AIBU to be fuming at DH!?

[PinotByTheBucketPlease]

We co-sleep with our 7 month old breastfed baby. Breastfeeding was never in my plan, nor was co-sleeping, but the two kind of just happened and seemed to fit together so well so I just ran with it.

I enjoy sleeping next to our baby, I love cuddling him, it’s made our bond so strong, feeding him to sleep while I doze next to him makes my life a hell of a lot easier, as some nights he can still feed up to five times (or more!), so I’ll be damned if I’m sitting up, hunched over to feed that many times through the night, then struggling to get him settled in a cot for god knows how long after.

A couple months ago, DH declared how unhappy he was about sleeping in the bed with the baby. He said he wasn’t get decent sleep, despite the fact he’d snore from the moment his head hit in the pillow, right up until he’d get up for work the following morning - often keeping me awake for hours at a time in the process!

Regardless, I expressed my sympathy and assured him that we wouldn’t be co-sleeping forever, I refuse to be one of those mums who still have their two year olds in bed with them (nothing against parents that do that, I just know I’ll wind up needing and wanting my bed space at some point!!!). I told him that once the baby drops down to two guaranteed feeds a night (rather than the erratic ones at present) I’ll actively start trying to settle him in to his cot, but for the time being, co-sleeping was saving my sanity and allowing me to have sufficient energy the following day to deal with our 3 year old, and two year old as well as the baby. In the mean time, I’ve been doing my utmost best to keep the baby on the outer side of the bed, away from DH for as much of the night as humanly possible!

Anyway, since lockdown, DH has really ramped up the ‘the baby shouldn’t be sleeping in here with us anymore, you need to do something about it now’ chats. I’m not ready to stop co-sleeping and make my life infinitely harder right now, but because he’s been nagging me, I finally caved this evening.

I took the baby through to our room and spent over two hours trying to settle him in to the cot (a next to me cot), only for him to wake up screaming like someone was murdering him 20 minutes later. I brought the baby back to the lounge with me, and started feeding him in there and said to DH ‘once I’ve finished feeding our baby, seeing as you’re the one who wants him to sleep away from us, you can take him and settle him, because I’ve just lost the best part of my entire evening and haven’t even had half an hour to myself since all three kids went to bed.’

DH turns around and goes ‘No. Its not my problem. You deal with it. You’re the one that started the co-sleeping, you need to fix it, not me!!’. I responded with something along the lines of ‘but co-sleeping and breastfeeding go hand-in-hand, it’s perfectly natural and normal, I’m not even ready to stop co-sleeping, the only reason I'm doing this now is because of you, but if I’m not going to have your support and your help, then fuck it, I won’t even bother’.

With that, I grabbed the spare duvet and a tonne of blankets and set up a makeshift bed in our lounge for myself and the baby, half expecting DH to say either ‘oh don’t do that, I’ll help out and make this easier on you’ or even ‘I’ll sleep in the lounge, you and the baby take the bedroom’, but nope, up he fucking got and went to bed in a huff, not saying goodnight, just fucked off and left me to it with our baby.

AIBU to think this isn’t just MY ‘problem’ to solve? We should be coming together as parents to ‘correct’ this, shouldn’t we? He’s the one that always told me to try breastfeeding our children because ‘it’s better for them’, and on our third and final child, I finally nailed it but now it’s like he’s fucking penalising and berating the efforts I’d put in place to both establish breastfeeding and also make sure I had enough rest to cope with our other young DC’s.

Ugh. Perspectives please!!!!

I'm not saying your DH is not being unreasonable he is to an extent, but lack of sleep is probably making you both irritable. I can see both points tbh.

I can understand your DH not getting a good sleep at night knowing the baby was in bed with you and worrying, I think I would be the same. Although probably more so when the baby was little, less so at 7 months, if he’s only just saying it now it does sound more like an excuse.

