No idea. Something that the clinical child psychologist (I know, I know, but her parents have a lot of money and apparently, not a lot of sense) did not diagnose her with during the many, many sessions. She concluded my niece was NT and essentially well in every way, had just learned to behave a certain way due to the way her parents reacted.

I’ve been accused of hating my niece, calling her names, slagging her off on the internet, but I guess that’s just Mumsnet. And I became embroiled. And it’s not even my thread.

I haven’t diagnosed her with anything. I’m saying it’s not as simple as ‘she’s spoiled rotten’, because it never is.