Minor parenting issues becoming a strain on our marriage, what can I do?

[AllTheChocolateButtons]

Dh and I have 3 kids: 7yo, 5yo and 1yo. The youngest dc is what I'd call a high needs baby around sleep, in that she needs to be with someone either co sleeping or on their arms to sleep. Similar to my eldest, very different to my happy little sleeper middle child.

I am happy to cosleep with dc3 as I breastfeed and she goes back to sleep quickly, we both get a decent night (mostly). Until a few weeks ago dh was sleeping in the spare bed, getting a full night's rest and I often handed over to him in the morning if dc had been up more often than usual. Worked fine. We have no sex life to speak of, so where he sleeps would make no difference. That's a thread for another time I guess.

Anyway, dh has come back into the marital bed on his own accord, and everyone is disturbed. Dc and I have less space, and dh is now getting woken in the night. So he's decided to do some sort of sleep training with her without discussing it, and is pissed off with me for not being grateful. I tried to discuss it and he shut me down with his reasons for doing it, with no attempt to understand why it upset me or how he could help.

Meanwhile he's been shouting at the other two for the past few weeks (despite me asking him not to), so now they both won't go to him for comfort. I'm somehow the bad guy as they don't want to go to him and only want me.

I know this is all about parenting, but I'm at a loss as to how to talk to dh about this or handle it as he shuts me down, moves on and then acts like everything is fine again. I am left feeling unheard, without any form of closure, and a bit like an open wound. It just doesn't feel very loving anymore.

Is this the end of our marriage? If we can't even resolve relatively minor parenting issues together? How do we move through this together?

So discuss it differently?

habe you asked him what his reason was for wanting to move back into the family bed?

sounds like you want him to hear you (fair enough)

have you heard him?

meantime I’d move to the spare room with the baby !

Are you trying to discuss it in the moment where you're grumpy and he's tired?

I would try making some time for it when you're both (relatively) refreshed. But if you can't talk at all then surely that's not tenable - you need to be able to communicate with each other.

Move into the spare room with the baby.

if he can unilaterally start doing things so can you.

his mood may also improve?

So you're choosing to attachment-parent DC3 and probably gentle-parent the older ones if DH is telling them off and then they run to you for sympathy. That is your prerogative as a mum but it may cost you your marriage, and the repercussions of that will harm all your children. 1yo is old enough to sleep train and whilst BF is still recommended, this does not need to be at night/on demand.

Rethink your priorities, for the sake of your whole family. As for how to talk to DH, reassure him and tell him you miss him in the evenings. He wants to be with you or he wouldn't have come back into your bed. He sounds frustrated.

He hasn’t been telling them off, he’s been shouting at them. Big difference.

It’s certainly not the end of your marriage, but it does sound like it needs some attention.

All behaviour is communication, he’s trying to tell you something, do you know what? Are you able to ask him “what do you need?”, “what is working and what needs to change?”, “what would you like the situation to look like in 6 months time?”.

You then get to tell him the same. You get your state your needs and lay down your boundaries… e.g. “I need you to have as much sleep as possible because it makes life so much easier”, “I think it is unacceptable for you to sleep train our baby without discussing it with me first”.

He can be defensive but you keep going. Calmly stating what you need and what your boundaries and asking him to express himself in terms of his needs.

Sometimes with my dp I find it helpful to repeat back to him when he expresses a need (in amongst all the ranting and raving) “so am I right in understanding that you feel xxxx and you need yzx?” And keep doing that over until they are able to focus their mind away from their defensive rant and back to wha they really want?

I also do a lot of acknowledging of how they feel, but DO NOT make myself responsible for fixing it. “Yes, i can really see how stressed this is making you.” “I can see how angry you are about this”. Which is a quick way to break down some of the defensiveness. It is it NOT me giving in or letting him have his way.

The truth is, you both have needs and you are allowed to state them. You do not have any obligation to meet them for each other!

It’s really shit that you / I have to do this emotional labour to unpick disagreements, it would be great if my dp could do this for himself. But I hope in talking this way to him, he will learn to do this analysis for himself as he will learn that I am not responsible for him.

