I hurt my baby co sleeping

[Bumpyroads]

Baby is a terrible sleeper, we co sleep and I feel very sleep deprived.
I have always talked in my sleep however last night I had a nightmare and got very angry in my sleep.
We were co sleeping and baby was sleeping in the crook of my arm.
I bit him in my sleep hard on his eyebrow, I woke up immediately to him crying I thought I had bitten his eye and immediately started shouting at my husband to turn on the light. Im so upset about it he has red teeth marks which will probably leave a bruise.
Not sure I can tell anyone in real life so posting here

You can't continue to co-sleep with him. Biting him in the face really isn't at all normal and if you carry on co-sleeping you're putting your desires ahead of his needs and safety.

Cosleeping needs to stop in your situation. I absolutely feel your pain as my 3 were terrible at sleeping by themselves. However, I would add, that after cosleeping with each til the age of 2, I still had to go through the sleepless nights to transition them out of the bed as they then didn't know how to sleep without me, so maybe refocus that you're just going through it now from today rather than kicking the can for another year or so. I dont see you have another option.

If your husband wont look after the baby at night the he needs to do it during the day so you can sleep. Or, he could arrange for someone who can come and give you a rest regularly.

He is putting you and his child at risk of serious injury by being a twat and not helping.

Put baby in cot, right up against your bed and take turns with your husband to sleep beside him. If you get a decent sleep every other night you’ll start to feel better.

I have always sleepwalked, talked in my sleep, lashed out, etc. I also had a baby that woke every hour for months. At 11 months your baby doesn't need night feeds, they need training.
Can DH take some AL to give you a couple of night's break? (You need to tackle this together). Then you start sleep training with your baby in their cot. Otherwise next time they may not be so lucky.

He was more harmed from me trying to do this advice than he was being cuddled to sleep in the bed.

That's well and good, but this baby is being bitten, which does not sound the case with your baby. You can’t continue in a situation where a baby is being bitten (by anyone, let alone a parent), and who knows what else may happen, what if next time baby is strangled rather than bitten? Probably better to risk a fall from a chair frankly!

There are other ways though. OP could go to bed and sleep from 6pm to midnight and DH could have the baby lying on him while watching tv. Then they could swap so DH sleeps midnight to 6am while OP has baby lying on her in front of tv. 6hrs is a decent chunk of sleep if uninterrupted, which it could be if other parent manages the baby in that time.

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OP that sounds so scary for all of you. 💐

If you're sleep deprived to the point of acting out physically you need solutions other than co-sleeping unfortunately. That's not a safe situation for either of you anymore.

Practical advise - baby is 11 months and doesn't need to be fed overnight. I night weaned both of mine around 10-11 months, and it did improve sleep for me.

Your DH needs to step up and take a night shift. If you need to book yourself a hotel for a few days to make him, you need the rest.

During the day, are you napping when baby is napping? Sorry I know cliche advise but you need sleep.

Are you going back to work, and if so when? Can your childcare start sooner and allow you to catch up on sleep?

@MyKindHikerSTOP using the term ‘help more’ he needs to ‘parent more’ ! For gods sake. Men don’t ’help’ parent their kids.

It is possible to breast feed in a laid back position. I always did this at home due to big boobs. It is much easier to transfer baby to cot in the crook of your arm from that position too. They say with some babies to move them while they are half asleep but I always found it was best to wait about 10 mins after baby fell asleep to attempt moving as mine was a very light sleeper. I am a heavy sleeper and no way would I have attempted co sleeping.

There are guidelines to co sleep in a ‘safer’ way but it is still less safe then putting baby on their back in an empty cot in the same room.

I appreciate you are knackered and have been there but at the end of the day would you rather be knackered or have an even worse injury or death of your baby?

If you keep practicing moving baby to cot after each feed they will eventually learn to self soothe and settle when they are a bit older.

You do need to have a frank conversation with your partner about sleep deprivation and safety. If he can’t get up in the night he needs to be at least getting up with baby earlier in the morning so you can sleep till he goes to work.

It would be safer to put the baby in another room, put noise cancelling headphones on and sleep a full 12 hours. Co-sleeping and biting your child is obviously far more dangerous.

