'AITA for unintentionally waking up my husband while feeding baby?'

"AITA for unintentionally waking up my husband while feeding baby?"

My husband and I just had our first baby, She’s 2 months old and we are “in the trenches” as you can imagine. Recently we’ve had a lot of fights over night-time feedings. At night our baby sleeps in a bed-side crib and wakes up every 3-4 hours to take a bottle then goes straight back to sleep. He takes the first half of the night, I take the second half.

I find it most efficient to feed her by her crib. On several occasions, I’d wake up to feed the baby, it would be quiet except for sounds from her drinking from the bottle, but my husband would get woken up and finds it difficult to go back to sleep, saying he finds the baby's lip-smacking sounds disturbing. He asks that I go feed the baby in a different room. I refused.

- I believe moving to a different room creates more work and discomfort for me, also risks baby crying and not going back to sleep easily. My husband not liking a certain sound is not my fault, and I don’t believe he has the right to ask others to work around something that I see as a personal preference.

Further, I felt quite offended that he’s complaining about disturbed sleep when I get up several times a night to not only feed the baby but also pump breastmilk, wash/disinfect bottles, etc.

- My husband thinks his “condition”, i.e. sensitivity to lip sounds is not something he could change. He has tried to wear earplugs but they sometimes fall out in the middle of the night. He feels it’s a small request and feels hurt that I refused to accommodate and called his condition “stupid” and “ridiculous."

Note:

- We both work from home on a flexible schedule, so it’s not like he has a stressful job and need to wake up early for work.

- My husband has never mentioned his reversion towards lip sounds until recently.

Edit: Added clarification that "He takes the first half of the night, I take the second half."

Edit 2: He likes to stay up late so usually he stays up until baby wakes up for first night feeding, then go to bed. He usually keeps the baby with him in another room until he goes to bed.

Here's what people had to say to OP:

pottersquash wrote:

NTA. Try ear muffs not just plugs, also a noise machine. Let him know its is NOT a small request.

If lip smacking breaks his REM, you getting up, picking up baby, heading out, slamming door (cause your pissed now) feeding baby, stomping back in (again your pissed) and flopping on bed will absolutely wake up him and we didn't even mention you maybe tripping or something carrying baby, bottle, in dark, at night, while drowsy.

Also, let him know a dude online looks down on him cause I used to sleep with the baby monitor under my ear to make sure I heard my kid breathing.

Passionate_Salt wrote:

NAH. Mother of 3 here with my youngest being 10mo.

First thing to remember is that this isn't you against your husband but rather you AND your husband against the problem, the problem being lack of sleep.

Does your husband feel that you should take the baby out of the room because he keeps her with him while you sleep by yourself? He probably thinks that since you get to sleep alone 'without disturbance' that you should be doing the same for him. You mentioned that you both work from home but only that his job isn't stressful. Is yours stressful?

Do you need to wake up very early? If so, then maybe the suggestions for him wearing earplugs, using white noise, or him relocating to another room are most beneficial. If not, then I must ask what the harm is by taking her out for feeding? How much longer does it take to put her down if she's removed from the room? 30ish minutes or a few hours?

If it's the former, you'll probably just need to bite the bullet and remove her for a little while, but if it's the latter then he needs to make an adjustment. Is it possible to swap shifts? In my personal experience the 2nd shift was way harder on me. You say he normally stays up late but if it's truly causing him this much stress then maybe change it up where he goes to be earlier.

This may also help you understand each other's perspectives. Lastly, while you may think he sounds ridiculous about his 'condition' try to refrain from insults. I suggest looking up the Rules to Fair Fighting. Sit down and have a genuine conversation and work together on compromises. I hope you can both get some good rest soon.

RemoveComfortable982 wrote:

NAH when everyone is tired. We all get miserable and irritated by random things when we’ve had no sleep. This is why me and my partner did bed hopping (so we’d both start in the same bed then one goes into the spare room at around 2am). Usually him unless I was losing my mind, as I was on maternity leave.

However you could also dip to the spare bed if baby is walking a lot in first half of the night, then you switch.

This way you all get some uninterrupted sleep and some snuggle time together as well.

the_greengrace wrote:

ESH. You are both taking this out on each other, both trying to "win" the dispute. Cooperate instead. You are both on the same team. Figure out a solution instead of being petulant (him) or mean (you). There are a dozen accommodations he can make to manage his sensitivity to the sound. You should not call him "stupid" and "ridiculous."

You two are splitting the night feeds. That's great. His ear plugs fall out sometimes. So put them back in or get better ones. Someone mentioned a white noise machine, that's a great suggestion too. You can both take naps during the day to catch up on sleep. You should both do that. This is not an unsolvable problem and it shouldn't be this big of a deal.

polkadotd wrote:

My baby is five and a half weeks now and does the same as yours for night feedings. He's in a bedside crib as well. I breastfeed at night so my husband is able to sleep through the night and take the morning shift so I can sleep in. If I accidentally wake him up with noise, he looks over and smiles at us, refills my water, and fixes the blanket on me.

He had an early shift last week and you know what he did? He slept in another room because he knew he needed to sleep through the night without any distractions. The baby is learning new routines and needs consistency. The adults need to adjust and adapt to the baby. NTA but your husband is being unreasonable and needs to chill.

NorthernLitUP wrote:

NTA.

If your husband is so "disturbed" by you feeding HIS child, he can go sleep in another room. He's being a selfish AH.

Meowth_the_kitten wrote:

Oh I'm sorry! Did having a baby change his life???? Poor husband...a baby that goes nicely back to sleep after a nightfeed is a real blessing, some babies need patting back to sleep after every feed!! He should move to a different room, not make you move. NTA.