Our son is now almost 14 months old and I returned to work just before his first birthday. Before I’d even had the baby and throughout my maternity leave my wife was adamant that I should do all the night time wake ups because she was working and because I’m breastfeeding. So I did that plus the childcare of our older children from previous relationships.
Initially this was okay, I was establishing breastfeeding and our son was a pretty good sleeper anyway. However, around nine months his sleep really went down the toilet with a minimum of three wake ups on a good night and waking up every 45 minutes on a bad one. Despite multiple pleas from me to have some help at night my wife has remained adamant that this was the price of being the one on maternity leave.
When I went back to work nothing changed. She half heartedly attempted to comfort him a couple of times but handed him back after just a few minutes while he ramped up. Now I am told that I’ve created a situation where only I can comfort him because I am still breastfeeding and am being pressured to wean. I think she’s created this situation by not helping at all for twelve months and barely even trying after that. Why would our son suddenly be okay with being comforted by his other mum when night after night for all his life it’s been me?
I don’t want to wean. Breastfeeding works for us and I don’t want to traumatise him by suddenly withdrawing the only thing he knows for getting to sleep. Especially when he’s still too young for any sort of gentle sleep training. When he was younger I pumped and stored milk in the freezer so she could bottle feed our son sometimes, but my wife tried to give him a bottle a handful of times and gave up when he got cross. He happily took a bottle at nursery during the day until he was better about eating solids and takes a bottle at night when my parents babysit. I no longer have a freezer stash but could try to build one if I thought she’d use it to help me out at night.
I’ve now been back at work for two months with a very welcome break over Christmas where my mother in law saw how wrung out I am and my wife was guilted into letting me nap in the day for a couple of afternoons. But there is still no night time help. She won’t even get up with him in the
morning when he just wants to be up and about and breastfeeding doesn’t even come into it. Part of me thinks maybe I should wean just to force her to step up and also see that stopping breastfeeding isn’t actually the magic bullet she thinks it is, but I don’t think that putting my son through that and ending a part of motherhood I love just for a petty “gotcha” is really the best idea.
My wife does help in many other ways, she does almost all of the laundry and the majority of the cleaning, but while that takes work off my plate it doesn’t get me more sleep at night. If I try to bring up the night time wake ups I just get reminded of everything she does and how I have it so much better than single mums or straight women and this may or may not be true but it’s sleep that I need right now. I can’t fix my sleep issues on my own, but I can wash my knickers and clean the loo. My mental health generally isn’t great and sleep deprivation isn’t helping. I just feel myself getting more and more angry and resentful, but also less rational because a lack of sleep isn’t great for anyone’s cognitive powers.
Am I being unreasonable? Should the one on maternity leave just suck it up and do the night shift? If I stop breastfeeding will my wife be better able to settle our son at night. Is the current situation actually my fault for persisting with breastfeeding beyond a year?