Who do I choose? Screaming newborn or screaming toddler at bedtime?

[disappearie]

I have a 1 week old son and a 2 year old daughter. My partner goes to yoga at night so I’m in charge of bedtime for both. Have been having a go at it for the last two nights and I’m in tears each night because I’m failing.

My newborn is incredibly unsettled in the evenings which is completely normal. My toddler has been on a great schedule which I have worked so hard on.

Last night I gave up on putting her to bed because I didn’t want to let my newborn scream. Tonight I let the newborn fuss while I did the toddler and because I had to try and do her bedtime quickly, she is now screaming out for cuddles.

I can’t handle both screaming but clearly I need to pick one. I feel so horrible for letting the newborn fuss and cry, and for letting my newborn cry emotionally for cuddles.

Who do I prioritise? I honestly feel like such a failure.

this!

what a selfish dickhead

Two and a half hours a DAY?! Tell him to stuff his sun salutation up his crack, this is insane.

So he's more than a selfish cunt, he's abusive. His attitude of 'let me do what I want or you're abusing me' is gaslighting. He sounds like a real nasty piece of work. At best he obviously doesn't care about you if he is fucking off every night, leaving you with a baby and a toddler.

Is there anyone you can call OP? If you are not keen to go to your parents are there any other family members who you may be able to stay with?

Agree with others advising to call Women's Aid, just to talk things through.

He's a fucking selfish git.

There is no other way to describe him

How dare he!

Just another one dropping in to say you are not a failure at all, you are doing amazing for even attempting bedtime solo!

I've a 2 year old and a 2 week old and my husband is out for one evening tomorrow and I've got my mum coming to help me with bedtime as i can't even face the idea of doing it alone! So hats off to you for trying every weeknight!! His behaviour is not acceptable.

Wait until he is at yoga then leave. I'm not sure of how bad your relationship with your mum is, if it isn't too bad then go there. If she would be unsupportive of your reasons for leaving (abusive husband, which he is) and it would be a fire/frying pan situation, do you have anyone else that could support you?

He is absolutely out of order, you gave birth a week ago and he is treating you like shit and taking advantage of your vulnerability. I really hope you have support and can muster up enough strength to pack up and leave while he is away if it is safe enough to do so.

How the fuck are you the bad guy? You don't get to go to yoga 5x a week in the early evenings when you are a parent. Unless you have a shitload of money or VERY accommodating grandparents on board. You aren't going to yoga five nights a week are you? Of course not, it would be utterly unreasonable for you to do so. Unthinkable even. So why can he?

Your partner really needs to help out here. It's pretty unreasonable of him to piss off for 2.5 hours 5 days a week when you are struggling. His fucking 'sanity' doesn't trump yours.

He is a massively cheeky fucker.

If you want to go to your parents you can take both children.

Has he always been this abusive?

This could have been my DH by the way. He skirted VERY close to this level of fuckery, especially when he was drinking heavily. In the end I said he could drink and do what the fuck he wanted, or he could live with me and the kids. Though I said it a lot more kindly than that, the message was very clear. He realised he couldn't go on as he had been. He'd missed everything. He didn't even know the name of our son's nursery. Or his daughters date of birth. He hadn't got up with the children in the morning, ever. My son didn't really think of him as a parent, and would howl for me initially when he tried to step up a bit more.

Even two years down the road there is a lot of baggage and resentment from those times that we both have to work through, but we do love each other enough to work through those things. The alternative would be worse.

This takes me back. I had an 18 month old and a colicky newborn, and I’d got divorced during my second pregnancy. I had to tear up the whole routine for about six months and come up with a new one. We all slept in one room (toddler bed squished in and cot between us), and I dashed around in the afternoon getting everyone fed and bathed before the colic started at 5. Literally packed as if for a picnic (food, puzzles, fuzzy felt, books, flask, all the baby supplies, newspaper) or overnight stay, got everyone settled in the bedroom early and then read with the toddler until the baby kicked off. Then it was just shushing, pacing, chatting and narrating the whole thing to the toddler for several hours. If I experienced it again now, I’d have no hesitation to use DVDs or a tablet.

Accept the toddler will be kept awake, and just get through the fourth trimester, I say. FWIW, I think the three of us really bonded during those long evenings. I kept thinking of my poor Gran in an Anderson shelter with a baby and a toddler and just made up my mind to get through it as cheerfully as possible. If you can let go of all rules and prior standards, it’s doable. Toddler’s sleep pattern was three hours adrift for a year, but i slowly clawed it back round and they were soon both on a really good sleep schedule (and insisted on sharing a room until they were 6&7).

Good luck. 💐

Mine went away for a week when my autistic DC was 3 and I had a five week old. Wouldn't negotiate. Wouldn't cancel. It was such a big and amazing job it had to be more important than my sanity. The amount of divorce Googling that went on during that week was pretty intense.

