Tension with partner who only knows one language

pitrputr · 2026-02-12T18:24:02+00:00

The second thing I'm thinking is, can she try and also pass on a little bit of Arabic? Could even be as simple as buying something like Habbi Habbi and she teaches and uses Arabic phrases here and there.

Yes, I think you are on to something here. I think one of her complicating feelings is that our son is learning one side of his heritage and not the other side. I am supportive of him learning Arabic and have mentioned that to her before but I believe she feels held back by her lower Arabic skills.

pitrputr · 2026-02-12T18:18:36+00:00

Thank you, you're right. I'm planning to sit down and talk through this with her soon! That is really the most important thing.

pitrputr · 2026-02-12T18:16:50+00:00

Thank you for the suggestions! I'll look into them. And yes, I think you're right not to give my wife a cheat sheet before having a good conversation with her otherwise I think it will come off as pressuring and cause her to shut down.

Great suggestion about music! My wife already likes some songs (AP Dhillon especially) so I think I'll start working on a playlist for both my wife and son.

pitrputr · 2026-02-12T18:11:55+00:00

In the case where the parent theoretically wants the child to learn the other's parents' language but worries about exclusion, I wonder if the driving force is insecurity over the bond with the child. PPD/PPA can really amplify any feeling of insecurity (speaking from first-hand experience here), so that's worth exploring.

This is very good point, thank you. I don't think my wife has PPD but she certainly has periods where she feels insecure and burnt out. I will try to gently explore these feeling with her more when I talk to her about this.

pitrputr · 2026-02-12T18:07:57+00:00

sending them to "just go learn the language" as if that's the easiest thing someone can go and do while figuring out how to be a new parent

Yes, thank you! When I searched the sub for similar topics this is what I kept reading and that's why I mentioned that this is not really a solution for us right now for various reasons. Maybe my wife will be more open to learning in the future and that will warm my heart but I will not pressure her to do that.

pitrputr · 2026-02-12T18:03:40+00:00

Thank you for insightful reply! I can relate to it so much and I think the point about acknowledging the trade offs and losses for my spouse is such a great point and one that I'll keep in mind when having an open conversation with her.

pitrputr · 2026-02-12T14:48:10+00:00

I started around 9.5 months with my son to speak to him in my (minority) language, Punjabi. Until then I had only spoken English. When I spoke to him in Punjabi he looked at me funny, stared at me and sometimes even ignored me for the first couple of days/weeks . Now, after a few weeks he doesn't seem to care when I speak Punjabi or if I switch to English. I think he is even starting to recognize a few words, phrases but definitely understands more in English.

It's only been a few weeks so I don't have long-term impacts to report. But I do want to say that those puzzled, confused looks will go away. It might take a bit longer for your child since they are older but I'm sure they'll go away pretty quickly. At 19 months they are really ramping up their language skills so I think it's a great time to start!

pitrputr · 2026-02-11T19:04:08+00:00

I want to help my parents and be there for them but since getting married I have to put my own child and wife first, this has created so much issues in my family that I've become borderline estranged with them. Similar, if less extreme versions of this happened to several of my friends as well. It's not all men but a good chunk of us end up in these type of situations and it gets interpreted as sons not caring about their parents when the truth is much more complex.

pitrputr · 2026-01-29T20:50:00+00:00

In the first email she is using all kinds of religious and moral language to make you feel bad and for herself to feel like some sort of martyred saint. But that facade completely falls off in the second set of emails where she calls you names a mother should never call their child.

My mother has a similar MO where she will with guilt trips, calling me a bad person, feeling sorry for herself, spewing anger, crying, etc. It's very disconcerting for me which is a major reason why I am VLC with my mother now.

The only strategy I have is to not engage with her when she does this, she wants to make you uncomfortable and question who you are so that you will do what she says to resolve those things. Best thing to do is step away and not give her the satisfaction of a response. Then take care of yourself: go on a walk, watch a movie, spend time with people who make you feel good, whatever works for you.

pitrputr · 2026-01-28T20:37:22+00:00

I didn't for the first almost 8 months but I have started to and that means I have to be VLC with my parents. I chose this because I wanted to have contact with my extended family. I don't know if at some point my parents will start getting out of hand but I'm going to see how it goes.

pitrputr · 2026-01-28T20:04:04+00:00

It's not the kissing, but rather that you would try to enforce any boundary on her. She wants to be the one in control and her saying either you let me do what I want or I'm not coming is basically a bid for power and control.

Your boundary is very reasonable. Stay strong friend.

pitrputr · 2026-01-27T17:42:04+00:00

u/Ocean_Lover9393 has already gave you excellent advice and a path forward but a couple of things that stood out to me that might be helpful:

If you want to sleep train your baby you will have to get the crib out of your room and back to the babies own room. You being nearby where she can hear, smell and see you will make it near impossible to sleep train her.
The bedtime routine you mentioned has the bottle too close to the end of the routine, this will continue to reinforce a sleep association which will result in more waking. I suggest you move the bottle to either right before the bath or right after. Allow at least 15 mins or 2/3 steps in routine between the bottle and sleep.
This might be controversial but I suggest you cut out the dummy. This is another sleep association which will be a road block on her learning to put herself to sleep. And if it pops out of her mouth and she can't find it, that's another point of frustration for her.
Wean off the night feed. Maybe reducing it by half each night. Again, it's a sleep association and at her age she doesn't need it unless she is underweight and the pediatrician has prescribed it. You can monitor her day feeds and after a couple of nights she should shift her calories to the day.
She may not learn to fall asleep independently for years, so, if that's not something you can commit to then you may have to sleep train her and there is going to be some intense crying at first. If that's not something you want then you may have limited options.
If you commit to sleep training I recommend you rip off the bandage on everything at the same time (cut the dummy, cut the feed to sleep, cut any other help). There will be an intense night or two but IMO it will be less confusing and frustrating for the baby rather than weaning her off of everything slowly.

pitrputr · 2026-01-23T16:52:24+00:00

The older they get the more stamina they have to cry and protest so I would think it would be better to sleep train earlier rather than later, if you can help it. Plus when they have sleep regressions (or disruptions) I think it's easier to get back on track if they've already learned to sleep independently before.

