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

Will the baby take a bottle, and if so can you ask your DM, MIL, DS or someone you trust to take him for a night so that you can get one solid night of unbroken sleep? You cannot carry on with this level of exhaustion, it’s dangerous.

You poor thing OP. I’m really sorry you’ve had a terrible time.

You are doing a brilliant job and should be proud of yourself. You are right to be concerned about the sleep situation, and it does sound like co sleeping isn’t the right thing for you anymore.

We are now at the stage of needing to physically protect you and the baby so I would recommend sleep training using the Ferber method.

The book by Dr Ferber is easy to use and something your DH could take the lead on. It is distressing listening to them cry while they learn to go to sleep alone but it won’t physically harm them.

Lots of people are against sleep training (and lots are for it!) but I do think we are at the point of picking the “less bad” option and to me sleep training seems less bad than continuing to co sleep and accidentally hurting the baby again.

None of us are perfect and life isn’t perfect so don’t try to do everything perfectly - you can’t! All the best.

You need to be honest with the health visitor for a start. You bit your baby's face, that's really serious.

Your baby waking multiple times a night is completely normal. My eldest didn't sleep through till 4, my youngest is sleeping through mostly at nearly 2 but I feel that'll change when he moves into his own bed.

What time are you going to bed and how long is he awake for in the night for you to be so exhausted?

Why isn't your husband helping. You need help, this cannot continue so you need to engage with HV, GP etc if you have no family support either.

It is not normal to be this exhausted so maybe the GP can do blood tests, maybe you're anaemic, low on something. It's normal for babies to wake through the night, it's not normal for mothers to be so tired they bite their babies.

I just read your update, sorry I thought I’d read them all before, but I missed one Even if baby won’t take a bottle, I’d still ask your mum sister et cetera to help out. I know that in this situation I would gladly sacrifice a full night sleep to look after one of my nieces.

i would do the floor bed.

if you have the money, temporarily you could use a night nurse.

if not, your husband needs to help. if your husband refuses to help tonight / very short term until floor bed arrives I would kick up a massive stink with him, as it sounds like you may as well be a single parent honestly.

Op has a husband!

Hi Bumpyroads,

This must be an incredibly tough momen, my heart goes out to you. Sleep deprivation is mental torture. Well done on reaching out, you've had some great advice and I just wanted to contribute one specific thing in case it helps:

We had a next to me and also struggled with the ridge/drop down. The way we solved it was we'd we bought a new mattress for the next to me (as we'd bought it second hand) and my husband had the idea of putting the old mattress under the new one, which lifted baby to JUST the right height for me to feed. It meant no awkward shuffling baby over the ridge, he could just stay close to the edge of his mattress without feeling like he was in a diff space.

Good luck x

Don't beat yourself up but equally don't allow this ever to be possible again. Baby into a cot today. At 11 months they are physically capable of sleeping through without ill effect, so if you're this exhausted maybe you'll sleep through any crying and tbh that would be an ideal outcome. Baby doesn't need checking if the skin is unbroken, and personally I would use arnica cream to take down any bruising. But you need to see a doctor on your own account imo.

This.. at least until you've sorted out.

Can you get someone to come over and watch baby whilst you catch up on some sleep. If it is clinical exhaustion as a pp suggested.. you need to ask for help.

A crying baby is not the worst thing in the world. No baby ever died of crying.

This.
When the situation is dangerous, drastic action is needed.

Put baby in a cot in his own room.
As soon as DH is home, put in earplugs and put on noise cancelling headphones.
Go to sleep.

If you wake up after 4 hours, you can take off the headphones and earplugs if you feel that is safer to be able to hear baby, but you need 4 interrupted hours.
If you sleep for longer than 4 hours, don't worry about it. DH will wake you if there is a house fire.

When baby cries, go in and pat him, but DON'T lift him out of the cot.

Bet you didn't bite yours. There are situations where co-sleeping isn't appropriate - sounds like this is one of them.

This is honestly one of the least helpful posts I think I've ever seen. You've offered no actual suggestions or advice, just shamed OP - someone who has told us she's recently been under perinatal mental health care - for how she's feeling and for things she can't control, and you've basically told her that she's not normal and must be deficient or a bit weak to not be coping.

We had to hold my 2nd baby all through the night in shifts for a year

The very definition of making a rod for your own back.
I honestly can't get my head around modern attitudes to parenting.

At 11 months I started doing just evening and morning feeds (I still breastfed til 18 months so it wasn’t like I was weaning off totally) but the difference it made to my child’s sleep was amazing, they slept so much better. We were both ready for it but hadn’t realised. I went back to uni and she was in crèche for a few hours each day so was forced to cut back at that point.

I really do not approve of co sleeping. Just stop co-sleeping. I don't like the way it's promoted as a good thing. It isn't.,

It doesn't matter whether you follow safe sleep or not - you hurt your baby. What you are doing is dangerous.

probably best not to tell her you bit your baby
I sympathise Op and I don't have a solution but you really cannot co sleep in these circumstances. I had a pod type thing with DD that had hard sides so she couldn't roll and she was much safer but even then we had to be very careful

Personally I think you should get your child checked by the GP or tell the health visitor exactly what happened. If social services get involved then good. They can do something about your abusive husband who would expose you to sleep deprivation (a form of torture), and endanger your child rather than helping with his baby overnight. That's serious neglect and he needs to face the consequences of his actions.

When DS was 6 months old I fell asleep feeding him in a cafe. That was the straw that broke the camels back. .I went home and had it out with DH and demanded he helped. Up until that point if sone all the night wakings as I thought it was only fair because when has at work.
We had it out, there were lots of tears (mine) and we made a plan. He was 'on duty' until 1pm every night. I slept in the spare room. I went to bed at 10pm so had 3 hours uninterrupted sleep. We also took it in turns to do mornings and weekends. He'd be awake at 6am and we usually didn't get up till 7 for work. It was a little shift but it really helped. Some night he didn't wake up between 10-1 but even just knowing I didn't need to get up helped.
We did sleep training at 1 before I returned to work and again we took it in turns. I was broken and he could see that and wanted to help (but needed to be told how). If he doesn't want to help you need to reconsider the relationship.

Absolutely nuts. I genuinely cannot understand it.

I think it’s to dangerous to co sleep in this situation as you could scare the baby particularly if it continues. You do not need to get it checked out if the skin isn’t broken. You need to find safe sleeping measures. Can you feed lo to sleep in the cot with the side down the same way you do in the bed?

Co-sleeping can be absolutely brilliant, but I agree with most PPs that you need to stop co-sleeping immediately. It's just too dangerous under the circumstances. In your shoes I would do a gentle form of sleep training (not CIO). You may find that your baby sleeps better on his own. That would be the ideal outcome.

Your DH sounds utterly useless, though. He needs to step up and be a decent parent to his child and that includes at night.

I would probably tell them ( the health visitor) what happened, so that they can support you properly. Also because even though the skin isn't broken, if teeth marks or bruising appear later (sometimes things take a little while to appear) and you failed to mention what happened, it might look suspicious.

OP have you looked into sleep training? i really feel for you, i had the same situation with the exhaustion before i co-slept. there is a real risk of dropping the baby or falling asleep in a chair while breastfeeding. i suspect that is still the higher risk but only you know how common these sorts of nightmares are for you.

dont tell the health visitor anyway, you will get reported to SS and they will suspect it is deliberate.