Infants are not able to be trained. All they do is loose trust in you that you're going to protect and nurture them. Their brains are not developed enough to understand and studies have found adults with depression and low mental health issues were often separated from their care givers for long periods of time.
Your husband wanting to co-sleep with you at the detriment of a baby's relationship with you and then being short with his other children just shows how self absorbed he is.
He sounds emotionally immature and very disinterested in anyone else's happiness and we'll being.
Your children rely on you for nurture. He doesn't rely on you to get back to sleep. Being a mum isn't a 9-5 and when it's bed time they need to defend for themselves. It's 24 hour and you will sleep through breastfeeding getting a great nights sleep and your baby will feel your heartbeat and breath and heat and know they are safe.
Why not get a second double bed and put it in the children's bedroom. He can sleep there and be responsible for his other children whilst your baby enjoys co-sleep and breastfeeding with you.

You need to calmly talk together, which I know is tricky on broken sleep and 3 young DC. I can understand that he wouldn't be happy relegated to sleeping the spare bedroom until your youngest stops cosleeping (when you stop breastfeeding/another 6 or 12 months?) Moving back into the bed and insisting on sleep training sounds like his misses the intimacy and privacy of your joint bed but is trying to change the situation in a VERY clumsy way without discussion. Having 3 young DC is super hard but you do need to listen to each other and agree together some compromise that works for you both. Only you two can decide what that is. Whether it's buying a king size, weekend nights not cosleeping or whatever. You need to talk.

This was what I was going to suggest. I only have the one, so I recognise my situation might be different. From the start, we decided our marital bedroom was a sacred space. There is nothing associated in our room to do with our daughter. She has never once slept in our room. My daughter’s bedroom had a cot and a double bed. Any co sleeping took place in that room. It meant my husband could stay in our marital bed, and I could ‘escape’ to that adult space when needed. It actually took seven years for my daughter to fully sleep alone. That doesn’t mean I co slept fully for seven years. There were months of good sleep followed by sleep regressions, worries etc. (lockdown co sleeping occurred a lot).

You need to prioritise your marriage space. If you have a spare room, make it your baby’s room and you sleep in there when needed.

@Jibo - what a load of old rubbish!! OP sounds lovely and like a really kind, caring mum who puts the needs of her children first. Her DH, on the other hand, sounds like a man child who can’t deal with being in second place temporarily and reaps the benefits of getting a decent night’s sleep and someone to bring up his children. Reassure him? Don’t be daft! He needs to grow up!

I don't think you're helping dismissing things as 'minor', and you do this at your own peril. Most marriages would be in trouble by this point.
It's all very well to snuggle up with just your baby for over a year, but you should expect that to affect your marriage and you are being optimistic to think that he'd be happy being sidelined for over a year.
Sorry, but I'm in the camp that 2.5 years of breastfeeding is just weird - they are more a child even than a toddler by the, just odd and says more about you inability to let go, detach and have your life back than your DC's needs. If you want to carry on for nutritional benefits, express and bottle feed by all means.
By 2.5 if you are still breastfeeding feeding at night, I would of thought that would hamper potty training - were they still in nappies?
I think you've expected, and maybe been lucky so far, that your DH to put up with a lot. His actions are now showing that he is at the end of his tether with it all.
It's about time you tried to see his pov, he may not be going about it the way you like, but you'd be wise to agree than things need to change and make positive steps, such as a cot in the bedroom to start with.

OP you do sound like an amazing mum and I don't think you should feel guilty for doing what instinctively feels right to you around your baby.

Your husband sounds like someone who is not great at communicating but as a pp said he IS communicating his feelings in different and it seems quite negative ways.
Do you think it may be that he feels pushed out of the relationship you have with the baby and that he has no say in the parenting methods you are using?
I am in no way saying he is right here or that his heavy handed approach is the right one either but he might feel a bit out of control with everything which is leading him to react the way he is.

I would write down everything that you want to say - your take on the situation, why you feel it is important to co-sleep with the baby etc, your understanding that he is clearly not happy and your desire to work with him to make changes that will work for you both.
If he shuts you down and won't discuss the issues then maybe you could give him it to read.

