Sick of my wife’s temper

[Seriouslyworrieddad]

My wife has always had a temper but recently it’s next level and I’m concerned for her but mainly our child.

We have a toddler who admittedly is extremely full on - for the last 6 weeks he has been going through a sleep regression and my wife has been completely loosing the plot with him during night wakes.

We had a conversation about it last week and she said she would look into anger management.

I’m away at the moment and my wife is now sleep training our toddler. I called before bedtime to say good night not realising that my wife had put our child down early. She answered the call in a room seperate to where our child was sleeping but it must have disturbed them as the next thing I could hear was our child crying so my wife hung up.

She then preceded to send me increasingly angry messages saying bedtime was a disaster and then called me shouting down the phone saying it was all my fault. I could hear our child screaming and crying in the background.

Thankfully I know my child is asleep now but I’m just getting sick to death of my wife’s temper and worried about her with my child.

Does anyone have any advice please ?

Don't offer to help. Actually help. Book a hotel, a cheap Travelodge will do. Tell her she's off duty for the night and do the full thing whilst she's out sleeping.

"I always offer her help but she never takes it"

You don't have to offer her help. The child is equally yours. You just have to take equal responsibility. Do half of everything.

And to @WilboWagins , my answer would be the same to either mother or father.

This thread is shocking in it's knee-jerk support for a woman who's losing her temper at her toddler constantly. And it wouldn't be Mumsnet if it wasn't entirely the husband's fault.

"did them all this weekend as I could tell she was struggling."

If someone has been without sleep for weeks on end a weekend isn't going to touch the sides.

Sounds like a woman who is exhausted, to me

I wonder how the op is able to take care of the child in the mornings, if they work full time

Maybe theyre a shift worker. Surely theyre away for work now as well

We all know there are almost no dads out there doing every single wake up for a poorly sleeping toddler for weeks on end so it’s a stupid comparison really.

She’s not coping at all, she needs a break. Can you book a week off work & stay home to help? Call family in to help? Babysitter? Give her a night off?

And do this more than once, consistently

If she stopped feeding recently she could also be going through some hormonal changes. On top of lack of sleep.

She needs buckets of your support here, physical and emotional.

you can certainly gently point out that it’s not healthy or appropriate to be speaking to her child in that way and look for ways to support her to find support with her emotions.

Help her have a decent breakfast every morning and help keep on top of the housework.

taking a decent multi vitamin can be helpful as breastfeeding and pregnancy can deplete somethings (seeing the gp for a check up could also be helpful for her.)

The heatwaves will also be making life hard with a toddler. Everyone is knackered and dehydrated and not sleeping.

Just read what you wrote again. And think about what you're saying.

Jeeze.

Dealing witb sleep regression is absolute torture. Don't "offer hrlp" just help. Do helpful stuff. Try to have a conversation calmly about what you can do. Dont be critical but work out a way with her to share the load.

Go home to your wife and help her instead of talking to us.

How old is your toddler OP? We had bedtime issues around the 2 year mark when ours needed to drop the final nap.

I think you've had some pretty shit replies and some MNers live in some fantasy land. You do need to keep your child safe. I'm not sure what the options would be with your work?

She'd probably be furious with him if he did. This isn't fixable with a hotel night, and she probably won't want to be away from her baby.

It is obvious from OPs posts that mum has been without sleep for 6 weeks.
Most of us are mothers who can see how that would be for her. Especially now she has sole care of the child whilst her husband is away.
Nobody is saying it's the husband's fault. We are saying mum is on her knees and obviously desperately needs his full support now.

This
get her a GP appointment for some help.

Your wife is drowning after a year and you are away.
She needs support, rest and a complete break where you look after your child for a change, before she has a complete health crisis.

Get back asap and send her off to her parents or somewhere for a break.
Stop offering to help snd bloody do help.

Perhaps if you actually did some parenting you would have some idea of how awful she feels.

I agree, don’t “offer”. Just get up and go to them.

My ex was incredibly violent. I'm lucky to be here. And he would tell me it was all my fault for not meeting his needs. You really can't make this shit up.

Will the GP parent their child a few nights a week?
Or should she be medicated before expecting a father to be woken from his sleep?

It sounds as though she is suffering the effects of long-term sleep deprivation - it's been 2 years! There is a reason it is considered torture under the Geneva convention.

You need to take over and give her several nights of uninterrupted sleep.

We also all know that nobody would excuse a dad screaming at a toddler and completely losing the plot with them for not falling asleep regardless of the circumstances and then ringing up his wife to blame her for his anger and behavior by shouting at her while the toddler was crying in the background.

There may be a million things the op could do better, that doesn't make the wife's abuse of a toddler his fault and absolve her.

Just about everyone is ignoring the fact that she has apparently always had a temper.

Yes, I'm sure she is knackered. But this behaviour isn't all down to OP, it seems. And there's a tiny child being screamed at, which no-one here seems to care about.

Perfectly said.

For a moment I thought you might be my husband. But then I remembered that when I was close to fury this evening with our toddler refusing to sleep, he just came in and said you go for your run, I'll do it. And then when I returned, I'll do tonight's wake (recently we're having 1-2 hour wakes) as she seems to go off quicker for me. I won't let him, because he has a long drive to work and I worry about his safety (and how I'd cope if he died) but he will do every night that he's WFH/weekends.
My point is, you've got to just get stuck in and do it, not see it as helping her out. She's still carrying the mental load then.
I don't think it's possible to realise how utterly physically and emotionally exhausting constant sleep deprivation is, unless you've experienced it.
Practically, I'd suggest you need to alternate bedtimes so she's regularly getting evenings free. At the weekend she needs a good chunk free. If the sleep training doesn't work quickly, it might not be the right thing - though I totally get why she's trying. Would you/she consider bedsharing so that even if child is awake, the parent on duty is able to doze.
It is astonishingly wonderful how a childfree break gives me mental peace again, I remember that I do actually love my child, and am much more tolerant afterwards.