arrowzahns
New member
Just for some background info: I have a not quite 2yo daughter as well as 2 teenagers who are actually my stepchildren. I work a part-time job where I sometimes don’t get home until very late and my husband is a SAHP. Right now my husband is also paying 99% of our bills (he’s got disability from the VA) as well as looking after the house and the kids when I’m at work. Also, our house is being remodeled so the baby is in our room in a toddler bed. These details are important.
So the baby hasn’t been a great sleeper since she was a newborn. She also has the energy level of husky that hasn’t been run in days. She usually takes one nap a day and will be wired for about 5 hours afterwards, so obviously we try not to let her nap late. I’m better with consistency than my husband and want her on a routine, but with my job we can’t guarantee that. I make the routine the same, but the times change depending on when I am home. For awhile I was doing great at getting her in bed by 9:00 on my nights off. I would turn off every light in the room except her nightlight and rub her back or nurse her to sleep. She still would take at least an hour to go down most nights and would wake up an hour or two later. Nursing her was the only way to calm her down. 9 times out of 10 she would end up in our bed. Whether out of laziness or tiredness or whatever it was, my husband wouldn’t get her to bed when I had to work late. He claimed that they try but that she just waits up for me anyway. And I get that he has a million things on his plate and that bedtime is stressful, but since it’s really hard to have any intimacy (which he complains about all the time) I suggested he at least get her in pajamas and get her teeth brushed and so on, so that when I get home I only have to read to her and put her to sleep. Then husband and I can spend time together. I remind him that overly tired kids often act rambunctious and he always tells me that’s not true.
We never intended on co-sleeping (I feel like most parents who co-sleep say the same thing). It sucks, but it was helping our sanity. Or so I thought. It’s hard to get comfortable with her in bed. Husband has bad dreams and has to take insomnia meds and having her crying every couple of hours doesn’t help.
Yesterday my husband and I were hoping to have sex. I got the baby ready for bed pretty early, but despite an early nap she was WIRED. I laid next to her toddler bed for the better part of two hours while my husband decides to lay on the bed and have every lamp on and play loudly on his iPad. This is part of the problem, he will turn the tv on or have his iPad or phone out and then get mad that she won’t go right to sleep. We are trying to ween her from night feeds (not going so well) so I only nursed her a little bit.
Husband goes into a rage and says this is all my fault that she won’t sleep and telling me that I need to quit breastfeeding. He even goes so far as to threaten to put her in the room by herself to cry it out if she tries to nurse to sleep. He says his other two kids have never acted like this implying that it’s me.
I tell her that I finally got her to sleep and he says he doesn’t want sex anymore. Fine, it’s not exactly a turn on to be yelled at anyway. Every time we can’t have sex it’s somehow my fault for breastfeeding. Even though my husband fights me on the bedtime routine and fights me on having consistent bedtimes and a quiet dark room for her to sleep in. Got it.
Even at work my coworkers tell me that the reason she doesn’t sleep is “she needs to get off the titty.” Maybe everyone is right and that’s a big part of why she doesn’t sleep well but I just feel like everyone can go screw themselves.
ETA: After I got her to sleep husband decided to skip his insomnia meds and pout/play on his iPad until 4am…he’s going to be so cranky when he finally wakes up today. And I woke up sick but I guess go fuck myself, right?
So the baby hasn’t been a great sleeper since she was a newborn. She also has the energy level of husky that hasn’t been run in days. She usually takes one nap a day and will be wired for about 5 hours afterwards, so obviously we try not to let her nap late. I’m better with consistency than my husband and want her on a routine, but with my job we can’t guarantee that. I make the routine the same, but the times change depending on when I am home. For awhile I was doing great at getting her in bed by 9:00 on my nights off. I would turn off every light in the room except her nightlight and rub her back or nurse her to sleep. She still would take at least an hour to go down most nights and would wake up an hour or two later. Nursing her was the only way to calm her down. 9 times out of 10 she would end up in our bed. Whether out of laziness or tiredness or whatever it was, my husband wouldn’t get her to bed when I had to work late. He claimed that they try but that she just waits up for me anyway. And I get that he has a million things on his plate and that bedtime is stressful, but since it’s really hard to have any intimacy (which he complains about all the time) I suggested he at least get her in pajamas and get her teeth brushed and so on, so that when I get home I only have to read to her and put her to sleep. Then husband and I can spend time together. I remind him that overly tired kids often act rambunctious and he always tells me that’s not true.
We never intended on co-sleeping (I feel like most parents who co-sleep say the same thing). It sucks, but it was helping our sanity. Or so I thought. It’s hard to get comfortable with her in bed. Husband has bad dreams and has to take insomnia meds and having her crying every couple of hours doesn’t help.
Yesterday my husband and I were hoping to have sex. I got the baby ready for bed pretty early, but despite an early nap she was WIRED. I laid next to her toddler bed for the better part of two hours while my husband decides to lay on the bed and have every lamp on and play loudly on his iPad. This is part of the problem, he will turn the tv on or have his iPad or phone out and then get mad that she won’t go right to sleep. We are trying to ween her from night feeds (not going so well) so I only nursed her a little bit.
Husband goes into a rage and says this is all my fault that she won’t sleep and telling me that I need to quit breastfeeding. He even goes so far as to threaten to put her in the room by herself to cry it out if she tries to nurse to sleep. He says his other two kids have never acted like this implying that it’s me.
I tell her that I finally got her to sleep and he says he doesn’t want sex anymore. Fine, it’s not exactly a turn on to be yelled at anyway. Every time we can’t have sex it’s somehow my fault for breastfeeding. Even though my husband fights me on the bedtime routine and fights me on having consistent bedtimes and a quiet dark room for her to sleep in. Got it.
Even at work my coworkers tell me that the reason she doesn’t sleep is “she needs to get off the titty.” Maybe everyone is right and that’s a big part of why she doesn’t sleep well but I just feel like everyone can go screw themselves.
ETA: After I got her to sleep husband decided to skip his insomnia meds and pout/play on his iPad until 4am…he’s going to be so cranky when he finally wakes up today. And I woke up sick but I guess go fuck myself, right?
