AIBU to be furious after hearing my husband swear at our baby?

[andreae23]

My baby is 10 months old and isn’t a good sleeper at all. My husband usually does a few resettles in the first few hours when he is up anyway and then I’ll take over and be up multiple times a night every single nihht, baby is breastfed too.

anyway my husband was in there with him this evening, I was still in the living room where he has the monitor, usually I am upstairs. Baby was a little unsettled going back over in his arms, not hysterical or anything but I heard my husband say ‘would you just shut the f*ck up.’ To him. I’m absolutely raging. Livid. I can’t even look at him I stormed up there and took our baby and told him to not come near us. I’m so mad and I think it’s really messed up to say that?? He said he was frustrated and it wasn’t in an aggressive tone and the baby doesn’t understand so he doesn’t see the issue. I’m boiling over with rage at home rn!!!!! Would you be mad?

It's not ideal, no. But how many of us are realistically ideal parents 24/7?

There's also a difference between rolling your eyes and saying it quietly in frustration and yelling it at the top of your voice.

There's also a difference between saying it on the odd occasion when tired/frustrated and it happening every day or multiple times a day/every time the baby cries.

There is a clear difference between a parent having the occasional human failing in a moment of frustration/exhaustion and a parent being abusive.

God sake 😂😂😂😂

If another adult screams in my ears for hours a day whilst i rock them to sleep, I'd probably swear at them too...

Because exploding the family unit and becoming a single parent is less damaging to the baby then it hearing an exasperated sleep deprived parent swearing. 🙄

Massive over reaction

i once screamed “ what the fuck do you want??!”

you will lose your cool one day and want grace

unless you think his is violent or aggressive give both a hug and reset

THIS. That poor baby…

It’s not so much the word, it’s the context. Most people who would say shut the f up mean it in an aggressive tone, when their patience has gone. Which is alarming for someone caring for a newborn

Definitely said this or similar to DD when she was a baby. We were just so tired, especially DH. I was more used to sleep deprivation as I grew up with my niece in the house, but he was 21, and was used to his 8 hours.

DD2 is our third child and we haven’t been as frustrated at her because we kind of knew exactly what we were up against, but we’ve both still gotten frustrated when she just won’t sleep at all.

Gently I do think you’re overreacting a little bit.

I dunno. I assume he works. I believe that’s why we get maternity leave to deal with the sleepless
nights and handle the sleep deprivation. I know from my non sleeper even if he wasn’t doing the feed he was woken and then had to go teach all day. I’m not defending him but I’m saying he’s impacted more than just the hours you leave him. At 10 months is there worth exploring other options? Is he breastfeeding for comfort as he shouldn’t be hungry overnight. Maybe a big weetabix your husband can give before bed to fill
his tummy to sleep longer

Gosh, some of these "holier than thou" responses are blowing my mind. OP - IMO,if you want to be a single parent, then carry on as you are. However, if you choose to parent with your husband, then you're going to have times where you don't like how he approaches something (and vice versa), and you need to respond calmly. They might be things that are unacceptable like your swearing example, or small things (small thing example - my DH reminds me to ask our eldest to clear her own bowl from the table instead of me doing it). Unacceptable thing example - my DH was once at the end of his tether with one of ours, and he shut the living room door behind him so she was on her own crying. I looked at him and said "you can't do that to her. Ever. It's not fair and she doesn't understand. Are you going to let her in now and talk to her, or do you need 5 minutes and I'll go get her now?" Not his finest moment of parenting, but he immediately went to get her, apologised to her and gave her a cuddle and then went off for 10 mins to sort his head out. We chatted about it later. He's an amazing dad who had a parenting fail. If I'd started screaming at him and rushed to grab my DD and told his he was never going to look after her on her own again... Errrr it wouldn't have exactly helped the situation!?! One of mine once headbutted me so hard when she was a baby and was screaming inconsolably at night and I definitely muttered "fuck off". I patiently and calmly dealt with her the WHOLE night, but if my DH had acted how you did, then I wouldn't really want to parent with him.

He’s not an exhausted sleep-deprived parent?

He doesn’t do night feeds or miss out on sleep. He does a bit in the evening to give OP a break and he was pissed off at missing the football.

OP is the sleep deprived one here so I can understand why she got so upset.

