AIBU to resent carrying our daughter’s sleep and emotional needs alone?

[OnTheVeryEDGE]

I’m feeling really shit right now.
Our almost teen daughter is currently being assessed for autism. She is much closer to me than to my husband.
I’ve recently come to realise just how drained I am from being the main emotional support for our daughter, and have realised on top of that how little support my husband gives to me - anyone actually.
one major issue for my daughter is sleep. Always been a bad sleeper, and it seems to have gotten worse over the past 6 months or so. Possibly age/hormone related as well as anxiety/masking/autism.
Anyhow. Some nights she doesn’t get to sleep until midnight. She gets upset if I don’t lie next to her until she’s asleep. And sometimes I am so exhausted I end up falling asleep. This pattern has become the norm (at times).
my husband isn’t happy. He wants me to be sharing a bed with him. I understand this, but feel resentful that all the emotional burden is on my shoulders.
He’s now resorting to passive aggressive comments to our daughter about her sleep issues (despite me asking him not to, or asking him to educate himself on the bigger picture of her anxiety/possible autism).
He’s purposefully stomping around when our younger boys are asleep, like he’s having some sort of tantrum ‘well I suppose you’ll be staying in here again so night’. No actual support such as - ‘you must be so tired from this every night, how about I sit with her while she falls asleep’ for example.

I am so fed up.

AIBU?

Any advice?

That’s shit of him. What does he think would happen if you left your daughter alone? What do you think would happen?

He’s acting like an idiot but also equally, you can’t keep sleeping next to your teen daughter forever. What are you doing to help her transition away from this? If she can’t sleep, surely she’s old enough to read or do something in her room/bed until she does feel sleepy?

He is just like ‘she will be fine’ but she ends up crying when she’s alone.
I can’t let any of my children go to bed upset - I never have done.

where she’s always had sleep trouble, I’ve just always thought she will grow out of it, it won’t be like this forever…. However, now we have been made aware that this could actually be linked to her having autism. I don’t want to then be seen as ‘punishing’ her for this being part of her profile - it’s not her fault and I will support her no matter what. I just feel so upset that my husband seems to only think about himself.

Yes, I know I can’t do it forever. I think it’s a cycle at the moment where if I leave her, it takes her longer to fall asleep and then the next day (especially when it’s school next day) she’s tired, which then feeds the anxiety more etc etc

She doesn’t read books, but I have recently got her into journaling so I’m hoping this will start to help her mind settle and get sleepy as you mention… fingers crossed

It's the summer holidays. If she's going to be tired during a transition, now's the time to do it.

We all want to take the difficulty out of our children's lives, but actually, in most cases, giving them the support and resilience to manage things for themselves, as they'll need to in adult life, is the long term kinder and more helpful approach.

melatonin?Valarian herbal tea?

My autistic daughter was also like this, melatonin helped but I have a friend for whose child this wasn’t enough and they needed anti-anxiety medication.

Your husband is being an absolute child himself and I would have zero tolerance for his bullshit while you’re attending to your child’s needs 100% of the time. That said, it’s clearly not sustainable for you — can you go to the GP and see if there’s something that can help? I understand medication can be scary, but the lack of sleep is very bad for her too.

It’s absolutely connected to autism. Know multiple people with autistic kids who struggle to get to sleep. She should absolutely not be punished or made to feel bad, that will have the opposite effect to the desired on. My daughter used to cry too, it’s clearly genuinely distressing for them.

Thank you. I feel SO heard by your comments, I could cry.
Once she has the diagnosis officially, my next step was going to be GP for some help. But with summer holidays, I am hoping to start gently trying other ways as school not an issue for time being.

It sounds like you are OK with things as they are right now, or at least see it as the best of a bunch of bad options until you have more information.

If so the issue is really just your husband. He needs to be made to understand that this is the child he has and she has different needs to other children. I would try talking to him and saying this. That I understand his frustration but you don’t intend this to go on forever, you have a medium term plan for improving things, but he needs to be patient. If he won’t then maybe couples therapy? But I would strongly suggest someone who specialises in neurodivergent families, because other therapists may not understand why you can’t just lay down the law with your daughter.

I do think the sleep stuff is partly developmental with autistic kids. They just take a lot lot longer to be OK sleeping by themselves. Eventually the just get there. But I don’t know many who’ve managed it without melatonin at least and if you find yourself really struggling, I would urge you to go to the GP sooner and explain the sleep situation.

I’m really sorry you’re dealing with such childish behaviour from your husband. It’s awful feeling responsible for fulfilling everyone else’s needs and like you’re failing at all of it.

That sounds so tough, wish your DH was more supportive

Does the team involved in diagnosing your daughter have any support they can offer? I work within a child development centre and our SoCA team have a nurse whose sole role is supporting families of ND children around sleep - to be able to fall asleep you generally need to be quite regulated - if she is autistic she is likely to struggle to self regulate so relies on you for that, in the same way babies often need parental support to go to sleep as they can't self regulate.
The paediatrician can also prescribe melatonin which can help with falling asleep, although not with staying asleep, so it's best used alongside sleep strategies.