My husband also has a sport which he needs for his sanity, he's gone through a lot in the last few years and it's been a lifeline.

He still stopped going for the first 5 months of our babies life, and now only goes once a week and doesn't go if me or my baby are unwell or struggling.

Your partner needs to step up. I'm so sorry you're going through this.

FFS

What is wrong with some new .
He stops going to yoga then. End of fucking story.

Put your foot down & put it down hard OP

Just go to your parents with both kids when he's at yoga. If nothing else, it will send a very strong message that you won't be dictated to. Don't forget, every evening he leaves you, he is dictating what you do with your time because he is forcing you to look after two children alone, without any support. Stop letting his dictate you like this. It's perhaps not ideal going to your parents but it's surely got to be better than being left in tears night after night struggling like this?

Posted too soon.

He is dictating your life.
He is abusive
He is an addict
He is a threat making liar. How would he go to yoga & look after your toddler. He's a dick.

Go with BOTH kids to your parents

I would concentrate on a practical plan for coping without his help and take time to consider if this marriage is worth saving. You can’t talk someone into being a decent parent if they’re not one.

You can cope with or without him. You sound very attuned to the children and very capable.

I think your happiness and your children's Trumps yoga.
He needs to bin that off sharpish and help with bedtime.
It gives me the rage that he is ommming while you and your children are crying.

He told me I was being verbally abusive and I really felt this way (he added that he doesn’t think I do) then he wonders why we even have children.

He's using a very typical ABUSER's tactic: reverse the accusation. He is abusive in his behaviour.

I'm so sorry for you @disappearie He's a selfish bastard, but telling you this doesn't help you deal with the situation.

Can you suggest that if he is going to absent himself from parenting, then he needs to pay for some assistance for you, or that he needs to give you the equivalent time away from the children - 5 days x 2.5 hours = 12.5 hours

So you need a full day away from the house each week, when he needs to be totally responsible for both children.

He won't do it.

So what might be your next steps? I think you should either require that he gets a vasectomy, or you get yourself a tubal ligation or the like. No more children with this man.

Look at childcare options now even if you can't contemplate leaving your children in a childcare environment. Plan to get back into work - if this man is not going to work in partnership as a parent, you need to develop financial independence from him.

So sorry for your situation OP

What the hell kind of fuckery is this?! Over my dead body would DH be doing his 2.5 hour HOBBY 5 nights a week over bedtime, with or without a newborn.

Out of sheer curiosity, what happens the other 2 nights of the week?

OP I hope you are taking on board from all the responses just how unacceptable this is. This isn't just a little bit CF, this would be divorce territory for me if he doesn't step up and I don't say that lightly.

Your partner is being a twat. Yoga every night over bedtime? Erm no.

Why does he get to decide if you are taking dd with you?
since wehn spending a few days at grand parents is too disruptive for them?
Amd what is he planning to do with his dd whilst he is at yoga/work and you are at your parents?

He doesn’t get to tell you what’s happening. It is ok for you to take both YOUR children your parents. And he has no say in that sorry.

im also questioning the ‘ verbally abusive’ line tbh. What could you have said that was so horrific but the truth about his behaviour (that he probably didn’t want to hear)?

Practical advice op as I had no help.from partner at this stage but had a 3.5 year old and a new born.

I used to top and tail and feed the newborn and put them in the cot. I then bathed and put my 3.5 year old to bed with the usual stories, etc. I kept the baby alarm on silent.

If the baby was crying I went to the baby directly afterwards. Within a week the baby was settling herself by about 8pm and stayed asleep until 11pm.

It was extraordinary how the baby settled much more easily at bedtime than ds1

When he is there for the evening, does he help? He's hardly had time to appreciate the difference in handling two children at bedtime in just 1 week so it is a bit early for him to assume it will be ok for him to disappear!

Working on the assumption he is just on a steep learning curve, I'd suggest making a rough plan that works towards him getting his yoga time in a way that suits the whole family - maybe somewhere nearer, shorter classes, less frequently, a gradual increase in frequency taking into account that the first 6 weeks will be tough. Definitely talk about time set aside where he will be sole carer. And know it isn't a calendar or schedule set in stone, but a rough guide of principles to navigate a changing situation.

I've thought about this so much as I wish we'd done it. Instead we were both shell-shocked, I was resentful he didn't understand all the things I couldn't explain and he assumed I would know what I was doing but I was too overwhelmed to be clear about what I didn't know. I tried to over-organise to compensate for feeling out of control then felt doom when nothing worked. It was a difficult time. I was pretty horrible to him to be fair, but he let me carry a disproportionate mental load. We're past it now, but the same patterns of behaviour quickly cause similar problems when we're pressed. We just know enough to move through them quicker and with less emotional chaos.

That's probably off-topic, but it may be helpful to hear someone's experience and see if any of it rings a bell.

OP it's DARVO

Deny,
Attack,
Reverse Victim and Offender

Good luck