AIBU about how DH handled our toddler at 2am

[Reignop]

I’m very tired so apologies if this doesn’t come out very clearly. Just wanted a bit of perspective really because I’m not sure if I’m overreacting or if it actually was a bit off.

We have a 3 year old who has never slept brilliantly (up early, random night wakes etc) and also 4 month old twins. As you can imagine nights are not exactly peaceful here at the moment. Last night had already been a bit rough with the twins waking twice and I had only just got back into bed when our toddler started crying around 2am. With him it tends to escalate quite quickly if you don’t go in fairly soon, he gets himself into a proper state. I was getting up but DH went in first. I could hear him from our room and he sounded really annoyed, saying things like “for gods sake just go to sleep” quite loudly. Then toddler just completely lost it, proper hysterical screaming not just crying. When I went in he was standing up in the cot looking really upset and DH looked furious tbh. I picked toddler up and he clung to me and was shaking a bit which didn’t feel nice to see. DH then started saying this is ridiculous and that we can’t keep rushing in every night and we’re making a rod for our own backs etc. I said maybe this conversation can happen in the morning and he just sort of huffed and left. It then took me ages to calm toddler down and get him back to sleep, nearly an hour, and during that one of the twins woke again so by the time everything was sorted it was after 3 and I was basically done in.

This morning DH is acting like nothing really happened and says he was just tired and frustrated and that toddlers do need to learn sometimes. I do get that everyone is exhausted but our toddler looked genuinely scared and it’s stuck with me a bit this morning. AIBU to think the way he handled it wasn’t ok even if it was 2am and we’re all shattered. Or am I just over tired and making more of it than it is.

I've been your OH and I've been you in that scenario at different times. People are exhausted. Being woken from sleep is so difficult. Sometimes I can react calmly, sometimes I can't. It's so hard. And it's not sustainable. Don't blame each other. Agree on a plan going forward and stick to it.

You're all shattered. On my worst nights with babies and toddlers I used to wish a burglar would break in and kill me! Sleep deprivation is torture and it's important that you try and stick together. Me and DH used to try and split the nights so we'd get some sense of sleep. He'd be on duty 8pm-1am and I'd be on duty 1am-6am. It was a shit few years with sleep, but it does end eventually!

I’m not sure having to share a room with children and saying goodbye to any hope of some privacy alone with my partner for several years would make me less irritable. If it worked for you, great, but if it were me, personally I’d rather maintain at least some semblance of my own space and an adult life. Just because something was right for you, that doesn’t mean it’s right for everyone.

I’m delighted your kids have grown up into happy and functioning adults, but bear in mind that most people who didn’t sleep in a ‘dorm room’ arrangement with their parents also grow up into happy and functioning adults.

We as adults sleep with another adult but expect our babies to sleep alone and not need that connection!!!!

Adults generally sleep together because they want to (or feel obliged to because it’s a convention) not because they need to. Plenty of adults would much rather sleep alone, and millions of adults do.

Of course if you want to share a bed with your kids that’s up to you and totally fine. But adults sharing a bed has nothing to do with it.

Yes when dh is being a cling on and sweaty I’d definitely love my own bed 🤣

I swear he never grew up from being a toddler. He needs touch constantly like a toddler octopus.

Huge mistake letting a child play in the middle of the night! Every time he wakes he instantly thinks of playing. It will take time to change this. A lot of comfort but never leave their bedroom, he’ll soon work out that there’s nothing to stay awake for (no playing, no milk etc..) and will naturally drop-off back to sleep.

If you’re better at dealing with it then just tell your DH going forward to let you deal with it. I was always better with less sleep than DP was, so I just dealt with that stuff unless it was a massive sick situation and then he’d get up to help me bathe DC and sort the bed.

Unnecessarily sarcastic.

@JayJayj
Wanting and needing a nights sleep does not mean you don’t love your kids or is strange.
You are allowed to be a person in your own right not everything has to be sacrificed for your kids.
My 4 were and are very loved, secure happy ppl, not co sleeping or having me at their side 24/7 has not harmed them.
Your comment is strange.

You are definitely not unreasonable! Yeah, he's tired but that doesn't make growling at a 3 year old for waking up reasonable behavior, it just makes the situation worse as evidenced by how upset he made your child. He needs to calm himself first, before going in because otherwise he's making the situation worse, he'd be better to stay out instead of going in angrily.
I agree with the suggestion of taking shifts in the night so that you each have protected time to sleep.

I think the above sounds sensible.
I was struck by your DH's comment

" toddlers do need to learn sometimes. " and just thought and so do Fathers!! Because all he did was go in and make the situation so much worse and left you with even more work. It is at that point that many mothers just sigh heavily and take over themselves, no matter how tired they are - but its not good enough.

