AIBU to say he's doing the nights from now on?

[Bigbluemoon]

We have a 2 year old who is a pretty notoriously bad sleeper. Just turned two and goes through some periods of really decent sleep but any slight change in health or development and shes awake hourly or even more than that. I do 99% of the nights, during periods of intensely bad sleep I will ask my husband to do one night per week and I will sleep on the couch as I wake at the slightest noise now and I can't rest if im upstairs - i can usually hear her downstairs tbh.

When shes really bad, I prefer to sleep upstairs alone. Husband is a bad sleeper and has depression, so knowing that the baby has woken him makes my nights harder and I jump up at any slight noise she makes so she doesn't wake him too - this means she can't do any self settling and it means im hyper aware of 2 people's sleep needs rather than one. Sometimes if he wakes up, he's then up for more than an hour on his phone trying to get back to sleep, which keeps me up.

Tonight shes been up hourly and at 4.30 I kind of cried out quietly 'for God's saaaaake' before going into her. When I came back he said go downstairs and offered to take over. I snapped at him to shut up out of frustration because he's snored next to me all night and he's offering to taje over when im up at 5.30 which is useless - good intentions but I was just annoyed.

Hes now calling me verbally abusive. I'm not saying snapping at him is okay but I expect a bit of fucking grace when im exhausted.

WIBU to say he can do the next week or even month of wakes? He did last night and she only woke twice for him and the last time he did a night was at the beginning of August, and even that was only half a night after I cracked and asked for help.

calling you verbally abusive was extreme. Is that normal?

No, its reapply upset me. I dont think im verbally abusive and I dont think snapping when exhausted is the same as doing it when youre playing with a full deck of cards so to speak. For me, what you say when youre tired basically doesn't count. Hes said the same to me before and so have I, and we've both just apolosednin the morning

Forget what has been said in frustration and make a realistic plan for sharing the nights.

You Definitely need to sit down and talk to your husband to work out a routine so it is fair. You need at least one full night sleep a week!
Me and my husband have an almost 3 year old and an 8 week old baby. 3 year old did have regressions up until he was 2.5 but I dealt with those nights mostly, but if I was struggling I did kick him out of bed and didn’t feel bad! You both need to see it as it’s his baby just as much as yours so he should step up and do at least one night a week regardless of his mental state, he can catch up with sleep the next night (this is coming from myself who also suffers with severe anxiety and panic disorder where lack of sleep makes me worse but you just have to grin and bear it and just crack on).
But when my son was a baby, and with our new baby now my husband would always do night duty Fridays and Saturdays with the very rare occasion me doing the weekend if he was away with work or out for the evening with friends. Could this maybe be something youse could do? Or make sure he does a night where he doesn’t have work the next day. Try to find a routine that works for you both, but he has to step in!
I would also maybe recommend showing your husband the responses you get because most of us will say the same that he needs to step up. Maybe him reading the comments might make him realise a little bit x

He can cope with one night a week. We both work full time but im pulling 24 hour shifts sometimes. I want him to see it he snaps out a shut up after a week or god forbid a month of no sleep. I did it with severe PPD and 0 help.

Its not uncommon for me to turn up at the office having not been to bed. Hes never ever done that

Fighting with each other isn't going to help, you could take turns doing a night each so you both get some rest, or do shifts where one is responsible for the first half of the night and the other responds the second half. I know it's exhausting, none of my children slept through before about 3, but it's still not on to tell him to shut up when he offered to help you.

You can't keep doing that. He needs to step up.

So you snapped at him, and presumably apologised.
That doesn’t explain why both of you see dealing with DD as your job, when you both work. It’s ridiculous that sometimes you are getting literally no sleep at all, whilst he is behaving like a teenager. I want to ask him, how he thinks playing on his phone is going to help him get back to sleep? He’s playing you, and his selfishness is extreme.
But it works for him, clearly. He pleads depression, and you get to tiptoe around him.

Take back control. As you suggest, let him deal with DD for a week, while you sleep. After that , you take it in turns, night on/ night off. Stop tiptoeing around him. And consider sleep training.
It might be worth you spending a couple of nights in a hotel/ with friends or family so that you do actually catch up on some sleep. Also, you might find co-sleeping works better for you,at least you don’t have to keep getting up then.

Even when I've expressly asked him not to speak to.me during the night to avoid situations like this? Its not ideal and I never want to speak to him poorly, but when its 4.30 and I've not yet had any sleep and im up in an hour and he's been snoring all night and he offers help when I have less than an hour before I get up.for work, i feel thats incredibly frustrating. I also dont think snapping is the same thing as being verbally abusive and that a sleep deprived person who is shouldering the burden so you can rest should get some slack

I can't believe he's let you shoulder the burden of this for the last 2 years! Who lets their partner go without sleep on a regular basis. Why does him being a bad sleeper and his depression trump your need for sleep? He is being incredibly selfish and now he has the cheek to call you abusive. Damn right he can do some nights!

That sounds like hell. No wonder you are snapping at each other.
A husband with depression is hard anyway and sleepless nights on top is bound to try anyone's patience.

