To not trust my husband with our baby?

[TyrannasaurusJex]

Start by saying that i love him very much and he is a fantastic husband and father.... in all ways but one. Our second son is 4 weeks old and I am obviously EXHAUSTED (oldest son has just turned 3). The problem is that my husband is the heaviest sleeper known to man. When he gets tired he physically cannot stop himself falling asleep and once he's asleep I can scream full volume about an inch from his ear and he won't wake. I have to physically shake him hard to rouse him.
The problem is that I can't trust him to have baby during the night as I'm so worried he'd fall asleep holding him, and he definitely won't wake up during the night if baby cries so he can't help out then and let me get a few hours sleep.
He is quite upset about it too and I don't think he's doing it on purpose but it is really making me resent him and feel like I'm totally alone all night.
Has anyone experienced similar and have any tips on whether he can train himself to be a lighter sleeper??

You aren't unreasonable at all - we have family friends and the dad fell asleep with their 4 week old DD on the sofa. The child stopped breathing, rushed to hospital, in intensive care for four months and is now living with severe and permanent brain damage. Social services involved, destroyed the parents marriage, just so horrific and sad. They are the best and most loving people, but one (unintentionally) bad decision ruined their lives. The story TERRIFIED me, it still haunts me now and seeing them cope with this new life is so hard. My husband and I were paranoid with our two DD's. Would your husband fully understanding the reality of what could happen shock him enough into shaking off sleep? The fear of what could happen was enough for my husband and I to never take a single chance - we would do night wake ups standing if we were worried we weren't awake enough. It's so hard as you say he's a great dad, and it's not fair to put the burden on you!

Also, some useful tips to make us wake up - stand up whilst with baby, chug a glass of very cold water, put your phone light on bright to force your brain to register it, walk around to get the blood moving, and keep yourself slightly cold. But really - mind numbing terror is the best wake up tool!

YANBU.

I was always paranoid about falling asleep with my baby so I would feed him whilst standing up - he was a colicky baby and liked us rocking him as we walked anyway so it helped him too - so your husband could do that. But it's the not being able to wake up that would be an issue. I've known parents who are extremely heavy sleepers but are able to wake up to their baby - kind of like an instinct thing. I can definitely see why you're worried!

I wouldn't trust a heavy sleeper with a tiny baby overnight. If on the sofa/in bed doing feeds, the risks are just too great and I think fathers in general sleep more heavily than mothers.

I think your fears are well-founded, personally, and the best thing your DH can do at the moment is take the baby during the day/in the evenings to give you some uninterrupted time to sleep. When your baby is a little bit older and less fragile and at risk, your DH can then be more involved at nights.

Unfortunately I think you're right not to trust him. Can he make it up to you in cleaning the bathrooms, sterilising bottles, taking baby out in his spare time?

Yanbu, is there anyone else who can help? I used to help dd regularly with my gd when her partner worked nights.

Urgh yes horror stories like this are exactly what are going through my head. I think the falling asleep holding him is the lesser problem, as other psorers have said, he walks around with him or is doing nappies or something during the night that he won't fall asleep during, but the not waking up really means that I can't get a good stretch overnight. He's definitely got worse since our first son. Luckily he is very helpful during the day, I have family close to help and he's a teacher so will shortly be off for 6 weeks to give me a daytime break. It's just the long nights that are wearing me down!

I wouldn't. I'd just ask him to take DC early in the morning instead and go back to bed then. I've always done night wakings with both as I've been breastfeeding and my husband has always taken them in morning/after work/whenever for me to catch up on sleep.

If things are really dire then do shifts - he keeps baby downstairs from say 8-11/midnight while you sleep, then swap, then do same again in morning. I've never had to do this but a friend did and said it saved her sanity!

My husband has a sleep disorder so I entirely see where you're coming from and would likely make the same decision as you.

But might it help to reframe the language you're using? It's not that you don't trust him - that's such a loaded way to put it. It's more that his sleep habit, which he can't help, means it's not possible for him to have the baby at night. It's not a 'blame' thing or that you think he'll deliberately hurt the baby or do something wrong. It's that it's just not possible for him to do it safely.

I do think the way we frame things strongly influences how we feel about them.