He needs parenting classes if he's going to react to crying children by making them cry harder and then lecture you like that as if he'd managed it perfectly well and in fact had taught your poor toddler a lesson. That's the sort of BS I would have expected to hear from my inept PILs (Queen Victoria called and wants her parenting techniques back)

I would have been furious hearing him say that in all great wisdom.. as though he had just solved one of the great parenting mysteries and dealt perfectly with the situation.

I thought you coped very well by saying discuss this in the morning.

There is zero point in getting angry with crying children, the fact that your son went from crying to hysterical to shaking and clinging to you - illustrates that perfectly. So no. Your DH does not have a handle on this. However tired and frustrated he was. all he did was make it worse and leave it for you to sort out.

Did he think you were not also exhausted. It's like he's saying he has the true parenting know how that you have failed to administer. The cheek of it!

Don't let him use this as an example of how only you can deal with nightime crying emergencies. He has to wake up and learn to do better!

I think you’re being a bit unreasonable, but I get it, as it all sounds very hard at the moment.
💐

Totally agree.

i would be upset with my husband too. Bodies can’t sleep in heightened emotional states (too excited, too scared, too angry, too sad). You need neutral calm to go back to sleep. An angry dad is not that

We’ve all done it, unfortunately

No we haven’t and I have 3 small children aged 5 and under. DC1 didn’t sleep through the night til 15 months old. I don’t get angry with kids in the middle of the night when they need me and are sad.

Why is 3yo in a cot? Can he go in a bed and one of you climbs in with him if he wakes up!

We had three under three like op and both me and partner got angry on more than one occasion through the night.

Ludicrous to think you wouldn't, it was crazy times!

I am sure no mother has ever done this, ignoring all the times I have seen it on here and I know men are meant to be programmed to be perfect and women are able to blame PND or hormiones or ''doing it all'' and a million other excuses if they even think about raising their their voice

it happens and if parents let the children keep on endlessly waking in them in the night it will keep on happening till someone does something

personally I dont blame him and shock horror I am a mother

Aw, thinking of you as I lie here with our 2 year old ill toddler who's been up for hours and a husband who had a wail of a time at Cheltenham so is not worth waking for help right now.

I think you're overthinking it due to sheer exhaustion... I feel pretty close to just screaming right now! However, I understand why you feel like that, you must be amazingly patient and genuine respect goes out to you.

Keep going, you're a team.

Sleep deprivation will turn the most reasonable person into an angry mess, i think ive said far worse in the depths of the trenches!

Why did you have you children so close together. Even without twins..Surely you would have realised that there would be nights to Ike this.

I would be angry as well! Can’t even imagine how tough things must be for you atm. That sort of behaviour from DH is not helping; he should learn to control anger at 2am, especially if you, who recently gave birth to twins, manages it

I’m surprised you think this is a small age gap. Even if the toddler has only just turned 3, that’s still 32 months between him and his younger siblings.

OP, I hope that you and DH have cleared the air now. You’re obviously exhausted and it’ll be much easier if you’re feeling supported by each other.

i vividly remember my DH raising his voice at our then 18 month old to tell her to shut up. I made it clear how i didn’t think that was appropriate and that he should try to hold his temper better. And then we moved on. DD turned out to be a daddy’s girl and is a very well adjusted teen now.

is there any way you can get a little bit of a break. Perhaps go together to stay with family and ask them to do the night waking while you and DH get a solid night?

Sorry, the OP didnt have an issue during the night. Her husband did.

What a ridiculous comment.

Your husband is finally understanding what it is like to be sleep deprived. Unfotrunately it tends to take for baby number 2 (or 2 and 3 in your case) for dads to understand & have to get involved with night wakings. If you only have 1 kid then mum usually does the lion’s share of the night wakes. My hubbie was the same, all of a sudden in uproar about being woken up at night a sleep deprived once our youngest was born. Not realising that I had been doin all that and more for 3 years already with our eldest.

its not the end of the world but he is going to have to man up and get on with it, get a double bed on the floor in your toddlers room so that your hubbie can go and camp out and give your toddler cuddles, and go back to sleep at the same time. Having to constantly go in and resettle is exhausting. We’ve got floor beds setup in all of our rooms for this exact reason. When the kids need us we just go in and that’s it. It’s far less exhausting and everyone gets the rest they need..

you’ll get through it, you’re in the trenches at the moment but you’ll get there. And being there for all of your kids at night is key. And hubbie really does need to pull his weight and start getting used to what it is to be knackered at lot of the time. Good luck to you