To still need to sleep whilst on maternity leave

[Rudolphrednosed]

I have a DS who is 7 months old and currently poorly. He hasn’t really slept for the last two nights, he will only settle on me or DH. Normally he sleeps 12 hours in his own cot so this is really unusual.

DH is obviously working atm and I’m on maternity leave. For the last two nights I’ve stayed awake almost all night downstairs with DS sleeping on me. I don’t think I can do a third night. I’m currently downstairs again and DH is asleep upstairs. I asked if we could do shifts tonight but he said no, as I’m on maternity leave I don’t need the sleep. The thing is, DS’s body clock seems to be wired so that he’s still wide awake all day and he’s not napping properly either! I’m on my knees with exhaustion.

We’re not set up for and I don’t feel confident cosleeping especially as DS can crawl now. As he usually sleeps in his cot our bed isn’t against the wall etc etc.

AIBU to go and wake him up? Just a few hours of sleep would really help me.

What a selfish selfish man. Disgusting behaviour on his part. Surely you need sleep more than him as you're looking after a baby throughout the day??

Why aren't you napping in bed whilst baby sleeps on you? You need sleep!

Sleep is a human need to stay alive - not a luxury. Tell your DH to pull his head out of his arse and help you.

I would like to know what is wrong with the 25% of people who apparently think it's unreasonable for the OP to think she has a right to one night's sleep out of three while her husband gets three out of three. Clearly that is massively unfair and he is a selfish, entitled asshole to refuse to take a shift.

*Edited as it has just gone down to 18%. Still too high but it will probably shrink some more.

Jesus your DH is awful. I have a 4 month old who doesn't sleep very well...maybe I'm a terrible mother but my DH has never slept in a separate room other than a few hours at a time and does a lot of the night waking with me. I'm breastfeeding so I get up to feed and he always gets me a glass of water.

@Tired88p85 genuine question do you not feel bad given he is presumably working and you could just have a bottle of water by your bed ?

@Rudolphrednosed your husband sounds an arse. I'd look into Co sleeping if it's going to continue but hopefully he goes back to sleeping 12 hours very soon!

Why should she feel bad?

You don't need to do shifts all night. Can't you just go to bed at 7pm and DH stay awake with baby till midnight.. then swap and DH can sleep straight thru the rest of the night so he's had a good stretch of sleep for work?
I do all the night wakings with my baby as she's breastfed during the night and I'm on maternity leave.
But she has a bottle in the evening so my DH has her in the evening after work and I go to bed and sleep during that period.
You need to share the evening put so you both get a stretch of unbroken sleep.
He needs to step up and work with you. It's reasonable that he does need to sleep before going to work.. but there's ways to make that work rather than you just staying awake forever

@mrssunshinexxx lol no. It's something the midwife told him to do and it makes him feel useful. He's very supportive of breastfeeding, he believes it's the best thing for the baby and the midwife drilled it into him how hard it is so he wants to help.

It's also because he's getting up to take the baby and re-settle him if baby is fussing a bit.

It helps me because if I had to feed and do all the re-settling and rocking back to sleep, I'd find it harder to go back to sleep.

If my DH was a surgeon or similar, sure he would need a good night sleep. He's a corporate lawyer sitting in an office doing paperwork, he's fine with a strong cup of coffee. I have the same job, he can't fool me pretending it's anything else!!

I am also a human being deserving of care and sleep, who is caring for his baby and feeding him 24/7. Just because some men are shit, doesn't mean he should be one.

Also, my baby is not a good sleeper. When it was really bad, DH took a few days off work (for both his sanity and mine). Can he do that? So you can at least rest a bit in the day.

I don't understand why you're not sleeping when DS is asleep on you? At 7 months old he will be safe to roll and not be suffocated etc.

Also, my baby is not a good sleeper. When it was really bad, DH took a few days off work (for both his sanity and mine). Can he do that? So you can at least rest a bit in the day.

I know people LOVE to advise co-sleeping but I tried it and hated it and it didn't help, it did the opposite. I can't sleep on one side of my body ALL night, being kicked by my baby and also being hyper aware to not roll over, no one was getting deep sleep. It also made my baby wake up more, not less, as he had boob on tap.

7 months is fine for co-sleeping. Get set up in the double bed and put him in the middle.

He’s being unreasonable, although I would agree you should take the majority of the nights as you are on mat leave, you also need sleep and during this awful period of baby boy sleeping and being ill your DH needs to step up and do a share of the nights.

Your husband is unlikely to be able to function in his job if he hasn’t slept. Also a worry if he needs to drive to get to/from work. I get it’s a killer but I think you need to go with it and nap when he does.

Of course he can cope at work on a bit of missed sleep - unless maybe he’s a pilot or a surgeon. What’s going to happen when you are back to work? Babies and toddlers don’t magically sleep through or never get sick after 9 months. He will have to manage nighttime parenting and working, just like you and every other working parent have to.

You can each sleep half the night, starting from 7/8pm. When ours were very small, Dh had them from around that time (except feeds) until 12/1am and I’d take over 1-6am. It meant we both got 5 ish hours a night. Dh managed that working FT while starting a business in the evening (he’d literally do web design or financial planning with a baby asleep on him so I could get some solid sleep).

I get it (I had two that hardly slept - one is still in the hardly sleeping phase at nearly 3) and I think your DH attitude is a big red flag. But I also wouldn't have / didn't ask my DH to cover the night shift during the week when he worked. He had a 45 min drive with our eldest and that would not have been safe if he had been up not getting enough sleep.
Early evenings he would cover though- like 5-9pm I would go to bed and DH would cover dinner and bedtime. He then got decent sleep for work.

Does your DH works weekends? If not, I'd push through another night then DS is DH responsibility Friday and Sat night. He can recover sleeping on Sunday ready for work on Monday. We did this alot in the bad patches as well.

This - honestly I was scared to death with DS1 and ran myself into the ground with exhaustion.

With DS2 (9months) I co sleep safely and sleep better than I did before she was born!

I see this a lot, and I really think it's bunk for a huge number of jobs.

Sure, a surgeon or a lorry driver. But there are millions of jobs where no one dies if they're not served by someone bright eyed and bushy tailed on the full 8h. Sleep deprivation is literally a form of torture.

I think you need to split nights OP if you won't co-sleep.

Try doing 8pm-midnight for you, then he gets midnight-6am, then you can sneak a last hour in if possible.