I would be more pissed off with the ‘it’s your job’ attitude. I agree with others that you should be in the bed and him on the sofa, obviously if he were helping you I wouldn’t say that. He is being really selfish. I would tell him that you have thoroughly researched it and if baby isn’t co-sleeping then DH will have to settle them as they’ll smell your milk and just want you. Then enjoy a lovely relaxed evening whilst DH settles baby

rwalker yet the dh hasn't complained until now has he? And even if the SOP has, he should be supporting her in comforting their distressed baby.

OP my baby dd is also 7 months and I also bed share and breastfeed her...she is also still feeding several times in the night, this is the norm as far as I have read for breastfed babies who bed share - we are their comfort. I see NO valid reason to try and 'train' her out of what is perfectly instinctive natural behaviour that is good for her development.
My mum who was a HV has told me she should be feeding less at night now and I should try putting her in the next to me cot but I don't listen. I trust what I have read and what feels instinctive - she sleeps right next to me all night and feeds when she wants to.

Unlike you my DH is supportive and encouraging and only wants what is best for the baby. He believes this is the best thing for her and can't bare the thought of letting her cry through any sort of attempt to "train" her to sleep without her security and comfort. He mostly sleeps on the sofa because he gets a better nights sleep there at the moment and he never complains.

I'm sorry your DH is such a selfish prick.
Please continue to put your babies and your needs as a priority in this situation, as your Dh Is being completely unreasonable, particularly not even offering to help you "train" your baby to sleep without you. What a twat!

A grown man has taken the bed while a baby sleeps on the floor? Wow. How can you even be attracted to such a prick ever again?

A grown man has taken the bed while a baby sleeps on the floor?
^
this. he should be mortified

I co-slept with DS and loved it, it kept me same as he was a frequent waker but would settle with a quick feed and wasn’t a fidgeter. We had a bedside cot and I would feed him to sleep and then shuffle him across. When he woke to feed, anytime from midnight onwards I would bring him into bed with me. We never had him in between us and I had him in a baby sleeping bag on top of the duvet when he was little, In the early days DH also slept in the spare room a lot. Less so as DS got bigger. Having him to the side of me was safer and DH was less disturbed and slept fine,

Once DS was big enough to have his own bed, I settled him to sleep in there and he would wander in and get in with me whenever he woke, be this 1am or 6am.

People used to comment about stopping breastfeeding in particular my mum saying aren’t you to old for that to him but I took no notice. Luckily my husband was supportive of me both breastfeeding and co sleeping. He read about the benefits and also knew we all got the best sleep this way.

I went back to work when DS was 11 months and was still able to bf until he was 3.5 yrs. He never slept through the night until he was 2 and as he got bigger, we just bought a bigger bed! As time went on, the time in bed with us reduced until it would usually just be for an hour in a morning. The big bed was great though for morning cuddles or if he was feeling poorly.

I would seriously consider the bedside cot idea if you have the room. It might be a good solution for you.

If your DH really wants to get your DS out if your bed he needs to help make it happen. He is being an arse. Otherwise he is the one who needs to be sleeping elsewhere. Don’t be pressurised into stopping if you aren’t ready (co-sleeping) but particularly breastfeeding.

For those scaremongering about cosleeping generally, the vast majority of the risk comes from not doing it safely (smoking, alcohol, pillows, sofas etc) and not from planned safe co-sleeping. It wasn’t something I intended but after getting no sleep for 3 weeks I did my homework and this was our solution. I was confident with my choice. People have been sleeping safely with their babies for thousands of years. It worked so well for us. There is a lot of advice out there about how to co-sleep safely. I get some people say they couldn’t sleep with there baby and that it isn’t for them and that’s fine but please don’t project all that onto the OP. She wasn't asking for a lecture on co-sleeping. My GP said at my 6 week check ‘well thats fine for now but you won’t want to be doing it when he is 6 months!’. I always wanted to go back and say ‘we are and I do and it’s great!’

Good luck OP.