What sleep training have you tried for your child? Have you spoken to a health visitor about it? (Do they still have those?). You"ve probably tried everything but it's worth persevering because at 2 their brains are developing in overdrive and there might be new strategies you can now use.
For her sake as well as yours she needs to learn how to sleep through.

You know already that going to her every time she wakes is going to have to stop - so perhaps a few nights of daddy being blank faced and less responsive will be just what she needs.

Sounds like you need to apologise to each other and move on. Telling him to shut up was rude, and he’s over reacting to it. Have a proper discussion about how nights can be fairer.

Well he’s going to have to cope with more than that. You can’t carry on doing it all by yourself. Work out a plan with him to share it properly, you’re both working full time and it’s not fair on you if he doesn’t share. Either do alternate nights or half of each night each.

The phone thing drives me berserk, it is so counterproductive that it makes me want to scream.

He offers to help a lot, but he is in an absolute state if she has a bad night and it can ruin our weekend as he will go to bed until noon, hence why I dont bother taking him up on it. I just want him to understand the compounded effect of night after night of no sleep

Co sleeping is weirdly worse for her, you know! She gets distracted by everything in our bed and just gets overexcited. As I say, she has demonstrated recently that she can absolutely sleep well but shes very sensitive - a mild cold, teething and developmental changes disrupt her sleep for weeks on end.

Just to pick up on a specific part of your OP, if your DH struggles to get back to sleep after being woken, going on his phone is the worst thing he can do. Tell him to google good sleep hygiene for some ideas of how to get back to sleep.

Apart from that, of course you're not being unreasonable to share the nights more fairly. You both work full time so why are you doing them all?

I know, its so frustrating and he refuses to listen to me

Ostensibly I do it because I can get back to sleep, whereas he can't. I also hate seeing him struggle the next day and I can usually do a week or 10 days of bad sleep before I start to unravel whereas 1 night of bad sleep destroys him.

I guess my main thing here is that yes, snapping at him.isnt ideal but im.picking up so much slack for him, id like.him to let this one fucking slide given the circumstances. I'd never do this during the day or.under normal circumstances - if someone is killing themselves to help you, surely snapping at them isnt verbal abuse and this huge deal

I usually apologise but tbh I haven't and I dont intend to.

IMO the snapping / verbal abuse comment aren't the main issue here. You were both tired and middle-of-the-night arguments don't count! The important thing to focus on is how to manage this going forwards and make it fairer.

This is how I feel! They dont count and I've never held any of his middle of the night behaviour against him!

We've been there @Bigbluemoon and there's a reason that sleep deprivation is used as a form of torture. It's brutal. Our kid is 7 now and sleep is much better although by no means perfect, but he will largely sleep through (albeit with a 5am start) 4-5 times a week.

The game changer for us at your stage was a minimum of a double bed in every room. The spare room/office was rejigged to fit a bed, and we moved DC from a toddler bed to a double. There are times that we still play musical beds (my husband is a terrible snorer!) but this is what gave everyone the best possible quality sleep and ultimately that was the main aim. DC went back to sleep much quicker if one of us got in with him and it was much easier for that parent to go back to sleep too.

Now at 7 if he wakes in the night (or stupidly early) in the morning he comes in to me and we go back to sleep again or if hes awake for the day, he will quietly watch something on his tablet whilst I doze

You will get people telling you she needs to learn to sleep independently, you're making a rod for your own back etc. IMO theres plenty of time for that. Expecting kids to sleep independently through the night from 6 months old is a relatively modern Western world concept which doesn't align with how other social mammals do things, and even other cultures around the world. For what it's worth, our co-sleeping 7 year old is perfectly happy and confident to go off on scout camps and sleep over at other people's houses without us and I'm pretty sure he won't still be sharing a bed with me when he's 12

Does he appreciate you dealing with the night wake ups six nights a week? Is he grateful that you sometimes go into work having had absolutely no sleep so that he gets the sleep he needs due to his depression?

Although telling him to shut up isn't ideal, you have cut him loads of slack and give him lots of support due to his depression so him calling you abusive for snapping once due to utter exhaustion is unfair.

You need to alternate nights andyou should spend a night or few away from home for him to get used to doing it without you stepping in.

You hate to see him struggle on next day but he doesn’t care/mind that you went week without proper sleep?
Selfishness of the highest order.
Him offering an hour before you had to get up was a poor lip service “but I offered and you snapped at me”

Come on OP. Depression or not these are also his kids and he should share the burden

What is waking up your DD? Has she got comfy bed? My toddler was waking up as he was thrashing around in his cot and kept bashing his hands/legs on the railings. Once we gave him a full single(with a bed guard and a good mattress) he started sleeping through.

As for your H- sit him down and do the rota. Why is he allowed to disappear at the weekend for half a day in bed while you’re on duty all the time? His tiredness doesn’t trump yours.

It’s not a competition who’s more tired. You both need some sleep.
Figure out where are you going to sleep when you have a chance so you’re not disturbed by the kids or him.

Sadly sometimes some men see the kids as the woman’s only responsibility.
If your H agrees to share the load but then sabotages your sleep(very common) then you have bigger problem.

Good luck 💐