AIBU to want to sleep train my 14m son when DH doesn't want to discuss it?

[Greywarden]

DH and I have one DC together - DS, now 14 months.

There was a time when DS used to settle himself to sleep in his cot most nights and then stay asleep until morning. Obviously we were amazingly lucky and chuffed. However, things changed completely when DS was about 10 months old. This was very much my fault - we took him on holiday and I didn't do a good enough job of recreating his usual bedtime routines. Since then DS hasn't slept through the night at all. DS will now:

• only fall asleep if cuddled up to me or DH. He will typically wake up crying when we try to detach ourselves from him and leave the room. He will not settle if left alone to get to sleep.
• wake up several times in the night, each time again only settling if he can fall asleep cuddled up to me or DH. This process can be quick if we're lucky but can also take hours before he can be left alone again.

I am doing 95% of bedtimes and 95% of the night wakings. I will admit that I do often give up and just end up spending the night cosleeping with DS on a mattress on the floor of his room after the first or second waking because I'm too exhausted to keep sooting him back to sleep and getting him back into his cot bed each time. I also do DS's morning routine / breakfast / getting him ready for nursery most days, with DH typically joining me to help out when I've already been up with DS for an hour or two by myself.

We both work full time in fairly stressful jobs. I feel on my knees from tiredness, yet DH constantly says he is exhausted despite getting way, way more sleep than I do. We have little sex life at the moment. I don't feel connected to DH because we are spending so much of each night apart. I'm pretty down. I love my DS and love cuddling up to him; I also don't mind doing most of the night stuff as I'm a fair bit younger than DH and know I do have more energy than him. Nonetheless, I would strongly prefer the current situation not to continue.

To the crux of the matter: I have told DH that I want to sleep train DS. I realised this would be controversial and I do appreciate that there are a lot of passionate opponents of sleep training. I'd done a fair bit of reading on different methods and arguments for and against and asked DH to take a look for himself to see if he's on board (I came to him with existing reading suggestions but also proposed he research it himself so that he doesn't worry that I'm giving him biased material, which was his initial concern).

DH totally shut down. Refused to read anything. Said it was cruel to sleep-train and wasn't going to happen to his DS. Was genuinely really upset about it and explained that it hurts him too much to let DS cry. Insinuated I clearly don't love DS enough and proceeded to take himself off to DS's room that night and sleep there with him. Refused to talk or come out once DS was asleep. The vibe was 'well if you won't look after him in the night anymore, I will.'

In the morning DH was shattered. He hasn't offered to have DS at night since, although ended up responding to DS's wakings before I did on one occasion when I was too slow to get up. The status quo has just continued as it was.

AIBU to think that my DH has been unfair to me and that we should sleep train our DS, or at least be able to have a detailed discussion about it without DH shutting me down? I know this might sound awful but I feel that if I'm the one primarily facing the consequences of DS not being able to settle himself, the decision on whether to sleep train should ultimately fall to me. But of course DH is important as the dad and I appreciate he feels strongly about it. Maybe I am being the unreasonable one here - I worry that I can't see the wood from the trees anymore and am being unfair. I also appreciate that I might be unreasonable automatically for wanting to sleep train at all, in which case I'd be grateful for stories of how other people have co-slept with their kids / helped them to get more independent at night without ruining their sanity and marriages!

YABU - DH is right not to agree to discuss sleep training further (either because sleep training is wrong in itself or because it is his right as the father to refuse to discuss the issue if he is strongly against it).

YANBU - DH should agree to discuss sleep training further or should leave the decision to you.

I agree!
Do you have a spare room
where DH could sleep?
sorry but your DS he is a little baby and his needs are greater, he should be the priority

He needs to do half of the nights as a bare minimum. With no argument or complaint.

He absolutely cannot rule out all options except for you doing all the nights, single handed in the most difficult an labour intensive way possible, ie by banning both co sleeping and any kind of sleep training.

