Toddler bedtime help please - DH creating bad habits!

Hi,

I'm hoping I may be able to find some help here. We've had sleep issues with DD from the beginning. At 4.5 months we spent a week at "sleep school" and that improved things a lot, but it got difficult again around the 1 year mark (not impossible, but challenging).

Basically, DD doesn't like to go to bed and gets very upset when it's time. From what I've read, this seems to be a common issue? My problem is not the crying itself, but DH's "solution" - he gives her food when he puts her to bed. Or if she wakes during the night, he gives her food in bed because it's the quickest way to get her to stop crying. I can't tell you how many times I've gotten her up in the morning and found a bowl or container of food in her bed. I've even found cherry tomatoes squished into the sheets. And don't get me started on the nuts and uncut cherry tomatoes I've found in her bed (as far back as when she was only 18 months of age!)!

I have been trying to reason with him for a year now and he doesn't see anything wrong with his behaviour. Tonight he even said I was stupid for being upset about it. Someone PLEASE tell me how to get through to him that this is a very, very bad idea/habit!!! I'm desperate!

Dads and their 'solutions' :) DH is a 'but it works' kind of guy too!

Feeding her during the night is actually encouraging her to wake up for 2 reasons. She is now used to having a snack during the night so her metabolism is starting to expect it, so she wakes needing it (and will adjust by having less calories during the day)

And, our stomach is designed to effectively shut down when we sleep and should be empty before sleep (except in babies) for the body to reach a really deep sleep. So if she is eating it means that it's harder for her to sleep in the first place. Think about how you feel when you go to bed with a stuffed tummy (sleepy but can't get a good sleep)

My DD used to be the same - she would wake wanting a bottle during the night and I ended up going cold turkey. It took about 4 nights of cuddles and a lot of patting but she then started sleeping much better.


Good luck.

So he gives her food and leaves her before she finishes eating it? What if she chokes?? You wouldn't be able to hear her.

While I don't think a night time snack is necessarily the end of the world I absolutely agree that using it as a first resort and eating in bed rather than getting up and eating at the table are far from ideal habits. The choking risk side of things would have made me crack it.

Does this reflect some of your DH's own behavior? If its normal for him to eat in bed in the middle of the night you might be fighting a losing battle. No brilliant ideas here.

What do you do at bedtime now?
We introduced supper as a bedtime filler, which worked well with DS. It wouldn't be that unusual for a kid her age to still have milk overnight, so maybe she just needs 'something' in her tummy? What do you reckon?
I'm quite sympathetic to the 'whatever works' parenting approach :) We used to give DS bananas at night after I night weaned. (I should have just continued feeding him, but that's a whole other story.) Thankfully, by 19 months or so he didn't need it any more. I think the main issue with it is the mess, as well as possible dental problems from eating at night.

Thanks for your input, ladies.

Yes, he gives her the food and leaves. In fact, he gives her the food SO he can leave without her crying. I have pointed out the choking risk so often that I feel like I'm talking to a brick wall.

No, he does not eat in bed himself. Neither of us bring food into the bedroom. He does get up during the night to get a drink from the fridge, but he drinks it in the kitchen. DD has a sippy of water in her room with her every night and usually drinks at least half.

DD started STTN (10 hours without a feed) at 10 weeks old, so if she does "need" food during the night, it's because of this problem. Dinner is often right before bed (by the time we change her nappy & clothes, and brush teeth, etc, it's around the 30-60 min gap that most websites recommend having between eating and bed). She fights the nappy and clothing change tooth and nail these days (the last 2 nights we haven't been able to put PJs on her - the first night we tried for 90 mins to no avail and she put them on herself after we left her alone in her room). Most nights we read a book, but when I say "read", anyone watching DH would think he was illiterate because he doesn't read a single word of the text, just points out a few pictures and then leaves the book with her (which is another rule I'm desperate to get him to follow, because I'm sick of finding expensive books torn to shreds in the morning!!). He will also not stick to the "once she's in the bedroom she stays there" consistency aspect of bedtime and will bring her out with him to get the book in the first place.

My issues with him giving her food in bed are (in no particular order):
* cleaning/pest control
* choking hazard
* teaching her that the solution to being upset is to eat (ie setting her up for a lifetime of emotional eating and obesity)
* tooth decay
* not teaching her that there are rules and boundaries that need to be followed (he won't set and enforce ANY rules and he won't follow any I try to set either...)
* no time for DD to digest food between eating and sleep (leading to poor sleep)

I just don't know what to do to get the message through to him that this is not normal or acceptable behaviour? He claims to always put DD first, but I've caught him leaving her unsupervised in the bath and his argument was "he could hear her". Never mind that, by the time you realise you can no longer hear them, it's too late... And then he did it again 2 mins after I yelled at him about it! And then tried to feed her dinner in the bath so he could get her to bed earlier! What makes an intelligent person such an idiot? If we lose her because he's such a... I can't even think of a word... I'll never forgive him! How on earth do I get through to him that there are damn good reasons why other people don't do these things?

