"AITA for taking the kids at 3 AM and leaving my husband?"
This might be a long one, so please be patient with me. My husband and I are both 28 and we have been together for 10 years, married for 5, and we have 2 children. We have a 3 year old son and a 4 month old baby girl.
Since the birth of our daughter, my son has become extremely clingy and scared of sleeping alone, so my husband started sleeping with him on a mattress on the floor. It worked out better because it meant my husband could be more productive during the day since he works from home and is not required to be at his desk all day. This meant he could help out more. I was happy with the arrangement.
Recently my son has been waking up at 5 AM and my husband has been ignoring him until 8 AM, which is when my son usually wakes up. I noticed this because I checked the monitor one night during a night feed for our daughter at almost 6 AM and saw my son just rolling around in his cot.
I watched for over an hour. It suddenly made sense because my son was getting hungrier sooner and also was sleepy a lot earlier than usual. He also had a lot of anxiety about going to bed, which was confusing too.
So I went to get him and asked my husband about this, and he admitted that this had been happening for the last couple of weeks. I was furious. How dare he leave him awake for that many hours just so he could get a little extra sleep.
He apologized and we moved on, but I decided to let my son sleep in bed with me for a night to help him feel more comfortable. He slept his usual 12 hours again, so this became a habit.
Meanwhile my husband was still in our son's room getting great sleep while I am still up hourly at night with our colicky, gassy, terrible sleeping 4 month old who is also going through a sleep regression.
To make this worse, when I wake up in the morning with both kids ready to go and I have barely slept, I tell my husband on his days off to take them in the mornings since he is rested so I can get a little extra sleep. But guess what he has been doing: sleeping extra for himself. I am dumbfounded. I have had countless conversations with him about this.
I have cried and shouted and done the whole nine yards. He says he will change and prioritize my sleep, but the second the opportunity presents itself he always says he did not sleep well because our son's room is cold or some other excuse, and he will sleep until noon instead, leaving me alone with the kids.
So I am barely sleeping and making breakfast for a toddler who bounces off the walls every waking moment and a colicky 4 month old. I told him last night that I was going to lose my mind from not sleeping and from him waking at noon to help raise our kids.
I expressed everything. He cried and promised to do better. We went to bed and my hell began. The baby did not want to sleep for 3 hours straight. She was fussing and it was starting to wake my toddler, who is usually sound asleep and hears nothing.
I ran to where my husband was sleeping to wake him so he could help our toddler, and he got annoyed and irritated that I was disturbing his sleep. He asked why I could not handle it.
When he came to help, he got annoyed after 20 minutes of our toddler not going back to sleep. Something in me switched and I decided to get help where I knew I would find it: my parents’ house. I packed up both kids and a few outfits and drove to their house at 3 AM.
My angel of a mother took both kids out of my arms and forced me to go to sleep while she got the toddler to bed and managed to settle the baby too. It was the best sleep I have had. Now apparently I was completely out of line for this according to my husband. Did I overreact?
Here's what people had to say to OP:
likeahike says:
Sleep deprivation is a torture method for a reason. Consciously or not, your husband was OK with you hurting so he could be comfortable. Is that really a man you want to stay with?
ThisWeekInTheRegency says:
No, you did the right thing for you and your children, and maybe it will make your husband realize he needs to do more. NTA.
Sugadip says:
NTA He needed to step up and help. My ex was like your husband and I might as well have been a single mother with him around because I did everything. I stopped asking or begging for his help which made my decision easier to separate. I’m more happy now even though it’s hard doing it alone but now I’m not resentful or being disappointed all the time. Good luck!
OP responded:
Yes it’s the resentment that makes it so much worse. Knowing he’s getting the extra sleep that he doesn’t need and I’m just about surviving on two hours makes me so angry. If I was alone then I would be living the same life I am now just without so much anger in me.