Am I being unreasonable

[SSF8]

Bit of background. I have one DD age 11.
OH has one DD age 5 and we have one DS together who is 3 month old.
Basically OH's DD lives with her mam and shares a bedroom with her and gets cuddled to sleep all night (borderline child abuse in my eyes) she is almost 6! So when she comes to ours she expects the same thing. We gave her a bedroom, decorated it in unicorns at her request, all the decorations and fairy lights she wanted.... this was almost a year ago when we knew the baby would be arriving. We now have a 3 month old baby... my darling little stepdaughter still won't sleep alone. My other half is on her bedroom floor every weekend, leaving me to the night feeds while he's off work and could be giving me a break.
DS has started sleeping better and I am wanting to give him his own room and space as we now tend to wake him up coming to bed. If we don't wake him he sleeps from 7-5am (I know this from the number of times I've fell asleep on the sofa) DH won't let me give him his own room as he wants his daughter to have her own room when she sleeps. My daughter is 11 and would be happy to share with his 5 year old once a week IF she slept good .... but she doesn't!
What do I do. I'm at my wits end. I want everyone to be happy but I feel like we just argue constantly over our children!!

I love how posters think they know this little girl so much better than you op even though you actually spend time with her and theyve never met her!

I feel sorry for her too funnily enough. Because none of this is her fault. She sees sleeping with her mum as the norm. And will continue to do so, probably until someone picks on her at school for it. By then she will be older and it will be harder to get her out of it.
This isn't just coming from me. It's driving my OH crazy too as it's affecting his bonding time with his son and his relaxing time with me.
The other 2 children in the house sleep in their own beds, and she will learn to aswell.
I posted this as a bit of a vent and for some advice and ideas on how to get her to sleep better.
Some people have given me great advice, others not so much. They'd just rather blame me instead. We are both parents to 3 children who we need to split time between and treat equally and she will have to learn to adapt to that while she is in our care.
Every household has different rules and routines. It just happens that ours is at the complete opposite end of the spectrum. Doesn't make us bad people, doesn't make us bad parents.
Just like every other parents we want what's best for ALL of our children. And this is not it

@JoanMavisIcecreamGirl

They can have her for a week and see how long it takes to send her back 😂

That's a joke by the way before someone jumps on me for saying I'm going to abandon her!

@SSF8

Say I had gone to do a weekly shop and left dad at home with the 3 kids. (Which I do once a week as it's easier and cheaper to go alone)
3mo needs a feed, 11yo needs help with homework, 5yo needs a wee. Which do you prioritise.
Feed the baby.
5yo wees alone
Help 11yo with homework after
What would really happen is 3mo would be left to cry hungry to make sure 5yo didnt wee on the floor. 11yo would still be waiting for help on a math sum an hour later.
It's all about independence for age. what they can and can't do. And what you can and can't do for each of them as a parent because of how much children of different ages depend on you.

I completely agree with you OP and think you have it totally right. Given how much compassion people on here seem to have for older children who are behind developmentally, it often shocks me the total disregard they have for babies. Their physical needs should always trump an older child being irrationally upset over something that will do them no harm like going to the toilet alone, I just can't understand these people who preach that you should be leaving your baby to cry starving hungry or with a poo in their nappy because the older child's emotional wants come first.

If I left my partner in charge of both the kids I would definitely expect him to go and check on the baby if she was distressed even if his son wanted him to be doing something else, because she could have fallen, she could be trapped, she could be choking. She is by far the most vulnerable person in the house and it is irresponsible not to prioritise her needs accordingly.

This is why we talk about older children needing to adapt to younger siblings, because they are no longer the most vulnerable person in the house and can't reasonably expect to be treated like they are any more.

@AE18
Thank you! You're one of the only people here that talks sense and I appreciate your honesty, support and advice.

She does go to school now. But she wasn't sent to nursery. Just straight to school when she turned 5. Her mum is a teacher yes. But hasn't worked since she was born and is starting work again this September when the schools return.

Then I really don't see the point of this first comment.

She's actually a teacher, so the 6 weeks holiday would have been the perfect time to do it.

@readitandwept before she starts work and while her daughter isn't at school so interrupted nights sleep won't affect her school work

Do you know for sure that she doesn't have a condition? She definitely has no social,learning or genetic conditions? She doesn't have any mental health condition? Have professionals told you that?

But she'll have a whole summer of implementing a technique that might take years when she's about to start a new job in 2 weeks or so after not working for 5 years.

It's all very well saying that kids should do this or that. But some can't. It would probably be really helpful if my neighbour's wheelchair bound kid started walking now she's got a new baby but it isn't going to happen.