All your reasons are totally valid - I couldn't think of any more to add. Is your DH the sort of person who would agree not to do these things if a professional told him its bad (eg if you went to a doc or something together to discuss this). Or would he realise its detrimental if you showed him some articles on the topic? It sounds like he's making things very difficult for you!

How much time do you spend together at bedtime? Most kids need quite a long lead-in time to settle down for bed. so there's bath and teeth etc, but after than books, and cuddles/songs/whatever they like to settle off to sleep. So, is he handling the bedtime or the both of you? It kind of sounds like he can't really be arsed doing it... am I reading that right?

My DD often fights nappy and PJs - I just insist on a nappy before she gets into bed, and she has gone with PJs before :wall:

Re your husband... um. that sounds very frustrating. You're obviously not quite reading the same page here. Perhaps if you guys work on an entirely different bedtime routine and agreed to stick to it for a week - giving your DD time to get used to it - then he might see that there are better ways of doing it than just dumping food and running.

chody, I've started sending him articles to read, but I honestly doubt he'll read them. I don't know about whether he'd listen to a professional, but I'm willing to try it if we can't resolve the situation ourselves.

MadB, you're probably right on all counts. He usually does bedtime because when I start telling him to do things differently he just yells at me to leave, so I have given up trying. I will need to work on it.

Oooh, I disagree with your DH's methods. Although you may disagree with mine: my DH and I disagree about giving water in the middle of the night: I do, he doesn't.

I do porridge pre-bed (or another filling snack) so Liebs isn't hungry.

However, this doesn't sound like the issue. Sounds like he just can't be bothered with the constant supervision a toddler needs. I understand that. Does he want to do it or do you ask him to do it? If he wants to, he does it with an awareness and a presence. If he doesn't, well, you get the "easy solution" which you rightly fear may lead to death.

If your DD doesn't like going to bed, have you asked her why? Is it a fear of something: dark, or missing out on time with you? She's only one, can you let her "stay up late" (ie an extra half-hour) as a treat some nights to alleviate this? Or can you tell her it's your bedtime too and you're off to bed. Even spending the odd evening in your pjs, so she sees you ready for bed. Or a nightlight that switches off after 15 mins?

Subbing- my 17 month old won't down either ATM though no midnight snacking involved!

TFB, DD is behind on expressive language (we just finished 6 months of speech therapy) and won't answer the question when I ask what is wrong. I ask it A LOT and never get an answer. I'm really looking forward to the day she starts answering it so that I don't have to guess as much... But I digress...

I wouldn't say he wants to be the one to put her to bed, but he chooses to be the one doing it... And he chooses to do it alone by telling (ie yelling at) me to leave when I try to help...

DD does appear to be afraid of the dark and (because there's nowhere inaccessible to her to place a nightlight) we are forced to leave her room light on all night or she screams the house down. We have covered it to reduce the light as much as possible, but there's only so much you can dim a fluoro light... When we have some money (hopefully soon), we plan to get an electrician in to install a better solution (lights with a dimmer switch or a plug up high where she can't reach it so we can put a nightlight up on a shelf), but for now it's the best we can do. If we turn it off after she is asleep, she screams when she wakes during the night... Since DH is the light sleeper in our house, her waking screaming will just be a cue for another midnight snack...

Until we gave up on her daytime, she was often up until midnight because she just wouldn't sleep. Now that we've dropped the nap, she's going to bed around 7pm and generally asleep by 9pm, but it depends on the night - sometimes she goes to sleep quickly, sometimes it's an hours long saga... Last night, for example, she was clearly tired (yawning and rubbing her eyes while sitting on my lap) and we ended up with a huge tantrum. Staying up later would only have made it worse...

You can offer her the solutions in your words so she just has to pick one.

We sometimes leave on the hall light with the door ajar for Liebs if he needs some light, and we have some glow-in-the-dark toys now he sleeps with.

My DH will opt for bedtime over doing the washing up, but if I am willing to make him wash up again because there's still food on the plate what makes him think he can do a half-arsed job at bedtime? That will not happen. If he tries it, he doesn't get to do it. I may be "mean" but I'd rather have a job done properly, especially where safety is concerned. He yells at you when he does something wrong? Wow, does he not want to be caught murdering your DD? That's what I'd be asking him. No, I just won't allow him to do bedtime until he DOES it rather than just prats about.

Yeah, maybe it's your hubby who needs some ground rules and boundaries :)

Lots of kids don't want to go to bed, and common reasons are that they're: being cut of from the interesting stuff, left alone, need help to wind-down effectively, afraid of the dark (which I think is as much about not wanting to be left alone as the dark, probably).

Just thinking, and I'm sure the whole going to bed issues and night waking would stop (after some adjustment) if DH stopped doing the things you were concerned about. Did he accept what the sleep
School people told you when DD was young? If so, I'd definitely try the professional opinion again.

Here's another reason for your DH...offering food as a 'comfort' promotes comfort eating and can lead to eating disorders/weight issues later on.