You are both firmly in the trenches here as far as childcare is concerned but children grow and things change. It won't be like this forever but there is a danger that permanent damage can be done to a relationship if these things are not discussed and sorted out.
Good luck x

Well it's obvious isn't it. He wants sex and attention and having three young children isn't conducive to that so he's getting angry and frustrated.
I often wonder why couples who are unable to communicate at all go on to have so many children and then self combust.
I think its time you started talking to each other.

The sleep training is a red herring. The message underneath is the one to observe

You do sound like you are doing a great job btw. 3 kids isnt easy.
Keep on as you are but look at the issue too down and bottom up

Top*

Please don't come in and make the thread a bash about OP co-sleeping with a one year old. There's absolutely nothing wrong with this and people parent differently. What works for some doesn't for others

OP - do you and your husband prioritise any time together? I think it sounds like he wants his wife back and your time together there. Completely understand how hard it is during these times, especially with three kids
Can you sit down to discuss and maybe plan out a way you can get some quality time together? Does 1yo go to bed before you or are you always up in bed with them?

urgh All the replies where the OP needs to make changes and adapt around a man who works 7-11, is shouting at his children and made a decision to sleep train without discussion. Because what the OP needs to do is continue to appease him even more

why rhe 7-11 work hours that seems to be an issue that means you are communicating with each other - and a lack of communication is the real issue

Nothing in your post makes you sounds like a martyr OP. Ignore the unhelpful post below.

Is there a reason you are resistant to putting your wee one in her own bed? Dont be a martyr to your kids, find a balance, he's slept in the spare room to accommodate you for a year or more? Time to talk and find a way forward.

@AllTheChocolateButtons did you discuss with him the fact that you were going to be cosleeping with your child? at what age did the cosleeping start and how old is the child now? I think you might find that is the problem. he probably feels lonely and totally neglected after such a long time. perhaps you need to get the child into the cot and just lift the child for feeding.

I'm not usually one to jump to the defence of the men (ask my DH!) but your asides about his working hours brought me up short and I think might be relevant. He's regularly working 9am-11pm with only a 5.30-7pm 'break' for parenting, no time with his wife (no fault of yours, of course) and has until recently not even been sharing the same bed as her. That sounds very lonely and stressful and I wonder whether he's acting (badly) out of a slightly misguided determination to reclaim some actual "being a human being" space for him and you as a couple.

In my experience a lot of men (unhelpfully) project anger and/or ruthless efficiency and frustration as a response to every emotion they actually feel and I wonder whether the emotions underneath that he can't properly access are actually sadness, loneliness, pressure, desire for closeness etc?

None of that is to take away from your experiences which will also be incredibly full on with three children and evenings alone etc. but I hope this is helpful in suggesting a different cause of the issue and a way to reframe it so it can be addressed at root if I'm right.

When my DH and I were going through it out really helped to realise that he was desperate to feel loved and not emotionally articulate enough to express that. Not because it was my job to take whatever he threw at me (absolutely not) but it changed the way I approached things for the better because I had a better understanding of where he was ACTUALLY coming from (even if he didn't recognise it) and what he actually needed from me as a partner which made him more better at giving me what I needed etc.

That was very rambling but I hope was perhaps helpful.

I should say that this led to us both independently making significant changes in our lives (work in particular) which improved things no end, as did the simple fact of our children getting older!

Really appreciate the advice around how to speak to dh, thanks I'll take that on board. Communication is always the answer isn't it.

I don't really want to get into a sleep training/bf debate, I'm following the evidence around co-regulation and attachment and we are both happy with that approach.

To answer some qs: Dc does have a bedroom and a floor bed. She had a cot in our room but would wake after 20 mins screaming, no matter what we tried. So she goes into her floor bed for naps and as much of the evening as possible but wakes every 1.5-2 hours so once I'm ready for bed I bring her in with me and she sleeps for longer stretches. I'm too old and tired to get up out of bed every 2 hours to shush and rock when we can all get more sleep the way we're doing it. It won't be forever, and I know it's a season, I guess I didn't expect to be still cosleeping at this point but she's her own little person and I'm trying my best.

Maybe I'll start going in her bed but it's much smaller and makes for a worse nights sleep for me.