No not all children can. But we've implemented the technique for a week previously and made gradual progress. So you don't know until you try, but I believe she can. It's just that the progress is being undone. As I've said before. We've offered for her to stay with us, my OH is even prepared to use holidays at work while we focus on her and a routine. Means we're doing the hard work. Mum just has to stick to it when she returns home for the best results.
You're clearly never going to agree with me. And always going to come back with some other reason or excuse. So let's just leave it there

I think you'll just leave her screaming and terrified in bed so you get to snuggle with your partner. That's how you come across. No way would I let you have her half the time knowing you think that way.

Do you understand that the best way to get her to sleep independently might be very slowly weaning her off of the contact at night. So it could take a year before she does it all on her own? Or do you want it to happen now,while your baby is still young?

Have you read anything I've said? How we started with him staying in there and touching, then weaned off the touching to the point he was just on the bedroom floor, now he's slowly trying to come out of the room.

Her dad under no circumstances gets into her bed, but he holds her arm as she falls asleep and gradually he is trying to have less and less touching to the point he is just on the bedroom floor. If he stays on the bedroom floor all night, she sleeps all night. On occasions wakes to check he's still there, then straight back off to sleep. If he leaves the room (even just to go to the toilet) she knows immediately that he is gone and wakes and screams/cries

That is what I said incase you missed it the first time

@Kewlwife

She has made it very clear lots of times that they don't leave her to scream and have been trying to gradually reduce physical contact. You are trying to paint them out as an extreme they are not because you think anything less than total indulgence of the child's desires in the night is child abuse.

I totally get your experience with your work being undone @SSF8, it is a problem faced by so many non resident parents. Funnily enough, people are very quick to say "the resident parent knows them best and their opinion is therefore the most important" without realising that the non resident parent is uniquely qualified to observe how they behave when they arrive (their norm), and how they behave when they leave, and how being back with the other parent affects those changes. There are lots of things we do as standard with my SS that we know the mum is convinced she needs a reward chart for or be flat out couldn't do, because she doesn't realise he's already been doing that absolutely fine for two years at ours and she has just never expected him to be capable of it.

It massively sets back any progress you can make as a parent, so I really feel for you in this more extreme situation.

with your work being undone @SSF8, it is a problem faced by so many non resident parents. Funnily enough, people are very quick to say "the resident parent knows them best and their opinion is therefore the most important" without realising that the non resident parent is uniquely qualified to observe how they behave when they arrive (their norm), and how they behave when they leave, and how being back with the other parent affects those changes

Works both ways. Plenty of NRPs undo the work of a RP. And often in the name of making life hard for the RP. Changes in behaviour also observed. Strangely enough, most of us do know our children and know when they are being put under pressure to conform to parenting that prior to meeting the step parent, wasn’t the parenting norm of the NRP. My poor children have tied themselves in knots trying to be ‘good’ for their step mum but she manages to pick fault in everything they do - if they don’t load the dishwasher, their mother is spoiling them. When they do load the dishwasher, their mother is abusing them by forcing them to do chores. If they point out the obvious change in attitude from week to week and ask that she doesn’t make everything about their mum, they are told to ‘fuck off back to that bitch, then’. And then their phones are removed so the can’t communicate with me. Changes in behaviour? Yeah, all my fault.

@Sotiredofthislife

Works both ways. Plenty of NRPs undo the work of a RP. And often in the name of making life hard for the RP. Changes in behaviour also observed. Strangely enough, most of us do know our children and know when they are being put under pressure to conform to parenting that prior to meeting the step parent, wasn’t the parenting norm of the NRP. My poor children have tied themselves in knots trying to be ‘good’ for their step mum but she manages to pick fault in everything they do - if they don’t load the dishwasher, their mother is spoiling them. When they do load the dishwasher, their mother is abusing them by forcing them to do chores. If they point out the obvious change in attitude from week to week and ask that she doesn’t make everything about their mum, they are told to ‘fuck off back to that bitch, then’. And then their phones are removed so the can’t communicate with me. Changes in behaviour? Yeah, all my fault. 

I didn't say it was all your fault, I said it was a common problem for non resident parents. My situation is nothing like yours and the step parent doesn't come into it, these are my partner's observations. I was empathising with OP, not attacking you.

I've read everyone of your posts, OP, despite having to talk about the situations in other families.

I understand where you're at. Him on the bedroom floor and her waking up to check. I'm saying you might not get any further for ages. Your baby might be sleeping through the night by the time he can leave the room for any length of time without her waking everyone else up.