Your husband is being an absolute tool making this about him, and demanding more of you when you are already struggling to give all your children what they need..

Sometimes the timescales are a lot longer than with ND children - this might not be one you can fix in the next 5 weeks. As PP said you need to be super regulated yourself and your husband is literally making this harder.

Nothing lasts forever, everything is a phase. Do what you need to do first and tweak things when you have capacity. The biggest thing your husband can do to help fix this is switch to supporting you rather than pressuring you, so that you stay within your window of coping.

I've met some amazing parents who've got their autistic children from burned out and unable to leave the house to working full time. They've bent more round their child than mainstream parenting would ever consider sensible but it's worked, when mainstream parenting methods had already failed. Don't listen to people who say you're just not trying hard enough. The method may look unconventional but maybe it's just how it needs to be for now. If you push her too hard it will be counter-productive. I think you are the best judge of what she can handle. Look after yourself and see if your husband can turn it round to support you better, if only put of pragmatism.

Stop being a martyr.

You're sleep training her to only fall asleep with you there. The more you do it the more dependant she'll become especially being so old and autistic. She'll believe she needs you to sleep.

Start withdrawing ASAP. Potter around on the landing with the door open etc. Not fair on the rest of the family if you and she are knackered all the time.

Obvs your dh is also being unreasonable.

I have an autistic teenage daughter who is almost 15.

I just wanted to come on and say that the "do nothing and meet your child where they are" is 100% ok and valid. They WILL grow up and change when THEY are ready. I refuse to distress my DD and for a while we bedshared and DH slept in her room when she was about 12. Now she is nearly 15 she sleeps most nights alone, possibly with a wake up that just needs me to settle her. We tried melatonin but she did not like it, however a weighted blanket and the same audiobook every single night seem to work well.

Parenting a neurodivergent child is about adjusting the various "levers" to maximise independence and minimise distress. For us, sleep was a lever we were willing to relax as unmasking / having her comfort needs met completely at bedtime allows her to tolerate school, for example.

It is only in the last year that she has been able to tolerate being completely away from me at bedtime (I.e. me sleeping away from home without her, but her at home) but we are still working on her being able to sleep away from both me and home (I.e. on Duke of Edinburgh)... This WILL come in time and forcing the issue will be damaging and counterproductive.

It amazes me that so many men say "I would do anything for my family" but they won't tolerate having to go without sex and their every need, want and comfort being centred.

I would definitely try melatonin, you can buy it online from abroad (where it is available over the counter).

I would also consider trying a weighted pad or blanket - DD used to need me next to her to sleep and I think it was partly the physical weight of my arm on her. Maybe when it’s cooler though.

I would ignore all the pp who think you are somehow pandering and creating this issue 🙄🙄 I’m sure if just being tougher would work you’d have done that!

Oh and I would tell your DH that he can either offer to help or stop his passive aggressive stomping about as it’s really unattractive.

This may be because he was a boy but my son went to both primary and secondary school with an autistic boy who had sleep issues and in secondary, his mum was still basically co-sleeping. He was referred to CAHMS in secondary school and I think they were in year 8 when they got an appointment.

The staff were very critical of mum sleeping with him and I remember the term "inappropriate" was used which really upset her. They said he should have been "super nannied" (I remember her using that term) years before and they said his primary school should have taken it a lot more seriously back then. They insisted a plan be put in immediately for him to sleep in his room, alone.

Your husband sounds like the main problem here, if he were behaving more reasonably then I suspect your way of managing wouldn’t in itself be so much of an issue. He really needs to get over himself. Has he always been like this, or is it just on this one issue?

Thanks for all the pointers - weighted blanket is on my list when the temperature in our house is lower than an oven!!
Melatonin and additional help from GP I will investigate asap.

The autism investigations is all pretty new, last couple months. It’s hit me like a tonne of bricks for various reasons so where it feels like new territory I am just trying my best to support her, and to not make things worse. Prior to that I can safely say I have tried EVERYTHING to ‘sort’ the falling asleep problem. Once she is asleep she is fine - hasn’t had a problem with waking up since she was a toddler. But omg, I haven’t found anything that has worked. Hence why now knowing she is likely autistic, the guilt is massive when I remember the times I’ve felt so frustrated that she can’t ’just go to sleep’ (like my husband still says).

I would never in a million years have co slept with one of my parents at my daughter’s age! Never! So it does feel alien in that respect. But she’s not me, this is my first time parenting, and I’m doing my best. I can’t let any of my children go to sleep crying. I also can’t keep my eyes open every night past midnight to then move into my bed.

Thank you, I really appreciate your message and your understanding.

https://www.facebook.com/share/p/1V2o383RE4/ might strike a chord ❤️

And did that plan work? Because that’s quite crucial info really.

Yes. Not overnight but it did work. She was to leave him in his room, whether he slept or not, between 11pm-6am, and he isn't allowed out. He didnt sleep for weeks at first. He looked awful. I think he was old enough to understand when they said it was inappropriate and unhealthy so he knew things had to change now these professionals knew what was going on.