sleep training & DH's excuses

[happilyLostCareer]

Ds is nearly 8 months. He is a monumentally terrible sleeper who has slept more than about 45 minutes at a time perhaps 10 or 15 times in his whole life.Yes that is correct, I have not slept for more than about 30 minutes at a time in nearly 8 months.

Because DH works and I don't (no point two adults being wrecked) I have slept in DS' room and done every night waking since he was born. DH gets a full night's sleep in our bedroom.

If I ask DH to take DS for a few hours in the evening, if DH is not too busy with work, DH will have all the lights on, computer screens, iPad, skype calls with colleagues, etc and DS will get very little sleep and will just be crying with hunger and tiredness until I wake up and take him back. DS will then take 3+ hours to settle (falling asleep on the boob, waking a few minutes later, for hours).

So we had planned to try DH sleeping next to DS at night for 4 hour stretches, bringing DS to me for feeds. Except every time we have nearly started DH has an excuse as to why it can't work this week. DH will then claim not to understand why consistency is needed and say he thought we had agreed it was only ever going to be for a couple of nights, or for a couple of hours, or whatever. We will then agree another 5-night window for sleep training and he pulls the same fucking stunt again. I am on my knees with exhaustion. DH is a bit busy with work so can't be expected to commit time and then stick to it.

Then there are all the admiring comments about other mothers who hold down jobs too. Both from DH and his workaholic parents.

AIBU to want to bury DH under the patio? Closely followed by his parents?

Your DH is an arse.

Can you make him book holiday for the next time you're trying sleep training? Then he won't be able to forget about it and won't be able to use work as an excuse.

I'm in awe of you. Your DH clearly has no clue and if he hasn't managed to get a clue in the last 8 months I don't know what will give him one. In your shoes I'd be telling him parkrun was off and lie ins were off and buggering off every weekend for a bit. But that is a bit of a nuclear option...

I think you need to think of yourself first.

1. Stop breastfeeding. Baby at 8 months needs an alert, rested mum over breastmilk. you might find that formula (being heavier) knocks him out a bit quicker too.

1. Don't sleep in your DS' room. Sleep with your DH and so he's aware of how often you need to wake up. He won't be sympathetic to you if he can't see a problem in the first place.

1. Don't be afraid to leave your baby crying in his cot for a few hours while you sleep. Baby won't die or get hurt if he has to cry for a bit in a safe area. You might even find he eventually learns to self-soothe. But yeah even if not, no harm will come to a screaming child in their cot. However if you're too tired to properly supervise him then he might well get hurt.

1. Tell your DH (don't ask) that Friday and Saturday nights are his responsibility for night waking. And that they are non-negotiable. If he doesn't like it then he can leave.

Huge sympathies OP: I have a 13 month old crappy sleeper (not as bad as yours but quite bad enough). I also work full time, as an academic incidentally, and do half the night waking (DH also works full time). It is entirely possible to be an academic on crap sleep. It's hard, but it's not like we're performing brain surgery.

Your DH has no conception of how hard things are for you because at the moment he is entirely opting out of parenting. He gets uninterrupted sleep and uninterrupted hobbies. He has no idea how appalling you feel on your sleep pattern and he has no idea how hard it is to look after a baby (in general, let alone on that little sleep) because he never does it.

That needs to change. How you have not already got busy with that shovel I do not know, but I salute you. But he needs to change. Decide what you need and tell him what is happening. It's not optional: it can't be.

Your dh is honestly one of the most selfish men I have ever read about on MN. He does no night wakings at all, he gets a lie in, he still does all his hobbies, and he's unsupportive. Oh, and he's a fucking liar, agreeing to sleep train when he knows full well he has no intention of doing so.

I have a two week old who doesn't really settle past 2am, so I'm getting by on max 4 hours sleep. It's hideous and HOW you are managing I just don't know. You're brilliant, clearly, but you shouldn't have to be.

Please ignore Groupie's misinformed advice!

I'll dig a hole for you. Your 'd'H is being a twunt. Tell him he needs to step up and behave like a real man - putting his child and wife first over his work and hobbies.

I'm a single parent with an 18m old and my life sounds infinitely easier than yours. Why do you all have to go to a park run on a Saturday?

I would tell him that if he doesn't want to participate in having a child then he won't be living with his wife and child much longer!

Fuck that. I was on maternity leave for a year but with very few exceptions (e.g. if OH had to get up really early to travel with work) we shared all night waking. Our son was BF for 2 years but there were still times OH could settle him - on many occasions better than I could as our son didn't always want milk but sometimes would get worked up as he wasn't sure what he wanted (sometimes nothing at all really).

groupie123 has summed up my view too. Friday and Sat nights should be for you to recover.

Your husband sounds like an arse!!!

I sleep trained my BF baby at 9 months old because he never slept longer than 90 minutes and would only go back to sleep if he was BF.

Our approach consisted of putting him in his own room, going cold turkey on night feeds and controlled crying.

Within 4 days he was sleeping through from 8pm-6am and also having two 90 minute naps a day.

The only thing that made it doable was having my DH on side and him doing his fair share in it all.

I would have buried your husband under the patio a long time ago.

Find a job of your own. My son didn't sleep through the night until he was 5 years old. We shared the nights until then - sleeping in his room and I also had the justification of work the next day for DH to do his share.

OP -I am an academic and so is my DH. This actually made it easier not harder for him to help with sleep training when we had a young baby. Academics enjoy a certain amount of flexibility, they do not on the whole have to be in the office every day for a 9am start, and (occasional deadlines aside) they do not need to work every single weekend. They may choose to sometimes, for career reasons, but it is not obligatory, nor will they get in trouble with their employer if they do not. Your DH is bullshitting you if he is claiming that he has to work a 7 day week and so you have to do 100% of the childcare. This is in my experience a common ploy used by some academic men to put the burden on their wives, and it drives me fucking nuts, because I know it's just self-serving nonsense.

Conversely, when we were trying to get my dd to do longer stretches at night, and I was struggling with the exhaustion of night feeds, my DH would sleep in the other room with her every other night. Is he some kind of hero? No, he's just a decent bloke who recognises that his child is also his responsibility and wants his wife to be happy and sane. He would never try to claim that being an academic meant that he had some kind of special all-consuming job that the rest of the family had to work around, and if he did, I'd laugh him out of town because I know exactly what that job involves and manage to do it myself without the world needing to accommodate me.

I am really pissed off on your behalf. Sleep deprivation is a nightmare, and you've done amazingly to cope for so long. You need a partner to support you and make it easier, not act like a self absorbed child.

Wow, happily, you poor thing! I have a baby a similar age, thankfully an ok sleeper, but I can't imagine how annoyed I would be if her dad acted like your DH!
I'm tempted to say (if you're not ebf (I was/am so wouldn't work for me and I get it might not)) that this Sunday you get up, feed DS, then hand him to your DH and head out for the day, possibly to a Premier Inn for some sleep!

I get that some people have demanding jobs, and I get that academia can be bad because the work very much spills over into "life" time, but park run, Sunday night hobby...does he even realise how much he's taking the piss?!

You don't need to train your baby. You need to train your cunt of a husband.
I've rarely read anything that makes me so angry.

Crocodile has it!

Do you need an alibi or a getaway driver?!

Your dh is being a dick.

Why does your DH need a lie in when he gets a full night's sleep EVERY NIGHT??!!

I'm with pp on going a bit hard core on him. Move back into your bedroom. Work out a proper plan and get your DH involved. You should NOT be having to cope with so little sleep. I was on mat leave for a year and my DH re-settled DS after each feed (having picked him up and passed him to me when he woke up as cot was on his side of the bed).
DH has quite a demanding job which involved commuting as well (train not driving) but he knew that looking after a baby plus 5 yr old plus dog etc was just as tiring as going to work, and that we needed to share the load. It's not as if when your DH goes off to work you go and lie down and nap with the baby is it? Bet you're busy all the time doing housework/ keeping yourself and baby fed and alive etc.

I'm back at work now (p/t) and I honestly and truly find my working days far easier when I am tired than my 'home' days. My job IS a bit less stressful than DH but still...

DS went through an awful sleep period at 9-10 months and we had to do some sleep training. It was tedious but he learnt how to settle himself and has done ever since. Now he'll chunter around the cot for a bit sometimes before falling asleep, because he knows how to get himself to sleep.

Also agree that introducing a bottle alongside the bf might help you. At 15 months I'm bf and we give him a bottle. I just feed him before he goes to sleep - then he has a bottle when we pop him in the cot (note -DH does the bottle) and if he wakes in the night (rare) he has bottle not bf. But usually he's not hungry/thirsty. Just hot/ cold/ teething so we comfort him and he goes back to sleep. I then feed him again in the morning and that's it for the day.

Hope some of that made sense/ was helpful. I got so CROSS about your DH I couldn't really think coherently.

You are a for doing so well!

Regardless of his job he is a parent first. .
You need to get tough op. .

Like nutmeg I am also an academic and I really struggle to think of a career which is more flexible or accommodating of children and family life. Plenty of male prima Donna academics love to pontificate about how pressured and stressful it is. Ha! Idiots. They have no idea AND tend to be the arseholes who offload all their admin into the women. Your DH is being very selfish and sexist, OP. Hope you smack some sense into him one way or another. Parenthood is a shared journey. Ordeal. Whatever. It's a job for two.

He stops park run OR the lie in. You get one unbroken night of sleep a week. Absolute minimum.
If you're going to do sleep training he needs to accept a designated role in that. You're not the only parent. He works. But your job is 24/7 at the moment. That's not sustainable. Eventually you will crash and may become physically or mentally really unwell.
He's a father. Time to grow the fuck up and act like one.

ps. DS has never been a great sleeper - so not as if the 9-10 month period was a blip. It was like an EXTRA bad time. None of us were coping well and although we felt that it was possibly developmental - he had learnt to stand and cruise etc so would stand up in his cot and scream - he would also benefit from learning how to settle himself if he woke rather than getting all angry and wound up and shouty. We didn't let him cry it out but we went in and settled him then waited five mins and did it again, ad nauseum. He knew we were there and would come back but he started to learn how to settle himself without us and to actually enjoy being in his cot awake. Anyway - you know what your plan is, you just need to get really firm with your DH and get him to see what it's like for you, and to get him involved!

YANBU. I don't get these type of men who just don't understand what it takes to be a parent. Unfortunately I too have one of these men and then he will moan about why DD doesn't sleep in her own bed.

I'm sorry to hear your story. You must be out of your mind with exhaustion. Have you tried asking your HV for advice? Or a sleep trainer to come help? My HV's have been pretty useless so actually I'm not sure they will be much help to you on second thoughts.

Op do you breastfeed if so have you tried using a bottle at all instead of boob as it really could be a comfort thing.

Are you weaning him etc

Fucking hell! Do you want to borrow my spade?!

Can you make him read this and see what an arse he's being?