He has a good reason to do that.
A man took to Reddit’s AITA platform and said he is diagnosed autistic and wears noise-canceling headphones to muffle his baby’s cries. But his wife hates it when he does that and asks him to stop.
“Me (33M) and my wife (30F) have a little baby (0.25F) who for the mostpart is a chill and happy little thing who makes our world shine. But as with any baby she cries and sometimes a lot,” @u/throwawaynoisecancel wrote on the platfrom.
“I’m diagnosed autistic and as a result have some pretty severe sensory issues particularly around sound, and particularly when I’m tired. I have noise cancelling headphones which are a godsend so I started wearing them when I found her crying too overwhelming, particularly when I get up at night with her.”
The new dad said despite wearing the headphones, he can still hear his baby’s cries, and he does not wear them to ignore her crying. Rather he does it to not feel overwhelmed by the crying.
“To clarify, I can still hear her crying and I don’t put them on so I can ignore her crying. Quite the opposite, I wear them so I can hold her without feeling overwhelmed. Also it’s just her being a baby, not a medical thing. Most of the time she’s a joy, I love our 2am feeds when it feels like nobody else in the world is awake except us, enjoying the stillness and solitude. I love her so much,” OP explained.
“My wife hates it and has asked me to stop. She said that being a parent involves having to cope with the bad stuff, it’s what we signed up for and that it’s important not to block out her crying so I can feel what our daughter is feeling. She also said that it probably scares our daughter to see her dad with stuff on his head when she’s at her most distressed.
He concluded, “What she said makes a lot of sense so I stopped wearing them and handled the resulting meltdowns afterwards. But when I was talking to a friend he said that’s an unreasonable demand, I’m not a bad dad and my needs with my disability matter too.”
In the comment section, Redditors sided with the autistic dad and said he has the perfect solution to tend to his three-month-old baby girl when she cries and slammed his wife for being TA in the scenario.
“Why not be able to wear the headphones? There’s nothing wrong with that. It’s really weird to say that the baby will have problems with you having those on your head when she’s distressed. The baby will not know either way!” one wrote.
“This is crazy. What difference does it make? It’s like saying you have to wash nappies by hand to experience the bad stuff,” a second said.
“You’re taking care of your baby, not just in the immediate instance, but in the long-term, by ensuring that you don’t get sensory overload and autistic burnout. That would really impact your ability to co-parent!” a third added.
Defending his wife in the edited post, OP wrote that his partner is amazing and they have a strong relationship but in this particular issue, she is wrong.
“For the most part, she’s amazing with my autism, she can pick up on my needs before I can even articulate them into words and respond accordingly but on this she was in the wrong,” he wrote.
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Source: Reddit
