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AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

Original poster

AIBU to think he should be able to hear the baby cry at night?

113 replies

TheDetective · 17/05/2013 17:24

I suspect a lot of people have this 'problem'. A DP/DH who 'doesn't hear' the baby cry at night.... Hmm

DP is currently on additional paternity leave. I should be back in work, but am currently off sick. Baby is 5 months old. DP has never woke at night to his cries.

I am thoroughly pissed off now, and the fact he is on paternity leave makes it worse IMO, as this time off is to care for the baby! Had I been back in work, this week I'd have been doing nights. And he doesn't wake?!

Our baby wakes anything from 3-20 times a night don't ask. DP does get up for him - but I have to kick/push him til he is awake. So I'm well and truly awake by the end of this. It can take 10 minutes to get him out of bed. I can feel myself getting more angry when I think of it!

He said he is a heavy sleeper - just doesn't hear him. Are you fucking kidding? I'm a heavy sleeper, but I still hear my baby cry!!

A couple of nights ago, the baby was on his chest screaming, while he was asleep. WTAF?? I had to wake him even though there was a screaming writhing 5 month old on top of him.

So I've not slept properly in over 7 months now thanks pregnancy insomnia! and I'm at the end of my tether. We've had rows over this. He said he doesn't know what he can do. Neither do I. But it has to stop! When I am back in work I will be on 2 weeks of night shifts a month, and I am petrified that my poor baby will be screaming all night. I want to walk away and book in to a hotel for a night and leave him to it. But how can I leave a baby with a man that does not wake up?!

AIBU to think that being a 'heavy sleeper' is not an excuse to not wake up when your baby cries?

DP reads MN, so I hope he finds this...

It's a good fucking job he has good points I swear.

OP posts:
Original poster
TheDetective · 17/05/2013 18:24

I've been doing the nudge hit thing since he was born. He doesn't work full time, so he is around more than most dads would be I guess.

I refuse to be the sole carer of this baby! It takes two after all!

He's not got any better over 5 months, despite the fact he has been made to get up!

OP posts:
Original poster
TheDetective · 17/05/2013 18:27

He fell asleep with him there. I've woken up many times to find the baby asleep, DP asleep with him in the vshape pillow we use to hold him on during night feeds, the bottle loosely hanging out of his mouth. Confused

I've had rows about this too. It's another sore point. He dropped him out of bed at 4 months, when he was asleep with him in this way.

Believe me. Words have been had.

I am happy to co-sleep with him safely, on my side. But he clearly can't do it safely, so shouldn't.

Not that co-sleeping is something I want to do particularly, but sometimes it's the only way to get sleep.

OP posts:
lottiegarbanzo · 17/05/2013 18:27

Well, start recording next door's dog, alarm etc and save them on his phone - you can do that with DIY ringtones can't you?

Pigsmummy · 17/05/2013 18:28

Put baby next to him to sleep, can you go to spare room?

Iggi101 · 17/05/2013 18:28

It doesn't have to be the mother who wakes. I imagine gay fathers don't leave the baby to cry all night, despie neither of them having ovaries.

Original poster
TheDetective · 17/05/2013 18:28

And by sleep, I mean baby sleep. I sleep really badly when he is co-sleeping!

OP posts:
Original poster
TheDetective · 17/05/2013 18:31

No spare room here.

I wake anyway, even when DP brings the baby down in the morning, and I catch up on a couple of hours, I wake regularly to every whimper. I know DP can't help that bit, but I do feel like I'll never sleep again.

The baby has slept through the night a couple of times, but then we just get sleep regression. He learned to sleep at 4 months, then 4 month sleep regression hit. He learned to sleep again just before 5 months, and then the sodding regression started again!

.

OP posts:
HeffalumpTheFlump · 17/05/2013 18:31

I'm thinking some sort of taser... Obviously not when baby is on his chest... But it would quickly solve the night time problem and release some of your pent up anger from the last five months. It's a win win situation IMO. [grins]

HeffalumpTheFlump · 17/05/2013 18:31

That was meant to be a Grin

Cloverer · 17/05/2013 18:32

Maybe get an alarm or klaxon you can sound at him whenever the baby cries?

IneedAyoniNickname · 17/05/2013 18:32

Personally i think he doesn't wake because he knows he doesn't have to. So if you're not there, he will.

If I slept at my mums when dc were babies, she wouldn't wake to their crying. However, if the dc stayed there without me, she did as she had to iyswim.

SacreBlue · 17/05/2013 18:32

You sound like my neighbours (not the relationship bit I have no idea) but their DC is v unsettled and we can hear crying all the time, poor neighbours must be demented from lack of sleep.

Second the controlled crying. Divided on DH, my DB could probably sleep through an earthquake but if you say your DH is capable of waking at other sounds then maybe it is a touch of laziness. We all know even our DC can be capable of 'not knowing how to do sthg' so we do it for them rather than leaving it up to them to learn how to do it.