I am a fan of cosleeping and coslept with all four of mine (not at once 😅) but I agree with previous posters that you should probably stop now. A cot by the bed is probably the way to go.

If there's no broken skin and only red marks I wouldn't be seeing a doctor though. Sorry this happened, how scary for you!

What time do you go to sleep? I always went up to bed 6/7pm during this period while my husband would stay downstairs with the baby for a few hours. Then he’d bring him up and I’d co sleep for the rest of the night but I’m a very light sleeper, woke at every movement and I’ve never had a nightmare like that.

It does sound like you’re exhausted and need to go to sleep as soon as your partner is home to relieve you.

Have you had your bloods checked?

I stopped feeds through the night at 3-4 months for both mine by increasing the gaps between feeds over a month and had both mine sleeping through the night, though in one case through CIO for 3 nights, shortly after that.

Lots of people will criticise me as they think CIO is mean - but they have both only gained in weight since (90% centile heights/75th centile weights) and show zero signs of whatever emotional trauma some people think it is supposed to cause. By comparison your sleep deprivation / co-sleeping seems to have become a genuinely dangerous situation. I would strongly suggest dropping overnight feeds (unless there is something medically wrong with them / they are severely underweight this is now the reason they are waking and they certainly don't need nutrition overnight). I would also recommend CIO so you can get some sleep - it will take a bit longer at 11 months but shouldn't be too long and you desperately need some sleep from the sounds of it.

OP I used to nod off while feeding. I used to set an alarm. Being sort of braced to turn it off kept me awake.

I haven’t read all the comments OP only some, I co sleep with my 16mo and co-slept with my eldest. Are you following the lullaby trust guidelines? Co sleeping is safe especially if you’re breastfeeding. Is this a one off? Things I’ve done to cope with sleep deprivation include going to bed earlier. Our set up is that I’ve got a cot I’ve attached to our bed with the mattresses flush and a piece of foam filling the gap on the other side next to the rails. This way I am able to go in and out of her cot if she wakes, it’s been like this since she was born. Have you tried a set up like this? I got the idea from the co sleepers uk Facebook page but there’s lots of instagram accounts showing you how to do this. Are these kinds of nightmares a one off? At 11 months I would not be night weaning or introducing a bottle to be honest but I do think it would be worth your partner trying to help soothe, even if it’s just the first initial wake at night. Is he involved with bedtime?

Your DH is going to have to do nights if you are so exhausted you hurt your baby. It’s not ok for him to check out of nights, it’s his baby too.

I am an HCP and 100% think you need to be honest. If someone else refers this to social services (the baby has a bite mark and I think it’s fair that most of us would refer for this) and they then see that you cancelled an HCP appt it’s going to (rightly) look like you avoided medical intervention.

You need to be honest and then you can ask for support with the sleep.

Some of the comments here are pretty shocking, makes me unsurprised why so many adults have mental health issues nowadays

Also I agree about your husband. Have you aurally told him you need him to step up at night?

It sounds like your options are to co sleep safely and get some sleep yourself, or try baby in a crib and not get as much sleep. Are you following the Lullaby trust co sleep guidelines? It’s really hard isn’t it. If it makes you feel any better, I’ve fallen asleep exhausted holding baby when she was around 6 weeks (now 12 weeks) - woke up to her crying stuffed between the pillows and I was so heart broken I let that happen and had put her at risk. From then on, any time she comes into bed with me, I make sure she’s in a position where that cannot happen - using the Lullaby trust guidelines. Don’t be hard on yourself that it’s happened as it’s done, but you do need to do everything you can to prevent it happening again.

Bedsharing can be a safe way to sleep and has a lot of benefits depending on the mother and the baby.

It's very clear that it's NOT safe for you to bedshare. This time you bit him, next time you could seriously injure him

I think you’re being very dramatic my goodness.

In what way shocking? I was surprised you said ‘co sleeping is safe, especially when breastfeeding’. It is safe when the environment around them is safe and that includes the people. Now is not the time to be testing if this is a one off- the OP bit her baby so hard it left a mark. That is significant and cannot be risked by trial and error.