To ask DW to share the load

[BarchesterTowels]

My wife is profoundly deaf. She is also an unusually deep sleeper (it takes vigorous shaking to rouse her). This combination means that she is never, and I mean never, woken by a crying baby. Since our youngest DC stopped breast feeding and moved to her own room, I have done every night feed, every overnight nappy change, dealt with every unexpected waking and every early morning. Part of me thinks that my DW has done plenty already and this is only what I ought to be doing. But frankly I'm knackered. And I also know that if I kicked DW out of bed at 5.45 (when DD wakes up every morning) even once a week she'd need a nap later in the day to make up for the early start (she needs more sleep than me).

Really don't know what to do! WIBU to ask my wife to share the nighttime workload if waking up is more of a struggle for her than for me?

@Lookingatthesunset

and of course you are right!!

if a 17 month old was waking in the night, every night I'd be seriously looking to sort that out. Some will, but it's not a given

@BernadetteRostankowskiWolowitz

his wife is deaf, and that's sad - all the things she'll not hear, but presumably she was deaf when they chose to have a baby. Her deafness is not a reason not to fully share parenting their child.

But we are talking about one element. Night wakes. Of a toddler who js no longer breastfeeding. For all we know, the wife does all the daytime duties every single day. We don't know. I get that doing all the night wakes js hard. She will have done it every 2/3 hours for 6 mo ths solid and breastfed.

Realistically, how much of an actual chore should a 17mo non breastef baby's night waking be?

Presumably the OP Knew that as he was having a baby with a woman who is deaf, that part of that would be that his wife wouldn't hear the baby wake overnight?

God it sounds miserable.

Yes you absolutely need to night wean and sleep train. Like starting tomorrow!

And 5.45! You need to change the bedtime/ nap schedule or something.

For an idea of schedules I have a 15 month old. He gets up about 7.30. Has breakfast, 8oz milk, then short nap about 9.30 to 10.15ish. Then lunch about 11.30-12ish. Then afternoon nap about 1-3. Then dinner about 5.30. 8oz Milk about 6.30ish. Bedtime routine starts with a bath at 7.30. In bed for 8 and asleep in 10-15 mins of reading bedside stories. Then sleeps through, he wakes between sleep cycles but resettles himself (has a pulsing red light, dummy, Shaun the sheep white noise and a comforter teddy) no feeds, no nappy change (we use pampers baby dry for the nights as only brand we have no leaks with).

He does occasionally wake if he has a false start or a nightmare. That’s probably about once a week on average max one wake a night (11.30 or 2 seem to be the danger points).

And obviously we can get a bad batch if he’s teething or ill.

Obviously the above doesn’t solve the wife issue but if you fix the root causes it’s the same result. More sleep!

Goodluck!