If your baby stays so close to you at night he will continue to feed during the night.
It's up to you whether you want that to continue or whether you want a few even more disturbed nights to get him into his cot.
I assume as you have a Next to Me that the baby sleeps between you and the cot and not in between you and your husband?

Is he well onto solids in the day yet? Or just tastes still?

I hope he's apologised this morning OP.

For what it's worth my HV told me if we hadn't started bottles by 3 months baby would be unlikely to take one anyway as they're used to boob by then. I never bothered, expressing sounds long. If your DH is so bothered he can buy bottles and formula and clean them and make them up and try them with baby can't he.

7 months is ridiculously early to be bitching at you to give up bf. "Actually MIL the WHO recommends bf until at least 2"

Co sleeping/bed sharing is the norm in many cultures and not dangerous if done correct. I'm fact for me bed sharing is the norm and keeping your baby away from you is strange but I'm aware that's my opinion.

Fwiw I'm also in academia like OPs DH and have read a ton of articles in co sleeping and BF so I try to base my arguments on fact where I can.

OP please don't let him bully you. Cosleeping and BF saved my sanity and I did it for several years. If he doesn't expect to help/adapt with 3 under 3 he shouldn't have had them.

I know that bed sharing is the norm in many cultures but when I had my youngest 17 years ago we were given a long lecture about not bed sharing as it significantly increased the risks of cot death. I know that none of my friends or relatives did this. When has it become acceptable to bed share again? FWIW OP your DH is a selfish knob!

@Mushypeasandchipstogo this thread is not about bed sharing yes or no though.
its about parenting and a non supportive H.

The AAP also push Extinction method which is full on CIO from birth. So they can fuck right off.

Is he jealous? He isn't showing good partner or father behaviour. How does he actually contribute towards, and support, his family?

I’m right and he’s wrong. That’s my take away from the OP’s posts. Add into the mix the OP’s preference presented as fact; ‘breastfeeding and co sleeping go together’ and ‘its normal’. Co sleeping (since you are sharing the same space) should have been a dialogue. Instead, you’ve presented it as a fait accompli and appointed yourself as arbiter as to when it ends.

Talk to each other, there is definitely room for compromise but only if you are both prepared to listen and let go of some of your wants.

I breastfed but didn’t co sleep, it was my preference because I can’t sleep with a child in my bed. My bed is my sleeping sanctuary, if I’m awake, the more the merrier, even pets.

I understand your reasoning Op but your ‘my way or the highway approach’ is really jarring. Which was crowned by shooting yourself in the foot when your manipulative move backfired, when he called your bluff, instead of backing down as you had expected.

Do not let this power struggle spill over into other areas of your relationship. If you can no longer trust the other person to respect you enough to at the very least listen to your opinions than it doesn’t bode well for a happy relationship.

I can understand where your DH is coming from in regards to not sleeping well with baby in the bed, I sleep awfully when our daughter gets into bed with us, I’ll fall asleep but it’ll be a really light sleep and I’ll always wake up with a sore neck! However I also completely agree with you needing to cosleep if it makes night feeds so much easier and baby and you actually get sleep.
Personally I don’t think either of you are being unreasonable, although he could have put it in a nicer way! Do you have a spare room or nursery you could pop a bed into and then your DH can sleep in there and get the rest he needs as well as you and baby? Just make sure you prioritise some time for yourselves as well as both you and DH might start to feel a bit distant with this arrangement.

I know the OP did not ask for a lecture on the dangers of bed sharing (which is what she is doing, not all co sleeping is bed sharing)

But it is relevant because her DH has expressed valid concerns about the bed sharing, specifically he was afraid one of them would roll onto the baby and smother her. Which is a known risk of bed sharing. The OP has repeated over and over that the sleeping arrangements are “natural” “normal” and “go hand in hand with breastfeeding” and is shutting down all conversation by making it purely her decision and demanding he support her decision he does not agree with and honestly, scientifically has ground for his concerns.

