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! :)

What's contentious, the 'lazy wife' issue?

It doesn't have to be 'either/or' BeenBeta; you don't have to choose between baby in another room and put to bed at 7 or 'order'. Order is in the eye of the beholder, and one woman's order may be another's nightmare.

I am glad to see you introduce the idea that the wife here might appreciate the chance to go out and get her hair done, meet her friends, have a little time to herself away from the demands of the toddlers. It was certainly never mentioned by cuddle man as something positive that might have emerged from changing the bedtime routine.

pressyourthumbs - well I did think that myself but if the OP's wife really is adamant she still wants to carry on giving the baby breast milk it might be half way step to eventual weaning.

Small steps rather than a huge single step might be a more gentle way of transitioning.

mathanxiety - none of us are perfect.

You and I have both been through the experience of having a small baby around. It was truely overwhelming for me and I admit I struggled emotionally a little with the transition from childless man to Dad. I think many women clearly do too and it becomes so overwhelming and engulfing to the extent that nothing else matters.

However, I dont agree with the point of view that a baby entitles a woman to just ignore the rest of their life (likewise nor does it entitle men to expect their wife to carry on as if it had never happened). I dont think the OP is doing that. He is clearly doing his share at home. I think hs wife needs to start making some steps and is struggling to overcome the inertia. Perhaps she has also lost her confidence. The OP is genuinley looking for ways to help her to make that transition and I am prepared to take at face value that his wife and he have agreed they both want that to happen.

We should also remember that Dads have absolutley no support network at all before during or after the birth.

Beenbeta, you sound like a nice man. I hope Annalies listens to your advice (it's good advice).

OP I think you need to be aware that what your wife says she wants and what she actually wants may not be the same thing. I regularly say I wish my DS3 would sleep through the night in his own cot in his own room - and on the nights he does this I do enjoy the good nights sleep - but I do also really love snuggling up with him in our bed and his smiling face being the first thing I see when I wake up in the morning (he's 20 months)
I would suggest some compromise. Let your DC fall asleep on someone's lap in the evening. And then put her in her cot. If she wakes in the night then bring her in with you. You may well find that sometimes she will sleep though or at least spend increasing amounts in her own bed. We certainly found that when we put DS3 in his own room even if he's not there all the time! That may be less stressfull for both you DD and DW than going cold turkey on the co-sleeping.
I'm sorry but I do think it's a bit insensitive to try to stop the breastfeeding. It's a lovely experience for both your wife and daughter and both will experience health benefits as a result. It really wont last forever and your DW will appreciate the support you have given her in this.

Spend as much time as you can building up your own special bond with DD and she may well become happier to fall asleep away from your wife. And try to enjoy these precious baby days. You and your wife have a lifetime together. Your DD will only be little for a very short time.

HappySeven - thankyou. I really wish I had been here in 2000 as a new Dad and am sure I would have said some pretty silly things. I hope the OP sticks around and reads a lot more threads. I have learned a heck of a lot that just is not out there for Dads.

I don't see the wife here as the one who has an entitlement thing going on.

The OP has come across as a person who doesn't seem to welcome a pov that does not coincide exactly with his own. We have only his word for what his wife wants and for how much he contributes around the house. We have his lack of any mention of what might be in this for his wife, as your post pointed out, but instead a clear exposition of what he thinks he stands to gain.

On the other hand we have the alleged 'pleading' with her for several months to teach the baby independence/wean the baby/put the baby in her own room, and he has apparently decorated two nurseries, one of which they will not be using as they are moving, and the other which looks as if it will also fill up with cobwebs. We have non-committal responses to the 'pleading' by the mother, and a complete lack of compliance.

I do not take his housework claims at face value, not just because he called cooking 'meal making' mind you, but because he brought it up as a defense against a challenging question. Nor do I think his wife is on board about the weaning or ending the co-sleeping. If she was, it would have been done. I have done it myself 5 times and it's not rocket science.

As for losing her confidence, nothing will make a woman lose her mojo like living with a man who has fumed (probably not so silently) for four years over what she has chosen to do or not do with the interior of HER OWN CAR.

(And while I sympathise with the dads about the lack of support, and know it must be difficult for them too, because absolutely nothing can prepare you for the arrival of that first baby, I don't exactly understand why they don't have the support system they think women have. If you need it, get it on the internet or wherever else you think you could, as women have tried to. And women don't have it so great either -- look at all the complaints about bone-ignorant opposition to breastfeeding from people who might be expected to support women as they try to be the best mothers they can be; MILs, grannies, and HVs alike seemingly conspiring to make the lives of many new mothers miserable.)