@andreae23 I agree with those suggesting that you must be exhausted and sleep deprived. I mean this kindly - your reaction sounds like the point where the situation became problematic. I'm not judging at all - I felt rage a lot when I was sleep deprived, and I projected it onto my husband at times. But my perspective is that your rage is the problem, not his swearing. You're the one who's (understandably) struggling and at the end of your tether.

The problem is that if you snatch the baby off him in rage, you'll embed the pattern where you have to do everything. You'll get more exhausted and resentful, he'll remain less experienced.

Lack of sleep ruined my life for a long time. Try sleep training of one type of another. And give your husband some grace. You're only 10months in and I think if you're parenting to the best of your ability you will some day be stretched past what you can bear, and do something you'll need his grace for too.

Yeah I’m in the camp of saying something like “go to fucking sleep” to my colicky non-sleeping new baby in the throes of sleep deprivation.

He’s a perfectly well-adjusted 25 year old physiotherapist now, with whom I have a very good relationship. So empirically, based on this n=1 case, the answer to your question would be “an excellent chance”. HTH hun.

Yep same here. No one is perfect. Get on with your day.

YABU. I've said the same at my non-sleeping baby. I didn't hurt him and he couldn't understand (obviously). It was said out of sheer frustration. I don't see the big deal.

However, I think you are hanging on this one minor misdemeanor because of other issues. YABU on this matter but YANBU to address other bigger issues with him.

I also thought of Go the F**k to Sleep book, specifically read by Jennifer Garner in a completely normal reading story time tone. I would pay much more attention to the tone rather than the words, as that would signify improper emotion. Rather than just a little frustration. A 10 month old doesn't understand the words themselves. If it means a lot to you, ask him not to use that language again. But I think being furious about it is a bit OTT. However, high emotion is normal when sleep deprived, so that wouldn't have been helping you. Hope you managed to get a good nights sleep.

Everyone loses it and says something they regret when sleep deprived and desperate a d if he was calm the child won’t have noticed. You going up there fuming and snatching the baby probably will have disturbed them more.

My ex when we were breaking up said about the baby, he's just a little bastard anyway

Strangely both mine have grown into responsible adults who fully contribute to society and are very nice people. The occasional sweary word issued without aggression in their infancy has not scarred them.

Angry/aggressive people and sweary people are not necessarily the same thing at all.

I regularly call the cat a "little fucker" in a friendly tone of voice while smiling and her response is to purr at me 😸

It’s fine and normal to get to the end of your tether with a crying baby. It’s not fine to ever hurt a baby, obviously. Perhaps letting a swear word out helped the dad to relieve a bit of his stress. Did the baby come to any harm? No. It. Didn’t.

Get over yourself.

Yeah I’m surprised at the vote. I wouldn’t like this as it indicates a possibility of him being resentful of the child or some kind of escalating impatience.

I believe the words we speak to children even too young to yet understood is important: it’s why parents and childcare workers have traditionally sang rhymes and lullabies to babies.

I am especially wary of this maybe because my friends former husband did this then escalated to smacking the newborn. Now I’m sure most people don’t progress to violence after swearing at a crying baby, but still it doesn’t sit well with me

I think your rage is more detrimental than his cussing.

I don't mean to dig at you with this but my relatives son is always being sworn at by his stepparent, always in a jokey way but I really don't like it. Eg, you fucking tit, fuck off upstairs, etc. Especially the name calling. She tried it with me for a while and it makes you uncomfortable being called names but as an adult I was able to stand up for myself. It was like a playful dominance thing and I don't like them doing it to the kid

For those of you who know or love a sleep-deprived parent, here’s “Go the Fuck To Sleep” read by Samuel L Jackson. It’s like the Very Hungry Caterpillar meets Pulp Fiction.
m.youtube.com/watch?v=SDCqgHLX8Ys

I see the usual MN stereotyping is here too... that works both ways. If i was to follow your lead i could say a woman over reacted to a minor incident because women are dramatic and hysterical.

I don't however like to generalise about the sexes so I would say an exhausted parent who came home from a stressful day at work snapped unfairly at a restless baby and the other parent who is also exhausted and sleep deprived had an emotional reaction and caused more upset. Both in the wrong but both totally understandable in the circumstances. Both doing their best struggling through difficult times.