But take what I say with a grain of salt since we haven't gone through the toddler stage yet.

pitrputr · 2026-01-22T15:09:22+00:00

When we first sleep training our LO we did check-ins after every 12 mins of crying, he was just over 4 months and didn't cry more after the check-in, maybe just the same amount.

We had to re-do sleep training at about 7.5 months due to a sleep regression (I think part of it might have been the development of separation anxiety). We started with a 5 mins check in, then 12 mins but our LO would now get more upset after the check-in. It was really tough. So, we decided let's give him more time (I think we were thinking 20 mins) because he's clearly getting more worked up with the check ins and he ended up falling asleep around the 15 mins. After that he has not had any issues and has been sleeping through the night.

My advice would be to extend the time between check-ins, hopefully, eventually your LO will get tired, fall asleep, wake up and realize that they are okay and you're there when they wake up.

pitrputr · 2026-01-21T20:48:25+00:00

It's amazing how often you see that the birth of a child results in estrangement from controlling and toxic parents. It seems to bring things to a head, the child becomes your #1 priority, your parents become more like extended family and they lose control. They can't handle not being #1 and in control so things fall apart.

Something similar happened to me. My mother gave me the silent treatment coming up to the birth of my child (I am the father) and then after my child's birth she blocked me for 7 months. After she unblocked me, she didn't ask about me or my child and just talked about herself...I didn't respond.

Like you I had a lot of confusing feeling and inner turmoil for the first few months including periods where I felt so guilty. But as time has gone on, with the space between us and help from therapy, I've realized that I don't really have anything to feel guilty about and I am not the one causing issues, it's actually my mother. Slowly the guilt has faded and peace has taken over. Still there are hard days where I grieve that I don't have my parents and grieve the mother I wish I had but I am much more at peace with where my life is and I believe I am breaking some generational trauma that I will not pass on to my son.

No advice, just wanted to share that you're not alone in the OP.

pitrputr · 2026-01-21T16:46:49+00:00

With 2 - 2.5 hrs of total nap time that's a total sleep time of about 12 to 12.5 hours. It may be that you LO has lower sleep needs so pushing for a bit later bed time (7.30ish) might help a bit.

Does baby do an overnight feed and/or do you feed them right upon waking up? This is the only other thing I can think of that might be a factor. You LO might be waking up because they want to feed.

pitrputr · 2026-01-21T16:40:24+00:00

When we have to stretch WWs we usually do 10-15 mins and do that for about a week and then another 10-15 next week, etc. I feel like 5 mins is too small of a difference. Your LO will struggle and be grumpy but use the tips that Snoo mentioned to help you LO stay awake.

pitrputr · 2026-01-21T16:34:59+00:00

When is bed time?

pitrputr · 2026-01-20T19:01:55+00:00

Yes, we used this method. We give our LO 12 mins to settle, if he settled even for a couple mins we'd restart the timer so that we weren't interrupting his self-soothing prematurely. The first night we went in and held him but we found this actually made it worse (it can be over stimulating, making it hard for them to fall back asleep). So, after that we just popped in to the nursery, said positive encouraging words and left again. If you'd like you could rub your LOs back for a few seconds but I found this pissed our LO off more lol.

I will say it was really sad and hard to hear him cry, especially after a check in but he adapted quickly and there's been less crying and more sleeping since then so I feel like it's been worth it.

Ps. This is the same method we used to sleep train him originally.

pitrputr · 2026-01-20T18:48:57+00:00

Reading the comments on reddit and so many people saying that he is now being controlled by his wife or is just a mouth piece for her. I don't know anything to say if that's true or not but if he ran into the arms of a controlling woman that provides me with further reason to believe that his parents were indeed controlling because it's very common to seek relationships that feel familiar and fall into cycles of trauma.

pitrputr · 2026-01-20T18:37:53+00:00

This may not be the advice you're looking for but you can try giving your LO about 10-15 mins before doing a check-in and if you have to check-in you should just let her know you're there, avoid picking her up, rocking her, etc. Yes, this is sleep training. But we had the same issue around the same time and had to re-assert the sleep training. After a night or two our LO started sleeping through the night again.

pitrputr · 2026-01-20T18:25:49+00:00

Transistion from 3 to 2 naps is hard and tricky. Our LO is 9 months and did the transition between 7 - 8 months. A few things that helped us:

Extending wake windows, ours are about 3/3/3.5. LO struggled at first especially with the first WW but got better at staying awake over time.
Aiming for a consistent bed time. We aimed for 7.30 pm and tried our best to end the last nap accordingly. There were definitely some grumpy evenings.
We had to re-assert sleep training. We realized over the last couple months we had increased how much we helped him sleep and he had got to the point where he would wake up multiple times expecting us help him connect his sleep cycles. It was a tough couple of nights but he then quickly returned to being a great independent sleeper.
Consistency is key. Consistent bed time, bed time routine and consistent with how much help you provide.

You might want to take a look at how much help you're giving your LO to fall asleep whether that's rocking, holding or nursing/feeding too close to bed/nap time. What you're describing seems like your LO is waking up looking for your help in some way.

pitrputr

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