Yes he’s not being supportive of her decision to bed share, and I think he is perfectly reasonable to have the concerns he has and not support the bed sharing as it is risky even though it is convenient to the OP.

You should learn to settle your baby without feeding him. A 7 month old only needs a one night feed. I will regret forever doing this with my first. She has anxiety issues at night and is 4 now. Still sleeping in our bed half of the time, while our youngest is in her cot

The husband needs to sleep on the couch.

All this is his problem and nobody else's. He is the only one who has a problem here.

He never raised his concerns or issues with co-sleeping (or bed sharing, whatever terminology you want to use) at the beginning. It was only after a few months that he was like 'yeah, I don't like this'. Even back then, I asked him what he wanted to do about it, what things he thought we could try etc and he said he didnt know, he'd just have to get on with the co-sleeping. He could've used that opportunity then to outline a plan or routine of some description, rather than burying his head, letting me get on with it for several more months, then exploding and telling me this whole thing is entirely my fault and he won't help me correct it, even though it'll only be something that benefits him and will be to my detriment.

Had he pointed it out from the get go and properly sat me down and explained himself, I'd have been more likely to have put a stop to it sooner, with his help, of course.

I can understand feeling on edge with a tiny baby in the bed, but our 7 month old is by no means little, nor was he on the small side at 5 or so months when DH first started ramping up these chats. Regardless, the baby spends the vast majority of the night laying on my right hand side, my back is to DH. The only time baby will be moved to the middle is when I need to feed him from the left boob, but then we roll over again!

Baby is on solids and finger foods yes, doesn't seem to be changing or effecting how much milk he drinks though. But my other DC's were exactly the same. When DC1 was between 6-8 months old, he would guzzle formula bottles like he was storing for the apocalypse, and still chow down on several purées, chunks of fruit, veg, breads etc. I just seem to produce hungry babies! I don't think it's 'common' for breastfed babies to only have one feed per night, though I'm happy to see links etc regarding that. However my RL breastfeeding friends all have said their BF babies still fed several times in the night all the way up to age one, so who really knows!?

I bed shared with my first from 11 months and bf to age 3. He sleeps in his own bed now goes to sleep within minutes, maybe wakes once in the night. It doesn't necessarily cause issues. Found it useful to have a mattress on slats on the floor to avoid worrying about him falling out.

Now considering the same for the 6 month old who is waking every hour in the bedside crib.

My husband has always been supportive (possibly because he gets to sleep uninterrupted in the other room!).

He is completely unreasonable. If he doesn’t want to sleep in the bed with the baby that’s fine, but he needs to be the one that sleeps on the makeshift bed! And yes, his passive aggressive steering you towards bottles through talking to the baby would irritate me enormously as it could really harm your supply. Why are his family getting involved? Does he know the guidelines that say breastfeeding for a year is recommended as optimum for your baby (WHO guidelines are two years in fact). What does he say to explain why he wants to undermine this and punish you by making you deal with the consequences? (Obviously fed is best and breastfeeding is not an option for everyone but in this situation it is clearly working for OP and her baby).

@Tsubasa1
A 7 month old only needs a one night feed

Interesting. Source?

I have to say, it's upsetting for me to see the amount of you who do cosleep and breastfeed, and have supportive and understanding husbands to match - though I'm obviously happy that you haven't found yourselves in this situation because it's both shit and awkward!

I can't fathom why mine is acting this way. I don't understand why he won't help me to achieve the thing that HE wants.

kellymom.com/parenting/nighttime/sleep/

Many doctors tend to look at night nursing only from a nutritional standpoint, but this is only part of the story. After the first few months, your baby will begin to associate the breast with far more than just a way to satisfy hunger and thirst. It becomes a place of comfort, security, warmth, closeness, and familiarity. The act of nursing is not just nourishing; it is nurturing. Keep in mind that these needs are every bit as real as baby’s physical ones, and having them met is every bit as needful to baby’s overall development.