Frustrated father - advice please

[AnnaLies]

My wife is still breastfeeding and still has our baby in our bed every night. I've been pleading for months for her to be in her own cot, preferably in her own room for months now but to no avail. I think my wife's just very lazy. I can't even get a routine going and it's often past 10pm when they go to bed and often 10am when they get up. It's driving me mad!! Our baby is 17 months old!

So...... how on earth can we now get her in her own room? How can we get her to bed at a set hour each evening? How can we get her off her mums breast? I try often but she doesn't seem to be bothered. Fact is it's meaning we never get any time together..... we can't have a night out....... we can't even have a cuddle in bed. This really has to stop.

I've recently been trying to give her warmed cows milk with a little sugar but she's utterly uninterested. As she is also with hot chocolate or any other way i try and serve it. Can anyone give any suggestions please? I've tried giving in a beaker, a cup with a straw and even an adult mug. She just doesn't want to know.

So really asap i want her in her own cot, own room, off the breast, and in bed early evening. tips plz! :)

No, it's not 'sex' i'm after. We both just want some 'us' time. Apparantly that's wrong?

Faaamily Sat 02-Oct-10 18:38:02
You do sound like a major prick, to be fair. My DH thinks so too.

LOL

Um, surely this is a troll, no?

"And i should be more mature in my responses? lolol.

Thats funny"

you should though, at least that way you hold your head up.

To call people man haters is just a lazy immature insult as I am sure you are aware.

wrt your last post -- you seem to be really easy to distract from what you state are problems you and your wife are both facing and which you are both desperate to solve (the baby thing, remember?) to engaging in points scoring, name-calling, and shoring up a defensive position.

Is this your communication style with people who don't agree with you at home?

Jiggery - he could just be that stupid and un-self-aware?

yes it is yr right. But someone deliberately replying to posts picking them to bits and trying to catch me out rather than offer any advice as requested just smacked of massive trollaments. She thinks i'm an arsehole..... fair enough that's her opinion. But stop waffling and nit picking ffs. Tell me i'm an a-hole then either leave it at that or offer me some advice.

Oh, since i typed that she's at it again..... on and on and on and on...... yawn!

Advice - search the archives under 'breast and bottle feeding', weaning and parenting. Ask more specific questions giving more information about the toddler in question - what other foods are given, what naps, what activities.

And if you have a problem with your wife's laziness or ignoring you - post a separate thread under relationships.

Don't mix up v little information other than 17 months sleeps 12 hours a day with complaints about your wife not doing what she's told? OK?

That was all advice.

AL you have been offered some very decent advice by boffinmum.

As for weaning I suggest your dw goes on the breastfeeding boards - she will get much more help.

The WHO recommends that babies are BF for at least 2 years. So 17 months is a bit previous to be getting your baby off the breast, especially if your DW doesn't want to. And tbh BF is hard work, she doesn't sound lazy to me.

Is your DW's procrastination a way of avoiding confrontation with you? Do you genuinely listen to her and invite her to say what she really thinks?

I have no idea what you are like and it's understandable that after such a negative reaction you would come back quite aggressively, but if you go away and think of some of the responses dispassionately, you might find something in there that's worth considering. You are coming across as someone who won't brook opposition, but that may well be because this is an internet forum and there's a free and frank exchange of views going on. If it's just your normal way of interacting, then I suspect that your wife's behaviour is a form of passive opposition - in which case, you have to ask yourself why she feels the need to do that. Good luck with it.

oh yes and the lazy wife thing really does sound like you are undervaluing her. Looking after a 17 month old child is unbelievably hard work. Calling someone lazy, when that's what they're doing, is extraordinarily disrespectful and I would be seething with resentment if I thought my DP was judging me as lazy for looking after a baby.

Instead of telling you what a great put-upon husband you are and patting you on the head for all that meal making?

The reason to pick apart your posts is to show you how you come across to complete strangers, men and women alike (an a-hole describes it very well) and probably to your wife too -- 'oh what a gift the gods would gi'e us/ to see ourselves as others see us', to quote Robbie Burns, who of course didn't realise Mumsnet would be very useful for that.

The advice is to stop being such an a-hole. It really is that simple.

(You do realise that I can't actually see your posts while I'm typing mine, don't you?)

"I think my wife is just lazy" sorry stopped reading there.

You sound like a big, petulant baby yourself and to be honest, when my ex said that kind of thing to me it only served to drive a massive wedge between us.

you must be able to see that there is a world of difference between what you posted in your OP and:

"my DW and I are getting very frustrated about DD still being in our bed every night and refusing to come off the breast - it is particularly bad for DW as she has to deal with the majority of DD's needs. Does anyone have any advice on how we can tackle this issue?"

It does sound as though you need to be more involved In your daughters life. Maybe that way your wife will think of you as an equal in that department.

