Husband unhappy with me putting DD to sleep

[teomama]

DD (11 months) is a bit of a troublesome sleeper and we had a sleep trainer over for her. She recommended leaving her to cry it out for certain periods of time and then pick her up and reassure her. Tonight my OH was putting her to bed and timing the slots. She was screaming hysterically, so I went in, gave her a cuddle and let her have a little milk. She went down in about 5 mins.

My husband is mad at me. He said we paid lots of money for the sleep trainer, and said I am undermining him as a father, and not letting him follow through with the sleep training. He threatened he'd not get up at night and soothe her because it's my fault I don't let her cry and rush in.

That's not true though - but sometimes she gets to a point where she can't calm down by herself and I need to intervene. I refused to listen to him and now we're not speaking. AIBU?

Sleep consulting is not a regulated profession like midwifery and obstetrics. Anyone can call themselves a sleep trainer and do it without any formal training or professional experience.

Just to clarify I didn’t rush in. I went in after the baby had cried for about 20 mins. Just couldn’t bear it.
I don’t think it’s undermining - we adapt our approaches. If something is terribly inconvenient for both mum and baby, I won’t tiptoe around it

YABU in letting your baby cry. Crying is communication and you are ignoring that need.

I don't think going in was wrong, I think the undermining part was going in when it was dad's night to put her to bed. Could you talk him through what to do next time so he is learning how to comfort her? If you are the person to always comfort her you will be left doing it all the time

Your instincts kicked in because sleep training is cruel if the child becomes very distressed. Your husband isn’t the mother of the chikd and so maybe doesn’t have the same visceral reaction. Leaving babies to cry is extremely damaging.

I can see why your husband felt undermined. On the other hand, I could never leave my baby to cry.

At 11mo my husband couldn't get our baby to sleep. DC would just cry hysterically until almost sick. We gave up trying and tried again when DC was 18mo.

DC now sleeps really really well for him. He's better at settling DC in the night than I am now. I really think DC just wasn't ready for it at 11mo.

DD1s terrible sleeping, the fact that nothing worked and we got fuck all sleep for 6 years was the main cause of our relationship breakdown. There were other factors (he had an affair) but the draining, horrendous lack of sleep, constant bickering between us about sleep and competitive tiredness was the underlying issue. God knows how DS was conceived because it drained every ounce of energy and joy out of me for years.

If you value your relationship don't let this come between you.

So you were given advice, you chose to ignore it and muscled in when it was your husband’s turn to do bedtime. Rod. Own. Back (will let you fill in the blanks). No wonder he is pissed off.

That’ll be because men don’t have maternal instincts, perhaps ?