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QUESTION: Should my husband help with weaning our toddler?
“I’m trying to wean my toddler off of breastfeeding as they have started biting. I’m a stay-at-home mom and my husband wakes up at 6 a.m. for work. We co-sleep with our toddler in our bed. My husband and I got into an argument this morning because our child woke up last night and was wide awake so I gave our child a sippy cup of water and put on a show at a 3 volume level, barely able to hear anything even to distract from wanting to breastfeed.
This woke my husband up and he’s mad that I turned on the TV and don’t ‘I understand that he has to get sleep for work.’ He thinks that if our child wakes up, I should take him into the living room until he’s ready to come back to bed so I don’t wake my husband with my process of distracting our child from breastfeeding. He thinks that because I’m a stay-at-home mom, and can ‘choose to sleep whenever I want.’ I should be understanding and ensure that I don’t disturb his sleep.
I understand that a full-time job is hard and you need sleep to have a good workday and I’m thankful to be a stay-at-home mom but I also wish he understood that I also don’t get that sleep back when I’m awake with our child at night, nap times only last 1 hour. and it’s easier for me to stay awake during that time then to close my eyes for 5 seconds only to wake back up even more exhausted with a fully rested toddler running around ready to play.
Plus we all know the best time to get anything done is during nap time. I’ve read that while weaning it’s helpful for dad to sleep with the baby so they can’t smell the milk and have a fit about wanting to breastfeed but instead understand that dad can’t provide milk, receive comfort and go back to sleep. I haven’t talked to him about this yet because he already gets so upset when he doesn’t get a full 8 hours, and I feel like it’s my job as a mom to deal with breastfeeding and take care of our child during the day when dad’s at work and at night when dads are sleeping.
He helps out a ton with everything I ask after work and weekends and is super supportive, but I just don’t know if he’ll react well to missing out on sleep. My question is should dad help out with weaning our toddler even if that means he might be having a rough night’s sleep when he has work in the morning? OR should me and our toddler just sleep in the living room (I’m not going back and forth from bedroom to living room every time toddler wakes up) until he’s done weaning to ensure dad gets his sleep before work?
I just feel guilty and like it’s my job as a stay-at-home mom to take care of all of this stuff since I don’t have to go to a job outside of the house.”
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Community Answers
The following top answers have been selected by a moderator from hundreds of responses to the original question.
“When my toddler wakes up I take him to the living room during the week. I’m a stay-at-home mom too and don’t think it is fair to my husband to keep him awake all night too. I don’t get time during the day to nap either.”
“When my daughter was a baby I would get up with her during the week since he had to be up at 4 am for work. On the weekends, he would get up so that I could sleep.”
“Tell me you hate stay-at-home moms, without saying you do. This thread is awful. This woman is asking for help, and her husband doesn’t think he has to be a dad during the week because he works. Y’all are ridiculous. Weaning is hard, and your best bet is to cut out one feeding during the day. Nighttime can be very hard and you just have to try other methods to distract them when they are weaning.
The husband should be helping with weaning whether or not he works. His providing a roof and paying bills doesn’t give him the right to not be a parent and all these ‘women’ saying otherwise are brainwashed. It’s 2021. Stay-at-home moms carry more of the mental and emotional load for the house, and honestly, that needs to change.”
“Hello Parents, when I was weaning my youngest son off the breast my Sweet Mama said for me to keep a small distance because he related that I was the one who breastfed him. My husband got up and gave him a sippy cup and it only took a couple of nights. And we were all good. Good luck all babies are different.”
“When I started weaning my almost 2 year old from breastfeeding I also transitioned her to her on bed and room it was so much easier.”
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