To not want to look after DSD on my own?

[DonnyBurrito]

Not actually posting this on AIBU as I'd mainly like input from people who are also step parents (if possible!)

I have a DSD who is almost 7 years old. I've been in her life since she was 3. She stays over every Saturday night and we do 50/50 during holidays. She is important to me and since the day I met her I have gone out of my way to make her feel cared for and special, and as a result we have a very good relationship. I have been proactive in making her feel like part of my wider family, too.

Me and her dad (DP) also have a 9 month old son. She's taken very well to having a half sibling, and unless she's hiding it EXTREMELY well there doesn't seem to be any jealousy issues or behavioural problems that have cropped up. She's the same old kid she always was. It's me who is different now.

I have less time, energy and patience for literally everyone. My son wakes up a LOT through the night, we are co-sleeping and also 'breastsleeping'. I'm coping fine with caring for both me and my son, but I have very little left for anyone or anything else. He's a very demanding, high needs baby. He's also extremely heavy and wants to be carried 80% of the time through the day. He requires every last shred of my energy. However I know that if I was sleeping more than a 2 hour stretch at night I'd be no way near as exhausted by him.

My partner works until 9pm on a Saturday, and I am the only driver at the moment. He was picking DSD up when he finished work and getting public transport/taxi home with her, which meant her mum had to wait in on a Saturday night for him to arrive, and then he and DSD were getting back to our home really late. It wasn't ideal for anyone. This meant DSD ended up rarely staying over, so I offered to start collecting DSD at 5pm and sorting her out/spending time with her until her dad got back from work around 9:30/10pm. I've done this for about 3 months. Initially it was great, but it's not working for me anymore. I'm knackered enough as it is through the day, and once DS goes to sleep at about 7:30pm, I am spent. I just want to be alone, I don't want to do any extra childcare. In reality, I don't want to have the two of them on my own at all. Although I do I give her as much quality time (baking, playing games, colouring) as possible when I do have her on my own, it isn't the same as before. I don't love it like I used to. And as time goes on, I just really do not want to do it on my own at all. I don't want her to feel this from me and it end up effecting our bond irreparably, though.

I am still very happy for her to be here when her dad is here, because obviously we can share all the child care tasks out and it's just so much easier and more fun for us all.

I feel guilt about this though and I know ultimately it will end up disrupting her staying over again if I don't pick her up on Saturdays. I know things will change for me once I am getting more sleep in the next year or so, though...

But am I being unreasonable to not want to look after my DSD on my own until then?

Except that's not what happened at all, and you know it. I didn't get cross about the advice in the slightest, I specifically said I didn't mean to be rude but I don't want to get into making any sleep adjustments and gave very valid reasons for that (which you ignored). YOU got 'cross' I didn't take your advice. And no, breastfeeding my son through the night is not silly. It works for us, and there are more sensible options to make things easier with DSD on Saturday nights that other posters have suggested that don't mean I have to jeopardise my breastfeeding relationship with my son. You said that if I wasn't willing to do that then I couldnt possibly care about my DSD, which is the only silly thing anyone has said.

you do realise there’s a difference between spending time with children and looking after them?

if I look after someone else’s child, I am doing them a favour. However they are related to me. I can spend time with my nephews without providing childcare for my sister.

if I ask my mum to look after the toddler got me, she is providing childcare. Unpaid but still actual babysitting. She doesn’t have to. The fact she’s his grandmother and loves him doesn’t change that. Grandparents often say that grandchildren are so much better because they can hand them back. It’s the lack of obligation or responsibility that makes it great.

rather than being ‘unpleasant’, people being nice to or looking after other people’s children is a bloody kindness. There’s no obligation, so they are choosing to help out.

Quite OP.

apparently feeding your child the way you choose is not ok because there’s a half sibling to whom you are obligated and who must come first. You have to leave him to cry instead because he’s just less important. That seems to be the logic at work. 🙄

@candlesandpitchforks I personally feel like this board should come with a warning that some posters have their own issues they haven't resolved so come along and will batter you because it gives them a sense of release. Same posters again over and over and it's incredibly dull.

Yep, the dullest! You can smell them a mile off. I get it though, some topics are triggering. I wish they'd just have the self awareness to own it, rather than start literally making up their own narrative so the thread ends up totally derailed.

Thank you for the kind advice. I agree, I think cutting myself a bit of slack is the way forward! I appreciate your time and efforts here 😊

Just to say Bf is dammed hard well done for keeping going ! 💐

Honestly it's a wonder anyone posts here at all sometimes. Some of the comments are actual bonkers.

^ also what soggypaper said.

This comment deserves a standing ovation 👏

I'd love to see the same fervour that Slugs has here applied to threads where grandmothers or other family members refer to looking after their young relatives as childcare or a favour to the parents.

It wouldn't happen, because these are in fact totally normal ways to describe looking after ANY children that aren't yours, including family.

Not just totally normal @aSofaNearYou. They’re actually incredibly positive ways of looking at it. They are not your responsibility. You are not I lived to. Still, you choose to do it.

The thing that crushes any possible joy out of a stepparenting situation (and replaces it with frustration, anger, resentment and all that is bad) is insisting that it’s an obligation and responsibility. Without any authority whatsoever. Indeed, greater obligation and responsibility than the children’s parents. Unlike the parents, anything you elect not to do is framed as a slight against the SC and you are held responsible.

meanswhile, as threads on here so often show, lurking in the background is all too a parent or parents not actually fulfilling their actual responsibilities. They’ve got themselves a proxy.

And you know the real advantage of a proxy? You and everyone else can blame them any time anything goes awry.

What did my friend say about step parenting.

You shouldn't care more about your DSC than the people who created them, because if you do you will always show them up as parents and people don't like that.

Sadly we see a lot of SP caring about their DSC and trying to help them, with the parents just not caring at all.

@SoggyPaper, sofa and youseethings are spot on.

The thing that crushes any possible joy out of a stepparenting situation (and replaces it with frustration, anger, resentment and all that is bad) is insisting that it’s an obligation and responsibility. Without any authority whatsoever.
This is a very neat summary of many an thread on this board. It should probably be a brightly coloured banner right across the top of each thread to ensure the message sinks in for even the dimmest posters.

Thanks! Actually DS now has croup and ended up barking his way through the night last night, the only thing that settled him enough to get back to sleep was the boob. Sometimes a cuddle gets him back off to sleep, but that wasn't at all acceptable to him last night. It's a bloody useful a tool during illness. It made Covid, colds, jabs (and now croup) easier on him and me, and by extension everyone else!

But yeah, fuck my kid and what is good for him! I need to preserve my energy for my SD instead 😶

The thing that crushes any possible joy out of a stepparenting situation (and replaces it with frustration, anger, resentment and all that is bad) is insisting that it’s an obligation and responsibility. Without any authority whatsoever.

I agree with this. The people who bang on about it being an obligation and responsibility are just being counterproductive to their own cause. If you want someone to see their role as something positive then maybe don’t come at a sleep deprived mum with a partner who takes the piss, insinuating that she owes the ex a break and that if the child doesn’t have stay with her she will know how unwanted she is.

Stepparenting isn’t the same as parenting. I don’t know why some people think they’re equivalent. Just because that adult comes along, it doesn’t mean they are now equal to the parents, and it certainly doesn’t mean the load is now lighter for the parents.

And put him down. He needs to get used to not being held 80% of the time. You are making things very hard for yourself

She didn't ask for your opinion about that. Can't believe the people whose solution here is to say OP should spend less time caring for her baby. A lot of anti-BF bullshit on MN lately.

Tbf though the poster you quoted has pretty much made any comment she says irrelevant because this is the top of the iceberg in terms of totally unreasonable exceptions of a new mum.

That and being entitled enough to think that people don't have lives or needs that should conflict with providing free childcare to the parents. And that doesn't just apply to step parents so there's that.

I do wonder if the same expectations she has of others would also apply to herself or whether that there would be some bullshit reason why that same expectation wouldn't apply In reverse.

OP babies are meant to be cuddled (it doesn't last long and believe me with my son who passed ) I don't regret one single inconvenience cuddle. Keep doing what your doing.

Why is your husband having his child on a night he's working until 9/10pm?

I don't get this. It's supposed to be the time he spends with his child, not just the time she's in his house but he's not even there.

If he's working so late as to make the Saturday night almost pointless then they need to relook at the contact schedule and work out a better one where HE actually spends time with and cares for his daughter not you.

YANBU at all, I'm sure you will and already have been told how UR you're being not to be overjoyed at doing this (not RTFT) but it's not your responsibility. Her dad is basically doing fuck all.

He either needs to rejig his work to allow for a proper contact schedule where HE looks after her or he needs to accept he can't see her on Saturday nights.

What the fuck would he do if you weren't around?

And as for stopping breastfeeding your own child so you can do more things for a child who isn't even yours... Yeah. No.

Of course it's a favour. If my parents take my child out for the day it's a favour to me. They also want to do it because they enjoy spending time with him but they don't HAVE to because he's not their responsibility he's mine... Ergo a favour.

If your sister took your son out for the day or your parents did to make your life easier (which OP is doing for the parents by picking DSD up early here), would you not even thank them? Would you not say thanks for doing that because in your mind they should want to do it and it's not a favour to you?

Entitled much!!

When you choose to live with, and have children with someone. Their DCs become your responsibility too. It’s a major thing to consider. If anything happened to the DM, that child would live with you.

Many women who become SMs forget this!
For most men who become SFs, it’s a given.

When you choose to live with, and have children with someone. Their DCs become your responsibility too. It’s a major thing to consider. If anything happened to the DM, that child would live with you.

No they don't. OP is under no obligation whatsoever legally definitely or morally imo, to care for her step daughter on a Saturday night because her husband works too late to make contact on that evening remotely viable.

I think too many poster's forget this tbh. That marrying a man with a child doesn't make you suddenly responsible for that child, and certainly not to the extent of basically having his contact for him because he's not even there. She needs to come on a night when her dad is there. That's the point.

I think whether a person should morally take responsibility for a SC is where people have a difference of opinion. But you can't say as if it's fact that you DO take responsibility for a child when you marry their parent because actually officially and legally at no point do you. The responsibility for a child remains with their two parents. They don't just suddenly become the step parents child or they the child's magic third parent the moment they sign the marriage papers.

I think my bones line on this one that SC which I have one lovely on, knows she has two parents and may love me, I know she will always love her parents more and in a more intense way.

She comes home to our house to spend time with her dad. She is owed time with her dad morally and legally and he has a responsibility to his child as every parent does. I think a lot of families with a SP forget this when it's convenient for them.

@candlesandpitchforks Very sorry your son passed 💐

I've been shamed for being a responsive parent before and have since grown a (slightly) thicker skin about it, to the point I can ignore people saying "have you tried putting him down more?" and things along those lines - like I'd not ever tried! 😂 The way he got manageable was to relax about it and ride it out; whenever the boy wants a cuddle, he gets a cuddle, whenever the boy wants a feed, he gets a feed! I was stressed and obsessive when I was trying to play by the old fashioned rules about creating independence way too early on. I do think it's hard to manage without 'a village', which i don't have, but that's not my sons fault. He's a baby, he literally can't understand if I chose to ignore his needs. My SD can be talked to and have things explained to her why things will be different. For my son, that would obviously just be very distressing.

It's sad that some people seem to care less about a babies fragile understanding.

We aren't even married! I use DSD/MIL etc as short hand, so I don't have to type out 'my partners daughter' or whatever every time she's mentioned. As you say, it makes no difference legally either way, I see her as part of my family on moral grounds. I wish she was mine, and lived with us full time. Navigating the fact she isn't/doesn't is bloody difficult 😩

It's sad that some people seem to care less about a babies fragile understanding.

including your husband

shouting at him during nappy changes
Trying to discipline
shoving him in high chair

@DonnyBurrito mum shaming happens at every level, it's a shame that same scrutiny isn't applied to dads. But I get it. Give him a cuddle for me. You won't regret it I promise you that. I cuddled by daughter ever second of every day as a baby and she's the most independent brave 3 nearly 4 year old you will meet. The things they say didn't come to pass for me, not that anyone was brave enough to say them to me with my DD. Hindsight being a beautiful thing. Possibly got a bit tougher about telling people to fcuk off having lost him the way we did.

If you don't have a village at home or in family. My best piece of advice I can give is find other mums build your village (that's what I did). Not everyone is a nobber that assumes SM are evil just (MN SP board attracts more than the average). If you struggling in at home hire in as much help you can (cleaner ect) it's one of those things that seem like such a luxury but actually I will forgo most things to keep my cleaner tbh although I recognise that I'm in a rather privileged situation to even say that in this climate.

It's v hard being a mum and even worse as a SM which the bar on your actions are almost always so much higher (usually than the parents).

I'm so sorry for all the comments on here you have received I'm actually floored at some of them tbh and I'm not easily shocked. I wish this board was a place of support but that's very naïve thinking on my part.

Don't let people place their issues/guilt of their own failings on you. It's hard when you care for the DSD as much as you clearly do. But think of it this way the children are watching and would you want DSD and son to think just because your a mum you have to burn your self daily to survive when others should be stepping up.

You can do this. It's ok to say no, hire in help, and set boundaries esp in a blended family.