Am I being uptight?

[MyPurpleHeart]

Would like a bit of perspective please

I'm currently in another country with the in laws for Xmas. We come here from Xmas Eve to the 2nd Jan. DH only gets to come over a few times a year so we stay the whole way through

The family is massive, 20 adults and only 3 kids, and we have DD 19 months. They are night time people, they will sleep in till around 2pm and then nap in the afternoons and literally stay up all night drinking, playing games and chatting. This morning as I was taking DD down for breakfast DH passed us going up to bed at 8am

I have always struggled with these late nights, every once in a while I can do but consistently late nights kills me. Before we had DD I did my best but would come home exhausted.

My problem is, DD is a standard 19 month old. Up at 7, lunchtime nap, bed at 7. I pushed this out a few hours xmas eve and xmas day but paid for it yesterday as she was a nightmare. So it means that we hardly see the family, and DH much to my frustration. I'm in another country with none of our home comforts, trying to entertain a bored toddler as best I can with absolutely no help. There's feck all to do round here so I'm driving for hours to take her out for walks and lunches to fill the day.

The family also don't seem to understand her bedtime, and whilst they are lovely people, they make comments every night that she's going to bed too early and I have to defend my position. I also get the same comments when I go to bed before them because I'm shattered from looking after DD all day

I work full time in a very stressful job and looked forward to a Xmas break. It doesn't feel like much of a break and I just want to go home so we can at least potter about the house and watch movies without tiptoeing around trying not to wake up adults sleeping the day away.

Am I being uptight about the whole thing? I honestly feel like the fucking nanny to my own child

I’d also just leave. With my child. This isn’t ok. You and your child are just an inconvenience to your husband. He’s not wishing to spend any time with either of you.

don’t go next year.

You sound like a pushover.

I'd have handed DD over to him when you passed him on the stairs and gone out for the day.

What a knob! So he hardly sees her most of the year and now you've both used most of your annual leave for him to not bother with her and you to skivvy around like the nanny. What a shite Christmas for you and your daughter! Definitely the last time I'd be bothering.

My in laws stay up much later than I do - or my parents. But not all night. And my husband does what he likes but he still gets up with the kids (or we take turns or whatever). Getting up for the day at 5pm is nonsense. There's no way you'd be able to reverse your child's schedule and it doesn't sound like you'd be welcome to hang out with his family even if you did. I'm super confused as to what any of them are expecting of you here and I'd have left days ago.

Go home. And think about if this is a pattern that you're happy to be a part of forever or if you'd be happier with someone who actually spent time with you and your child. If your husband is usually lovely but particularly not when around his family that's one problem, but if this is what he's like all year then you have a bigger problem.

You are definitely not overreacting Op , I would go home too.
Out of interest, how do the adults get back on schedule for work after going to bed at ridiculous times, do the work nights?

I think you need to be clear to DH that things need to change now you have DD. Christmas at home and if you make the trip then it’s just for a couple of days,

Christmas if no longer about getting drunk with his family, he’s a father now, so it’s about his new family and should be centred around DD for at least the next few years.

Do you have a toddler though?

If they’re sleeping in till 2pm or 5pm and having naps on top I don’t think they necessarily need drugs to stay awake!

OP I hope you’re home now and I hope your DH came with you, otherwise I’d be making plans to leave him. What a selfish twat.

OP I hope you did fly home with or without the husband and I hope that’s the last time you spend Christmas with his family
What has annoyed me is your husband normally works away Monday to Friday and then over Christmas whilst on annual leave he has made no effort to be with his child or you I would be reevaluating the relationship at this point tbh wishing you all the best for 2025 OP

This sounds really hard, it is worth it getting a bedtime routine sorted and kids on the whole especially at that age don’t often cope well with late nights and out of their routine. You can do one offs but you pay for it the next day.

This sounds more an adult Christmas get together not a family one. Different cultures plays a part as maybe their culture children are used to a more varied routine, but ours especially when both parents work FT in stressful jobs settled children in routines really pays off. I know you have to balance fun, play and not always having structure, but a week of very late nights and sleeping in the day kids won’t adapt that quickly - and nor would I!

difficult one, but I think if you go again with young children can you stay in a nearby hotel? Thing is I can’t see how your husband could leave early or his family swap routines.

maybe visit another time of the year for the next couple of years?

Hope you came home with your daughter @MyPurpleHeart

Your DH has form for this and assured you it would be different this year and yet he's reverted back to their nocturnal ways already. I'd let him know how bloody cross I was!
He's extremely selfish to leave all the parenting to you and it's bloody sad that your in-laws are missing a lovely opportunity to spend time with their grandchild. Leave them all to it and don't rush to go back there again!

The thing is, you knew what the family was like as you say that they have been like this in the past. You also say there are loads of adults and very few children. It's unfair to expect them to completely change the way they obviously like to do things just to accommodate your toddler.

Having said that, I wouldn't be going again until she is a lot older.

I just don't see why adjusting DD's routine for the holiday is such a red line.

Every child is different. My younger two would have coped with a change of routine at that age. My oldest absolutely would not, we learned the hard way not to mess with his routine as he was just unbearable.

Awful treatment of you and DD by your H, especially given that he’s behaved like this before,m, you work full time and do all weekday parenting while he works away.

I do hope you went home early and aren't still there

100% this

My son and I are night owls but it's easy enough to revert back to a normal daytime routine when you have to.

In 12 years I've never known any of them to go to bed before 12pm, ever!

If I'm in bed before 12p.m it's because I'm ill. Even in normal working , not on holiday time, bed time is between 1 -2 a.m

I’d go home and tell DH that it’s the last time I was going to visit his family when he can’t keep to his word. Juvenile man child.

This is ridiculous. I have friends from a very large family like the one you describe; absolutely lovely people also but no concept of moderation. They love socialising together and are creatures of the night. They are heavy drinkers and also drug users.

I love them, from afar, a few times a year and always make my excuses and leave at a reasonable time.

As the years then decades progressed cracks have appeared with the spouses and family units. I'm not surprised. That sort of behaviour is just not compatible with family life.

Your husband needs to grow up. He's a father and husband now. He needs to make a choice; you and DC to be his family or his siblings. Getting up while he's going to bed is outrageous.

I would quietly get myself organised to get home. Let him know the two of you will be sitting down to discuss if you're going to spend 2025 together after he's back. Then go. You can't live like this and raise your DC to think that's how a father behaves. You are single parenting within a relationship.

The fact that he works away the majority of the week and can’t even push himself to spend his xmas
holidays with you speaks volumes. To me, you’d be better off not being with him at all.

As the old MN saying goes, you have a husband problem. Hes treating you like a nanny to your own child. Yes its his family you’re visiting but you’re allowed some downtime too.

Your husband is an absolute waste of space.

Who's looking after the other kids in the family during the day? Or are they up all night/sleeping all day too?
I would be livid if my husband did this, especially given that he works away most of the time anyway.

@MyPurpleHeart we used to visit my in-laws abroad and there was a couple of hours time difference with uk so instead of dc going to bed at 1930 uk time I'd put them to bed 2130 (abroad time). I still got moaned at for going to bed early etc but it made it easier.

It's not a 'change in routine' though, is it?
It's expecting to turn the day upside down - up all night and sleep all day.

5pm to get up?! When he has a child? So everything falls to you, how lovely.
Clearly the family have no interest in seeing your child either.
I'd go home too.