I found ds2 who wouldn't take a bottle of milk would take wAter from a bottle. Try that and see if it helps. Better for you to do it too with mum out of the way.

It will change if your wife wants it to. The advice you're getting is true.

It's very hard as a mum when you feel torn. Having your first baby is a big deal - a bit like a new love affair sometimes. The dilemma is that babies have no choice in needing you for everything, while adults (ie our partners) are supposed to be able to be a little more self-sufficient. Having said that, the relationship between the parents is the cornerstone for the family stability. It's important to find a way to maintain it! Nothing will change unless you both can find the strength of will to accept that the baby will initially find it a shock if things change. Expect some crying! And multiple trips to her cot to see if she's OK (better if Dad does it, as the mum you're often so deathly tired that you'll just do whatever gets you through the night. Dads can't breastfeed, and this is the bit where that's ultimately useful.) I suggest doing it in stages - get her into a cot in your room first. Then get her sleeping in another room, at least during the day so that she realises it's safe to be in there.. cuddly toys can help too. It'll take AT LEAST a week for any new sleep environment to become familiar and safe-feeling for her. Mum will need to be OK with the crying and to trust that Dad will do what's required perfectly well. Important, too, to make an encounter with either of you at night as boring/utilitarian as possible. No songs, eye contact, chat, etc - be loving, of course, but checking that she's OK is enough. The first couple of nights will be the worst. Your partner may also need quite a few full nights' sleep before she'll be able to offer you much - she may be feeling dead on her feet. This is a process that will take longer than a night or two. Although I think you wrote your post from a place of completely frustration and feeling powerless, I do see your point, however badly worded.

I'm not going to get into the who said what to whom business. The OP was clumsy and ill thought but he has paid for that by everybody coming down on him like a ton of bricks. Poor man didn't stand a chance - if you get the tone wrong in the first post, you're buggered as you have seen. Doesn't matter how much you try to put matters right.

OP you may indeed be a twat in RL, who knows but assuming your DW does want this as much as you my suggestion would be to start out by getting your DD to sleep in a cot in your room. A bit of a half way house. Work on getting the cot into the bedroom in a couple of months. At least you would get your bed back but your DW would know that the baby wasn't too far away if needed in the night. It also means that you can put her down earlier in the evening because you don't have to worry about her falling out of bed or whatever. Take it slowly, put her in her cot when sleepy and stay with her until she goes to sleep. It may take a while so don't expect miracles.

I wouldn't be trying to wean at the same time either. Save that for another day. To have the baby out of the bed, into a cot and to be weaned is asking a lot of your DW and DD if you do them all at once.

Maybe she just prefers the baby to you

Sorry, a bit late returning to this Annalies but can't not reply. I wasn't meaning that you were using the word cuddles as a euphemism merely that it can be inferred as one.

Your original post did come across as you and your wife at loggerheads and gave me the impression your wife was using the baby to keep you at arms length. Maybe if you had worded it differently you would have had different responses.

I was trying to be helpful and was coming at it from the angle that the two of you were not in agreement. As it seems you are then I think Niecie above has some good advice.

I wish you and your wife well (and hope you're more eloquent in real life for her sake!)

AnnaLies - put the baby in a cot next to your bed. That is a smaller step than putting the baby in a separate room.

I am a bloke by the way.

What about getting a bedside cot? I know it is a little expensive but it would ease the baby into getting used to being his own cot. In a couple of months time the cot (and baby) can be transferred to his own room.

Do you honestly think, AnnaLies, that your wife isn't aware of the possibility of having the baby in a cot in the same room, even right up beside the bed? Does she live in a bubble?

AnnaLies - I just read the whole thread (again) and am afraid you unknowingly stepped into a very contentious issue on MN. People get very divided by this topic. The fact you are a man expresisng them does not help either.

I think you should take the advice of BoffinMum what she said was balanced and sensible. For what it is worth I also think that after 12 months it is not unreasonable to want to start getting some semblance of order back into family life. My DW is frankly agahast at the way some women just seem to let the rest of their family/marriage life slide when they get a baby. There are plenty of women on MN would agree with my DW and plenty more who would violently disagree and you met a few on this thread.

What I think you should do is agree with your DW a series of small practical steps. For example, asking her to express osme milk and let you get up in the night and feed the baby with a bottle of breast milk - not with cows milk though. I used to do that with formula milk as DW absoloutely hated breast feeding. It will also make you feel a lot more involved with the baby and help your wife to start letting go. I enjoyed the times I did feed our children with a bottle even though I was utterly sleep deprived. If you did this your DW could say go out and meet friends, get her hair done etc. It would also mean that you and DW could go out for a night and leave grandparents with some expressed milk.

I hope you get things worked out and try to ignore the slagging off you got on this thread it does not represent the whole of MN.

I might be totally mad, but if you're stopping BFing at night, at 17 months, wouldn't you just stop giving the child anything rather than introduce a bottle?