I worry that you think you're going to be able to achieve this in a time frame that gets your partner in your room on weekends and helping with night feeds.

We won't get any further for ages because it's only happening in our home. But like I said the progress we made when she was here for a full week was amazing. So I know it's possible, which is why it's so frustrating. You should have seen how proud of herself she was for staying alone for longer but again... it was all undone within 5 days of going home

So really what it comes down to is that you feel sorry for the girl but not as sorry as you feel for yourself having to do the night feeds for your youngest when you SD is there.

How you can compare the two is beyond me. For you it's a temporary inconvenience, for her it's a possible traumatic experience that could affect her later in life.

It seems that what it comes down to is you transferring the blame on the mother so that's indirectly, you see it as her punishing you.

You say that she lives in share housing? With whom? Maybe she doesn't trust the others and doesn't want her daughter on her own in room that could be on a different floor.

Maybe she has tried but unlike you, she can't bear to leave her daughter screaming in fear, certainly not because it is an inconvenience for you to do night feeds on weekends for a few months.

Oh my gosh people continue to spout such nonsense on this thread.

Yes, obviously, the only reason to think a child that cannot cope without being touched 100% of the time, who has expressed herself that she doesn't want to go on this way, and who is reaching an age where she will need to spend increasing amounts of time away from her parents and would greatly benefit socially from being able to do so should be encouraged to improve is because you yourself are a selfish witch who wants to take this perfectly reasonable way of life away from the child.

It can't have anything at all to do with the fact that it is actually not a positive way of living for the child and she would benefit greatly from learning how not to be distraught at the thought of being independent for 5 minutes.

Honestly, if OP wasn't a step mum and these were her two children, people would be suggesting ways in which she can help her daughter get to a healthier place in terms of her anxiety around physical contact so that she is prepared to cope in the outside world, as well as be happy in a scenario that allows her parents to also have a bond with their younger child without having to constantly ensure they are maintaining physical contact with her as well lest all hell break loose. But because it is a step child, apparently that is unacceptable and her independence plus that other bond are unimportant.

It is obviously not healthy and to say OP and her partner are being unreasonable by thinking they should be working on changing it is idiotic.

If it was a child that was with her even the majority of the time, it would be somewhat different. I would think baby making when you're struggling to get the first one through the night was a hasty move but the fact it would mean she was doing this every night either alone or meaning her partner could never help with night feeds would change the context significantly.

@Kewlwife

If it was a child that was with her even the majority of the time, it would be somewhat different. I would think baby making when you're struggling to get the first one through the night was a hasty move but the fact it would mean she was doing this every night either alone or meaning her partner could never help with night feeds would change the context significantly.

I think a lot of the problems with this logic (which is frequently thrown around in regards to step parents) come from the fact that there seems to be this weird culture in which dads only help with their kids on the weekends because they are working in the week, so when there is a non resident step child involved people will always so "well she's only there every two days so it's ok to just focus on her", when in reality he doesn't interact with or help with the baby during the week because he is either working or asleep, prepping for work.

I believe unless you have a set up where the dad is also helping during the week regardless of whether he has work, then you need to accept that he will need to be equally involved with both children on the weekend regardless of which one lives there but never sees him, because that is the time he has set aside for "family".

I completely agree and said as much earlier. The dad in this situation works nights though.

If it were their 2 resident children, I'd suggest they seek professional advice, but trust their instincts about whether that advice is best for their daughter. I'd say that he has to do a significant amount of daytime childcare while OP is doing all the work at night.

I'd make a floor bed for her in your room then your DH can at least fall asleep in his own bed and be there for when the baby wakes up. The baby will wake her too but then he's right there so she should resettle. It may seem like a step backwards but I don't think you're going to crack this without the mother onboard so for your own sake I'd work it this way until she's older.

This thread is odd... Of course it's poor parenting to not encourage your child to have some independence.

I also think people are being purposefully obtuse saying that it's categorically not the co sleeping, constant dependence on mum that has caused these anxiety issues. I actually have no doubt that it is the cause. Of course a 5yo is scared to do things she's never been encouraged to do before, of course she has anxiety over sleeping alone when she's never had to before.

Surely our job as parents is to encourage independence with things like sleeping, going to the toilet, sleepovers as they get older etc... Having your child glued to your side constantly is for the parents benefit IMO, not the child's.

Your SD clearly wants to try this and I do think it's wrong of her mother not to help.

Maybe I'm just awful but there's no way I'm sleeping on the floor of my 5 year olds room all night. I get that kids struggle at night but this will never improve if the parents don't sort out some routine between themselves that involves their DD sleeping on her own.