I'd be livid if that was my DH! Not sure how realistic this would be (and whether it would cause more resentment), but can you enlist family/friends/someone he respects to 'shame him' into changing? If you've tried everything else, enlist professional help. Some of your concerns are just too dangerous to be ignoring. I'd be refusing to leave if I was worried about supervision at bath time. The PJ's/dressing aren't worth the fight - as long as she wears a nappy, I'd ignore it - DS did similar at one stage; once we let it go, he did it maybe once more. What do you do when he's (not) supervising bath time? If you're cooking/cleaning, tell him you'll swap - DH takes his iPad into the bathroom, so that keeps him there, lol. Could your DH bring a 'toy' too?!

Can you sit down together and work out a routine you both agree to? We share duties here - DH does most of the stuff with DS as otherwise he feels he doesn't see him much (thank goodness for me!). We read on the lounge - usually just me but sometimes DH or both of us (depending on what needs doing in the kitchen). Then teeth (DH usually), cuddles with DS and I, then DH puts him to bed (tells him a story and they have cuddles). Can you try story time outside the room - no books left to destroy, you can 'model' reading, or share the reading (this is how we started as DH wasn't into reading either)? DH loves making up silly stories to tell DS in bed, so that works well here - again, they started simply but DH is now a master storyteller!

Bedtime - is DD picking up on the tension here and could it be contributing to her not wanting to go to bed?

Same for night wake ups - choose an approach together and stick to it - it'll probably get worse before it gets better. Battery operated nights light?

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We sometimes leave on the hall light with the door ajar for Liebs if he needs some light, and we have some glow-in-the-dark toys now he sleeps with.

if I am willing to make him wash up again because there's still food on the plate what makes him think he can do a half-arsed job at bedtime?

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We used to leave the hall light on for her when she was in the cot, but now that she's in a different room, the hall light outside our bedroom door is the only one that would help (because of the shape of the hall) and it keeps DH awake if it's on, so it's not an option.

I share your approach of "do it again if it's not done right" and his response is universally, "if you want it done your way, do it yourself"...

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Yeah, maybe it's your hubby who needs some ground rules and boundaries

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Yes, and it goes way beyond what we're discussing here. I don't want to go into it here, but there's a complete lack of respect for me which is very upsetting. He's also depressed and won't tolerate any criticism (on any subject).

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Did he accept what the sleep School people told you when DD was young? If so, I'd definitely try the professional opinion again.

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Unfortunately, because I was the admitted patient, they wouldn't tell DH any of the instructions directly and it was impossible getting him to accept basic things like "consistency is vital". This ties back to the enforcing rules aspect and he still doesn't get it. I'm starting to think that having an unbiased 3rd party may be the only way he'll ever take these issues seriously though...

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What do you do when he's (not) supervising bath time?

We share duties here

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The time I was describing, I had left them both in the bathroom to use the toilet in the ensuite. When I came back, I met him coming up the hall from the other direction. After yelling at him about leaving her unsupervised I left them both in the bathroom again and went to the study to do some work (I work part of my week at home) and that's when I heard him come into the kitchen, at which point I went back to the bathroom.

I'd very much like to be sharing duties here too, but it doesn't happen. He carries on and on about the one chore I steadfastly refuse to do for him (taking out the rubbish) and doesn't even do it properly (eg we can have 4 bags of rubbish waiting to go out because it won't do it daily and, as I type, the nappy bin is over-full). I can't keep up with the rest of the house on my own, so it's a mess but he still won't help... Or if he does do something because he needs it done and I haven't gotten to it, he carries on and on about how I do nothing...



Thank you all very much for your advice. You have given me some points to follow up on and made it clear there are some things I need to work on myself rather than trying to change him. It's very much appreciated.

Oh Hunny, I'd work on changing him. I'd change him at the local stores for a man who knows how to treat his wife properly.

That was glib, but it's worth a thought. Why are you putting up with this? Depression is bad, believe me, I know. I also managed to work to feed my family and keep the house clean because there was no other bloody option - we could starve and die in filth or I could just get on with life. I am not saying that is the answer to depression: it is not. But life around you does not stop for depression and the sooner you realise that - or he realises that - the better. And depression is NOT an excuse to disrespect your spouse.

As for the hall light - you turn it off when YOU go to bed, especially if she's usually a decent sleeper. It doesn't have to be on all night, just for the going to sleep part.

You can get night lights that you charge and then have unplugged in the bedroom so you don't need to worry about electricity points etc

Sounds like he has issues he needs to deal with himself. I hope he can see that and make an effort for you guys. :hug:

Just wanted to say that I get the whole depression thing. It can mean that making any headway with ANY issue (and it sounds like you have a few) is impossible. I hated being on the other side of it with DH, and I ended up giving him an ultimatum to get help. Which he did, reluctantly. When he started to feel better, 2/3 of our issues 'disappeared' and most of the others were easy to resolve - DH was horrified and devastated when he came to realise, mostly on his own, how he'd been treating our relationship, family and I. Can I respectfully recommend that treating this be your no 1 priority?

House cleaner, just for a couple of hours a week (and yes, when he complains about the money, you can tell him the alternative - he helps)??

Most of all... :hug: