To think my husband should stop falling asleep holding our babies?

[candypanda283]

My husband falls asleep literally every night feed, we have 5 month old twins and he has been doing it since they were born. He gets the same amount of sleep as me, probably 6 to 7 hours (broken) and he only has to do night feeds when he isnt at work.

I made him go to the drs and they said he is just tired from having the babies, they did bloods and they're all normal.

What can I do? I need sleep myself and have PND but he is horrible overnight when I try and wake him up when he is holding the babies, he denies being asleep but he ends up bending over them and im worried he will kill them

Neutrogena?? WHAT?? You are beyond ridiculous. Sofa sleeping with an infant is extremely dangerous - that is a FACT.
OP Is very worried about the safety of her vulnerable infant children because her OH falls asleep on a sofa with them... Her OH should be concerned, should want to safeguard the children in his care. BUT NO.... No, instead he has denied, minimised and now abrogated all responsibility for night feeding... Onto his wife - who recently gave birth to twins AND has PND... So really NEUTROGENA you need to have some empathy for the OP and her babies and not for the person who should be acting like a responsible adult parent and not a selfish entitled ass.

There IS publicity about it - all of the stuff about not co-sleeping doesn't just apply in a bed! In fact it applies much much more to other sleep situations, like sofas specifically.

Health visitors practically batter you around the head with safe sleeping advice IIRC and constantly go on about making sure you don't fall asleep holding the baby.

Attempted murder - no, don't be dense, but he's being extremely careless.

NHS: Never sleep with your baby on a sofa or armchair

Lullaby Trust (formerly FSID; foundation for study of infant deaths)

Emma's Diary - book given to new mums

There are some posters who like to come on to threads and derail them when they think women are getting too uppity critical of men.

I'm a bit surprised that anyone would publicly deny and dismiss well-established public health information intended to prevent children from dying simply in order to score points but there it is

Of course it's better than OH doesn't sleep on sofa with baby. Yes, it's more risky than not doing it.
The risk is still not high. It's not like 50% of babies who spend a night on the sofa with a parent don't make it. The numbers of babies who die is very small. There is a far greater risk from infanticide, car accidents or house fire. Read about risk and probability.

Children under the age of 1 are not more likely to die from car accidents, fire or infanticide, this is just nonsense.

The death rate in under ones has been reduced by 2/3 since the 1970s following the introduction of safe sleep guidelines.

www.rcpch.ac.uk/sites/default/files/page/Death%20in%20infants,%20children%20and%20young%20people%20in%20the%20UK.pdf

Much as I'd like to get into statistics can we remember that a new mum who has already noted that she is feeling somewhat anxious started this thread for support? I'm not sure this is the place to be comparing statistics of where and how babies die, other than reiterating what is and isn't official safety advice.

Hi op,

I really feel for you and the lack of sleeping. I have twins who are now two and we had to turn the whole feeding thing into a military operation! We did have a system though and it worked pretty well. I would feed the twins around 7pm and then go to bed around 9ish, OH would then do the dream feed at 10.30ish. I would then get a good 7 hours solid sleep and do the 5am feed, OH would then do a 7am feed before going to work. We always feed the twins together and put them down together, it was the only way we could get through it and we found they learned to self smooth really quickly and luckily for us sleeping has never been an issue.
I don't know if doing a kind of shift pattern might help you both a bit? Then you could at least get a good stretch of sleep. We also had a little feeding and changing station set up In our room so it was there and ready to go. It's so tough though, I remember feeling like a zombie but planning how we did the feeds made a huge difference.
I know someone mentioned the lullaby trust upthread, it may be worth getting you DH to read it. Once mine read all that info it out the fear of god into him and he was very careful about not falling asleep on the babies. We never co slept either, they were always in the baskets as that meant I could sleep better but it's what works best for you. It will get easier though.

Agreed. I think what I'm trying to say is that people should absolutely not worry about the various lurid risks mentioned upthread, and that thanks to safe sleep guidelines babies are safer now than they have ever been.

Apologies for the derail OP