Perhaps suggesting to DH it's better for him to figure it out now while he has the luxury of you there before you go back to work?

Original poster
TheDetective · 17/05/2013 18:33

Taser = awesome!

I wish!

See, what I don't get is that when we go to bed, we agree who is doing the night that night. And then when the baby wakes, I never ever get up if it is his turn. So it isn't as if I can say he thinks I will just get up if he pretends to sleep. I don't - I do make him get up. Every time.

OP posts:
StuntGirl · 17/05/2013 18:34

The thing that I always think in these situations...say something (god forbid) happened to you. He would be the only parent, and sole carer or your child. He would have to get up to deal with a crying baby. So if he could do it then he can do it now. Only now he gets the benefit of splitting the workload 50/50 (or whatever works in your circumstances) with you.

PeazlyPops · 17/05/2013 18:34

Mothers are programmed to the sound of their baby crying. Men are not. Simple as that. All the equal rights legislation in the world will not reprogramme natural instinct.

Wow, my husband and I must be biological anomalies Hmm

Iggi101 · 17/05/2013 18:35

Sorry but I wouldn't want to leave him alone with the baby at this age given what you've just posted.

Original poster
TheDetective · 17/05/2013 18:36

I have another DS, so klaxon is a no go! Shame!

I couldn't do controlled crying. I've done pick up put down.

But I have the baby who just does not stop crying. Trust me. CC would never work, because he possibly has my stubborness. I don't know. But he doesn't stop once started!

OP posts:
StuntGirl · 17/05/2013 18:37

Look, he may not be able to help how deep a sleeper he is, but he can see the effect it's having on you. What solutions has he offered?

nextphase · 17/05/2013 18:37

I honestly think its a hear it, and brain either registers "I need to respond" or "nothing important, go back to sleep" - I could sleep through a lot of things when it was "my lie in" morning - and for that read wake with baby, feed, dress, breakfast, and then kick DH out of bed so I could go back to sleep.

When DS2 arrived, me and baby slept in the spare room on one side of the house, and DS1 and DH were in separate rooms on the other side, DH with the monitor on full. I often woke up for both kids. But I was listening for a child anyway.

If he wakes for electronic noises, can you get a baby monitor which beeps - if we put ours on mute, and then things got noisy, it would beep. Might that work?

HousewifeFromHeaven · 17/05/2013 18:38

The only time my DH woke for the kids was when I wasn't there. He had no reason to otherwise.

defineme · 17/05/2013 18:38

I sometimes didn't hear my babies and I dropped one of my twins twice(off thankfully low bed-healthy 8 year old now) because I kept falling asleep breast feeding at night. I don't wake for smoke alarms or anything much. Dh wakes at everything. I barely sleep when he's away for the night because I daren't go deeply to sleep in case I sleep through the kids being ill or something. Thankfully they are old enough to shake me awake now.

If he's snoring then I can't see what you can do.
I'm sorry your baby is having such a hard time and so sorry you are too.
I think you just have to sleep all day whilst dh looks after him so you can wake at night.

Justaperfectday · 17/05/2013 18:40

It's not biology Hmm it's a case of who normally wakes up and whether you know someone else will do it.
Dp is the waker here, he is a sahd. If he is away however, I wake to them much more easily.
With my ex I knew i always had to wake up so didn't sleep through it.

peteypiranha · 17/05/2013 18:41

Sounds like he just cant be arsed. I have never heard of a man not hearing his own child cry at such a close range. DH would wake up immediately its his own child after all

IneedAsockamnesty · 17/05/2013 18:45

Well and here is one reason why dads are not equal parents to mothers not matter how much people try to claim they are.

wickedwithofthenorth · 17/05/2013 18:46

My dh is the same. He has never woken to dd's cries even if she is right next to him screaming in his ear. It takes him forever to get out of bed to get her after I've kicked him awake by which point I've usually got out of bed in a huff and got her myself.
He sleeps and has always slept like the dead, meaning in all the years we've been together if I want him to get to work on time for his early morning shifts.
Although it's annoying for me to deal with night waking constantly he doesn't actually need to wake up, all it means for us is dd will be staying in our room until she wakes less in the night, only wakes a couple of times but that's too many for me to be up and down to her room and then be too awake to sleep.
But you need to know your dp is able to wake when your not there, no other option.
Until last night all I would offer was sympathy, however last night nothing short of a miracle happened dd cried quietly and dh woke up!
Dh had fallen asleep downstairs on the sofa with tv on and I'd just left him, by accident the new baby monitor we'd been experimenting with had been left on and when she woke at 1 the vibrating cry alarm woke him up. Maybe something like that might work for your dp, I can fully understand you need this sorted for your own sanity before you start on night shifts.