I don't want to hijack thread, OP.... but please please, can someone talk to me about cpap masks and how you get one, and how you got your dp to sort it out?
DP snores appallingly loudly. We lived in a small terraced house before and you could hear it all over the house, it actually vibrated through floors, so sleeping elsewhere was only a partial solution... and you can hear it through ear plugs. I never got as far as leaving at 3 in the morning to check into a hotel to get away from it, but I came close.
DP IS overweight and very sensitive about it. He has lost some weight but is nowhere near ideal bmi - he has never been, this is a battle in itself, and as I say, he is v sensitive about it. He has very high blood pressure, poor sleep habits and is usually tired in the morning. He doesn't drink much at all, but obvs it is worse when he does.
I recorded him snoring - he got angry and refused to believe it was him (he had maintained previously I was making a fuss, I should just wake him up if it was disturbing me - but he is snoring again within a minute, and why should I be awake to wake him up??). So I videoed him snoring, so he couldn't deny it was him. He seemed very shocked, and got a bit angry with me (why was I trying to humiliate/ridicule him etc).
I lost it at this point and shouted, telling him I was so sick of broken sleep just because of his snoring etc. He went and bought nasal strips/snore spray/a snore guard thing designed to wear in his mouth at night.
It helped a bit - but not much. He can still literally stop breathing, his chest heaves up and down and when he finally breathes, it's like a drowning man gasping. I have told him this is sleep apneoa. He doesn't really react to this - after all, I'm not a doctor etc.
Now we have moved house, to a bigger house, and he sleeps in a different room on a different floor - we have a toddler who tends to sleep with me and a breastfeeding baby I do night feeds with - so there's kind of no room, literally, for him, and I find it easier without him there.
On another floor, I can still hear him snoring at times. Sometimes after a night feed I have to go and wake him after I have fed and put baby down. He is always flat on his back, gasping and roaring away. He seems to take his snoreguard out in his sleep too - he usually starts with it in but loses it at some point in the night.
Pre-children my sleep reserves were bigger - I guess I just coped. Now it seems ridiculous, and I cannot imagine allowing him to share my bed again, ever. Assuming children sleep in their own room at some point. It's not just the snoring, it's the 'pre-snoring' - grunting, very heavy breathing that suddenly turns into snoring - I can't do it. I actually find sharing a room/bed with a toddler and a baby preferable in terms of sleep.
He usually just says 'I can't help it' and gets embarrassed and angry at me if I tell him to do something about it. But I'm going to have to insist, forcefully if need be. We are quite limited atm with small children anyway - but we can't go and stay with friends overnight, because he is now aware it can keep people awake and is ashamed about this. Also I would not go to a hotel where I had to share a bed with him now.
Problem is, he's also bad at looking after his health/dealing with doctors anyway. Where do you start? Does he go to the GP? Will they take him seriously, or just tell him I need earplugs? (doesn't work)
And how do you get a cpap machine? Aren't they noisy? my ds had a tiny one in scbu for a while - I cannot see my partner ever agreeing to sleep in something like that - are adult cpaps similar?