Thank you all so much for the replies on this page. Some really great advice. We already have the cot in our room next to our bed and of late we've been trying to put her down in that and then moving her into our bed when she starts getting grumpy which is usually between 4am - 6am. It's going fairly well so at least the 1st step is well on the way. We deffo gonna try expressing again. When she was newborn we had planned to do lots of expressing so tht Mum wasn't needed 24/7 and she could get plenty of rest but she just wouldn't entertain a plastic teat. She hasn't even had a dummy. In the end my wife gave up trying and just breastfed since then. And yes, she has done an unbelievably awesome job! And yes, i do tell her often! Gawd why do i feel i have to check exactly what i say on ere lol? The having her in our bed has been fine since then as it allowed my wife to get more rest and for baby to basically have milk 'on tap.' Now though we both feel is the time that she moved off the breast which is our main problem tbh.... the rest is all on the outskirts. She does have a beaker that she happily uses when it's got juice in it but as soon as she tastes milk out of that or any other container she turns her nose up and flatly refuses. We'll try expressed again but i'm 99% sure she'll refuse but i guess we better try that before going down other routes..... if there are any? Anyways, we're at grandparents tonight so as of 2moro we'll have another go at the squeeky pump.

And no math, my wife doesn't live in a bubble. But thanks again for your concern.

this page in above post = previous page btw. Thx again

Anagram

Would she take milk off a spoon? My DS2 would never touch expressed milk or have a dummy. He drank water or juice from a beaker but not milk and he was a great eater. Eventually I tried spooning cows milk into his mouth - which was time consuming so I don't recommend it at 3am! - and he took it no problems. After a few days of that I tried again with a beaker and he drank it!

He was a very clingy baby - the biggest mummy's boy ever! but aged 5 he's now an incredibly independent child, so, at the risk of repeating myself, this situation wont last forever - it just feels like it does when it's your first! :o

cheers moa..... spoon may work, we'll give it a go.

PS.... whats is a DS3, DW, PS3, UB40 etc?

Can you not just give your baby water at night?

AT 17 months I really wouldn't bother trying to get your DD off your wife's breast. Time will soon pass and she no longer need milk as she does now. Don't put yourself - or your wife...wtf are you saying 'we' in this instance, when referring to expressing?! - through the stress of expressing and then wasting all the milk when your DD refuses it, just not worth it imo. No reason for you not to be able to spend some time alone with your wife though.

So, anagram? Who are ya?

How very magical.

You already have a cot but the problem as you have seen it is that the baby wakes up and ends up in your bed in the early hours of the morning?

If so, it doesn't really square with "My wife is still breastfeeding and still has our baby in our bed every night."

That's a very different way of looking at things.

Or did you run out and get it today?

You are doing a really good job of checking what you're saying here.

However, glad you seem to have changed your tune about the breastfeeding.

I'm with the op on this one. I'm a "wife" well partner anyway, and if after 17 months dp and I hadn't resumed normal relations I would be pissed off too. Btw I am effing lazy, no way of getting about it, dp knows this and loves me anyway.

I put my babies in cots and they all without fail slept through within 6 months. This whole cosleeping thing is odd to me. Btw they are all mummy mad despite me abandoning them to the wasteland of the cot.

Actually if I was a bloke and my wife did this whole attachment parenting malarkey (ie baby baby 24/7, no personal space at all) I'd be fecking off.

Sorry to tell you this but I think most children come into their parents beds at about 5 or 6am even when they are 8!

For what it's worth my son wouldn't take expressed milk after a long time BF it was as it it was 'wrong' for it to be in a bottle. So I tried warm water, then Aptimel probably hotter than you'd think, and he'd take it, but not from me to start with. This is after much experimenting with other types of milk.

But at 17 months a cup would be better anyway jsut for his teeth

Only if you let them. DCs need to be in their own beds after 12 months in our view but each to their own.

I know a woman that has coslept and BF her three children non stop for 8 years. I do think she is a loon and her DH is a saint.

I'm not saying every morning BeenBeta, but it's always going to be a possibility once they have their own beds.

I have to say BF when child is 8 seems to be about something other than feeding the child, and embarrasing for an 8 yr old surely? loon as you say

I don't think he meant she bf at 8 dolly, just athat wth the 3 of them it lasted 8 years altogether...

No I dont mean she is BF an 8 yr old

However, she says fed and coslept each of her 3 children sequentially without a break for 8 years and is still doing so with thei rcurrent toddler. Their three chidren all still sleep in the bedroom with the parents often all in their bed.

Each to their own as I said.

I bfed babies/children from 1990 to 2015, with breaks in between for pregnancy. I don't see anything peculiar about bfing 3 of them over 8 years. It comes out a bit over the WHO recommended bfing period for each child. This is loony?

If you don't want a woman to breastfeed, don't knock her up.

And you can always buy a bigger bed if co-sleeping bothers you.