How do you deal with different parenting styles?

[Msha8819]

Me and my husband are usually very aligned on the important stuff, core values etc however despite discussions we had about parenting styles pre-baby...the reality has been different.

Pre-baby we were both slanted more towards attachment parenting, being very responsive, no leaving to cry etc. But as the reality of sleep deprivation kicked in my husband went the other way and decided leaving to cry is ok and started up with all the rod for your own back type comments.

My daughter is 16 months and always spends till first wake up in her own room on a double floor bed, I then cosleep at some point in the night. Occasionally she sleeps through. She’s been hospitalised a couple of times and I think this has set the sleep progress back a bit and also made me even more certain I would never leave her to cry.

Husband doesn’t like that I don’t spend all night in our bed even though I deal with every night waking. Because I deal with the night wakings I usually ask him to take her for an hour in the morning (she wakes at 7) and he winges about this as well. If I ever ask him to put her down for a nap which is rarely he complains that if she was sleep trained he could just put her down and walk out the room (it only takes 10mins). Because I don’t want to leave her to cry it’s basically absolved himself of all responsibility for sleep.

Rightly or wrongly I think cry it out is horrible and sorry if that offends anyone..the key thing isn’t my opinion it’s that my opinion is worlds apart from my husbands and it makes me think less of them / like he lacks empathy and it probably makes him think I’m soft / weak and resent me.

On top of that he’s got his mum in his ear who left him to cry but also used to beat the crap out of him but apparently we should take advice from her!

It’s causing a big divide between us..I don’t know how to deal with it because I feel so strongly about it that I can’t compromise. I think you should respond to your child’s needs and emotional needs are just as important as hunger etc. From a more selfish standpoint I also don’t want to get up and down 2-3 times a night if I don’t have to...why would I give myself less sleep?

I don't think you can make some sort of binding agreement as to how you're going to parent your child, before you have a child. You really have to see how it goes once they're here! So whilst it does seem like he's reneging, it's not something that I think is fair to hold him to.

MIL opinion is not required - if your husband can't stand up to her, and continues to drag her into your disagreements, you have more problems than differing parenting styles.

Sleep training is an emotive area, but you both seem to be acting as if sleep training is binary - cry it out, or do nothing. There are a number of gentle sleep training methods in between those two. At 16 months your DD is biologically capable of sleeping though the night and you would all benefit from some proper sleep. I'd suggest having a look on line / reading a few books / booking some time with a sleep therapist and finding a compromise between the pair of you. You have a common goal - more sleep for all! Work towards it together.

Find a middle ground and compromise, ignoring unsolicited advice from MIL or any other relatives. Co-sleeping in a floor bed and CIO are about as polar opposite extreme as you can get. Would you both be open to researching some gentle sleep training options and together building a strategy to improve her independent sleep without resorting to leaving her to cry until she passes out?

You need to find a sleep training method you can both agree on. Do lots of reading until you find one you think might work for you and ask what he thinks. When you agree on one, try it. Then you can work out a way to do the work 50/50 and both be happy. While you're not agreeing you're going to be unhappy. Him because he probably feels his opinion doesn't matter to you and you because you're doing too much of the hard work.