Never discussed with DH and just did it at 7 months, was literally dying from waking up every 2-3 hours since DD was born. Did gentle CC and since then DD is brilliant at sleeping. She is now 2 and just goes in her room awake, put herself asleep and even if she wakes, she will put herself back to sleep. In the morning she waits in bed for me to get her when Im up and ready.

If he doesn't want to sleep train then he does all nights, it's one or the other.

Your health will be impacted if this continues. It also makes driving exceptionally dangerous. I gently sleep trained mine around 8/9 months. They were fine and are now fully functional late and about to be a teen.

People freak out about sleep training as if it's the same as dumping your baby in the woods for the wolves to find.

You can do gentle controlled crying, where you return to reassure them every 2 mins, then every five mins, and so on. It worked for our non-sleeping 8 month old, and she became a much happier person once she was getting more sleep (and my husband and I became much better parents once we weren't quite so shattered). So worth doing a cost-benefit analysis there!

i am against sleep training, but realise you don’t want opinions on this.

You say co sleeping doesn’t work, but have you looked into different ways of doing it? There’s a thread called uk co sleepers with lots of good advice.

Echo comments about more gentle approaches as well. Your husband might be more agreeable to this once he has calmed down. Not wanting to hear your child cry is a normal biological response so I can see his discomfort.

Providing an update for anyone who might be interested...

First, thank you everyone for the thoughts and advice. There were some contrasting perspectives both on the sleep training debate and on how I could move forwards - I found it really useful to have so many different ways of looking at the situation.

DH and I had a conversation. I came to better understand his reasons to oppose sleep training. He came to better understand why I'm struggling so much.

We decided not to sleep train and to continue not having DS in our bed with us but to make some changes to how we divide the load of supporting him through the night. DH has been doing a lot more than he used to: both bedtimes and also responsiveness to night time wakes. Between us we have started to be more consistent about settling DS then leaving the room, and by working together, there are fewer occasions when one or the other of us 'gives up' and just sleeps next to him. This seems to have been a gentle way of getting DS more used to sleeping alone. He still needs a cuddle to get him off to sleep but will often go on to settle himself at other times in the night when he wakes. This means that DH and I get more time the two of us in the evenings and spend more nights with each other in our own bed. Mornings are still usually handled by me but DH is taking more turns and also tends to take over at some point in the morning to give me more time to get ready for work (which is amazing as I can look a bit more put together and feel a bit less stressed going into work). I have more energy and optimism. DH is being more proactive so I no longer feel like i'm having to guiltily ask him for things if I'm struggling / like he's doing me a favour by doing more with DS - DH has been clear with me that he doesn't want me to thank him for doing things as though childcare should default me on me.

Early days but this has been so good for our marriage and I hope for DS too. I'm no longer resentful and knackered. He is no longer anxious that I will 'snap' and demand sleep training, which he remains really against. Although I continue to think sleep training is probably fine if done right, I must admit that I'm glad not to have 'had' to do it.

DH has just taken DS out this morning so that I'm free to do my hair and get dressed up for a day out with friends, so I'm feeling especially on cloud nine right now. This is also the sort of thing he used to never do but I didn't even suggest it - he insisted.

Thank you everyone who helped us get this far. Turns out clear honest open communication sometimes is the answer over desperate exhaustion-fuelled dictates (I appreciate that for many people this approach doesn't work though - it depends on both people in the couple playing ball... and probably also takes a bit of luck in terms of where DC is at too).

Lovely update OP. I am really glad the open and respectful of each other communication worked for both of you. Best wishes on your parenting journey.

That's brilliant news. Coming to a solution together is always the best choice.

Lovely to hear the situation is resolved.

My oldest son was a poor sleeper and his bedtime was difficult. We did sleep training with our second son and it was a doddle. I think that him knowing we were confident about what happened at bed time really gave him reassurance. The word “training” makes it sound as if it takes a long time but for us it was only about 3 days.