To think DH pretending not to hear the baby crying at 3 AM is some sort of Olympic level skill?

Which hormones do that?

I wear earplugs while I’m feeding her as his breathing annoys me 😆 he does make sure I have a thermos of tea and one of very cold coconut water though, so I have drinks through the night. But does make me growl when he tells everyone how tired he is after being woken up through the night; I didn’t realise someone could snore whilst awake!

I see this all the time.

I guess we still have our cave person instincts buried deep!

Before I had my babies I could sleep through anything, including huge thunderstorms. A baby crying wouldn't have woken me so I'd say it's entirely possible that your husband isn't faking it.

As soon as I had the 1st baby, the slightest snuffle would wake me up - biology is quite brilliant! By the time they were teenagers, I was back to sleeping deeply again. These days I'm a bit deaf as well but when I had a little puppy (in a crate beside the bed at night) she could wake me with a tiny squeak!

It's inbuilt into women/mothers to wake up at the sound of a baby crying going back to hunter gatherer days. Men don't have the same, they as the protector are more likely than a woman to wake up from noise outside etc.

Oh that's interesting. I was having lunch with my Aunt and (female) cousin in a cafe last week. A newborn started crying and all three of us reacted like meercats, heads up and eyes swivelling to locate the baby. Totally instinctive.

I definitely became attuned to crying. My youngest is 20 now and I am finally free of it, I don't really mind our neighbours' baby crying. But it took this long.
(The downside of that is that if I'm in a cafe or somewhere, and there are kids running a bit wild, I have no patience for that. When I had little kids I was attuned differently and realised it was mostly natural behaviour in an unnatural setting.)
DH snored his way through a lot tbh. I used to wake him up to do his share, which was what we agreed. He just never had the switch flicked that made him react to a baby's cry.

I always heard the cat screaming at night due to our baby waking up. That’s how I got up. Otherwise, I never heard the cries. Much to my OH’s annoyance 😐

My husband was the same, slept through it and I don't think he was faking (he's a hands on Dad and not a twat) I literally wake on a pin drop even though my DS is coming up to 5 years old, and I still hear him waking up in his bedroom first. Something must click hormonally when you've had a baby as I didn't use to wake so easily.

I did nudge him awake alot during the first 4 weeks when he was on extended paternity (shared parental leave) as I had a c section and needed help lifting the baby out of the snuzpod and we took turns changing him, however after he went back to work and I was breast feeding (and 90% recovered from the c section) I just let him sleep through.

Big hugs OP, newborn stage is hard work. Xx

I had this. He nearly got lynched by me and the other sleep-deprived new mother that he was bragging at!

He did help out in the first weeks when I was recovering from the births by doing the nappy change part and bringing baby to me, but by that stage I was BFing so no point in wasting energy waking him up. However recognition that I was up at least 2x 45 mins each night would have been nice.
And yes to the him being soooo tired 🙄

Currently enjoying the early teenage years before they develop independent social lives

Unfortunately I think there is some science in this. I don't know how credible this article is, but it's not the only place I've seen it.

www.madeformums.com/news/why-dad-really-cant-hear-babys-night-cries/

Why does he need to wake up though, if you're awake amyway? If you want an undisturbed night then I'd sleep elsewhere

We have the monitor set to a low volume so that whoever isn't on isn't as disturbed by it - I have slept through a couple of instances when I must have subconsciously known it wasn't my turn.

My husband is better at getting back to sleep, doesn't have distracting boobs for night weaning, and he prefers the hard mattress of the clic clac sofa bed where we often end up cosleeping with DS in the nursery.

So it's all him at the moment.

He's got you well trained OP.
This is the reason elbows are pointy.

Well done. A good system.

Actually I’m not sure about that. I have seen a couple of studies that show women - even those with no children - tend to wake to the sound of a baby crying more than men do. Also their heart rate responded more to the sound of a baby in distress.

My DH also did a bit of pretending on top of it I’d say.

I slept like the dead until I had children. Then they only had to snuffle a bit and I was on alert.

DH could sleep through a nuclear alarm. Lucky bastard.

As a man in this conversation, I sleep through anything. Always have, pre kids I could fall asleep anywhere no matter how noisy. My DW is the opposite and wakes at anything and once she is awake thats her for a good hour, while if I do happen to wake ill be asleep again in 30 seconds.

As a couple we work around this, its not fair that she is left to do all the nights so instead I stay up late and do the 10-1:30am wake ups / feeds. Usually once I have done that I can go to sleep knowing DW wont be woken before 3am earliest usually later.

Its not ideal but its the only way we can make sure that everything doesn't fall on my wife.

Honestly, controversial but I think some people sleep more deeply than others. My husband is a very light sleeper and sometimes he’s up with our small children 3-4 times in a night (rare but does sometimes happens) and honest to god, I don’t heat a thing. I sleep through it all, it makes me feel bad, and he does wake me up sometimes to help which is totally fair and I never mind or moan, of course, but I think some people just sleep more deeply. He told me initially he thought I was pretending but he knows now it’s genuine.

Haha! Mine used to do that! "Tossing and turning all night, I was. So tired. Barely slept"
Well, you snored your way through two feeds, at least!

My husband doesn’t wake at DC crying in the night. He wakes at me getting up. Or if I kick in the leg. DH is an involved parent during the day and if I wake him, he’ll deal with DC in the night.

From an evolutionary point of view, women are biologically programmed to hear a crying baby. It’s why you are up in the blink of an eye. It’s why 3 years later I can hear if DC is getting out of bed or waking before they start crying. A phone glow would cause a light that would wake him as it might have signalled an attack is coming. I always had better hearing than DH anyway but now I think my hearing is supersonic and his has just stayed the same. I can hear DC over the TV in the evening even though I sit further from the living room door.

So nudge him awake to deal with the baby. You wake up briefly but you don’t have to get out of bed which I find is the hard bit to get back to sleep from and the bit that causes me to feel more sleep deprived. Or he has no lie-ins at weekend, you do the night wakings and he’s up at 5/6/7am with the baby and you catch up on sleep then.

My husband used to tell people the baby was sleeping through the night from 3 months old- no, the baby was not sleeping through the night- but my husband was!!

dont ask a new father when the lo slept through the night
most of them are oblivious ime!

It's such a competition with them isn't it.

Mine doesn’t hear anything. And then has nerve to tell me in the morning how tired he is