To not want to move baby to his own room yet?

[GingerBaby568]

Had a row with DH early this morning. Baby is 6 months. I am exclusively breastfeeding. Baby wakes 2x night for a feed (3x on a bad night). My bed is next to his crib. I get up, I feed, baby and I go back to sleep. Except after the 4am feed, I find it exceptionally hard to go back to sleep if baby gets up 4am. I don't mind it too much though as I do get just enough sleep to function well before that.

I feel like the move would make my life 100x harder. If I have to get up to a different room to feed, it will wake me up fully and won't be able to doze back off after the 1am feed. Plus baby will likely wake up fully by the time I hear him cry and get to him so he will take a while to settle back down. Which again, fucks me over.

DH has been sleeping in the spare bedroom (which has an ensuite and a king size bed with an expensive mattress, he's not exactly slumming it). But he wants back to our bed. He thinks baby will sleep better without me in the room.

I'd love a cuddle with my DH and for baby to sleep through at night. And a sense of normalcy.

But I feel the risk is huge for me. Until a month ago, baby was waking up every 2 hours, I have only just regained some sanity.

Do I just suck up the sleeplessness for DH's sake and very slim chance baby will sleep through? Any experiences anyone can share? I don't have any friends with babies sadly so the Internet is my only source of information.

@Colddayhotcuppa but how do we share the night wakings if I'm breastfeeding. Currently, baby both feeds and is resettled in his bed within 5 minutes. He won't take a bottle easily, he cries, needs rocking etc which wakes me up anyway.

In a month or two we can wean him off the night feeds. Then DH can resettle him and share the nights. Why make my life harder in the meantime?

Baby and your needs come first here.

Have you tried visiting him in the guest bedroom until the first feed?

We shared a bedroom all throughout and husband would be disturbed by baby crying at times, or he would pass baby to me. He knew his sleep would be disrupted occasionally, and that this was his baby too. He would change nappies too in the night if needed. I'm saying I don't understand how we got to point where we have a generation of men who consistently get 8 hours of sleep with a new baby. I didn't want to be in my bedroom alone with baby at night, I wanted husband there in bed next to me so it felt like a joint effort and I could wake him up if I needed to. I think men don't develop the empathy needed if they're having these undisturbed nights of sleep all the time. I'm not articulating very well. But I felt I didn't want to be in a bedroom alone with baby. I wanted him there even if he wasn't always doing much night wakings at the beginning.

Yes my eldest 2 were born around then It was unusual for babies still to be in parents room after 6 months ( unless you had no other room to put then in) . Don't recall endless night feeds either. Remember feeding them about 11 pm before going to bed and then at 6am ish

Who in their right mind would want to start the night in one room and move to another one? Like how do you settle back down???

Maybe someone who wants to try a compromise?

You said you husband does this because he doesn’t want to lose precious sleep but.. its not your husband fault he can't breastfeed or baby doesn't want a bottle so it makes absolutely no sense for him to do any night wakings because he can't actually do anything?

But then you said he will be doing some night wakings when the baby is no longer ebf..

I must be stupid because I'm slightly confused by this.

From your responses OP it sounds like you don’t want to give it a try and risk disturbing the routine you’ve got going with you managing to get a bit of sleep - so don’t unless and until you want to give it a try.

Mine both slept better once in their own rooms but I didn’t move them until they could get through the night without a feed and they weren’t breast fed.

Your DH isn’t slumming it, he’ll have to wait until you and baby are ready. My DH complains constantly about lack of sleep and does none of the night feeds or settling at all. Due a third soon and he’s insufferable about lack of sleep even though he doesn’t have to move a muscle - we don’t have a spare room he can go to so your DH should count himself lucky, not been complaining.

@Notimeforaname but this thread is not about whether he should do any night wakings at the moment. I am doing every single one. And I'm not even complaining about it!!!!

The only person being asked to compromise is me. And I feel it's too big of an ask.

It sounds like it's not so much to do with where the baby sleeps. You are exhausted and resentful that your husband already gets a full night's sleep and wants to change things which will make your life even harder.

I wonder if you really need himto understand how you feel and put you first?

That thing of not wanting to risk a sleep situation which is just bearable when it'snot actually for your benefit - that's completely rational.

Why doesn't DH move back, baby stays where he is then DH go to the spare room when he gets woken up?

I agree things will change massively in the next couple of months as baby starts eating more solids. We moved house when ds was 11 months old and he went straight into his own room then. First night unsettled but by 2nd night slept from 7pm to 6am! My poor boobs were furious 🤣.

But you could try DHs idea next weekend on the basis dh brings him to you and then settles him back down. The idea DH won't be disturbed when you will be up and down is amusing. Because even if he didn't wake up naturally I'd be sure to wake him deliberately but I'm a big believer in natural consequences.

Rather than move furniture around you sleep in spare room with DH, baby stays where he is. Dh wakes when you wake to see. I suspect DH is oblivious to the wakings or how disruptive they are. Show him.

As the one doing the night feeds, I agree you get to decide what you want to do for now. You don't have to move baby to their room at 6 months to the day.

But for what's it worth, I agree with your husband. One of the best way to reduce night feeds naturally is to move the baby to their room. You quickly get down to 1 feed a night and it's not that much a bother to go to their room (if you have a comfy chair!).

@CoffeeCup14 Yeah you nailed it. I wasn't actually resenting him until this morning to be honest. I have been socialising all this week and telling my friends how 6 months is my favourite age and how happy I am!! I even said I could actually consider a second baby!!

The discussion revealed how little appreciation he has for me handling all the night wakings and it has shocked and enraged me. I can't get over it.

If you aren’t happy with the frequency of night wakings then it may be worth trying something different for a week just to see if there’s any change. You can always go back to the current arrangement if you want to! Personally I went against the guidelines and moved all my babies out at a few weeks (yes, weeks not months) old into their own room with a monitor. They slept through the night by 2-3 months old and I was able to continue breastfeeding for two years

6 months is too early to move a baby in my opinion. Leave them with you whilst they're still waking. I'd wait until a year old but that's just me!

I do understand your husband wants to sleep with his wife, I get it. But part of becoming a dad/parent is realising you have to give things up and put your wife and child first for a while. Although it doesn't seem like it right now, this is a short period of life and if he's a good man he will understand that and wait.

This was my point about men having unbroken sleep with a young baby in the family. These men don't develop the empathy and appreciation needed to understand, support and trust what the mother is doing. They have no idea. This is why I'm not a fan of fathers sleeping in the spare room where a baby's involved especially where said baby still wakes through the night regularly.

Tell him you cant risk it just yet & seeing as he is not the one who is sleep deprived he is incapable of understanding the debilitating exhaustion. If he wants to "cuddle" (& not obligatory sex) he should start the night with you then move to other room after the first baby wake....

I don’t know anyone who bf who put their babies in their own room at 6 months. I’m sure there are exceptions but the vast majority of bf babies will still be waking for night feeds at that age and why make it harder for yourself?!

I coslept and ebf both of mine. At 6 months we moved them into their own cot in our room for the first stint of sleep and they’d come into the bed after the first wake up (usually not long after we came up to bed at 10/11). DH slept in the same bed as me and baby (with the baby between me and the unused bedside cot) and didn’t seem to be disturbed.

We moved the DC’s to their own room to coincide with when I wanted to nightwean, which was 13 months for dc1 and 15 months for dc2. I sent DH in to settle them for a few nights and they started sleeping through. If I have another I’ll do it that way again.

It’s your sleep that might be disrupted so your choice OP.

The man who does zero at night doesn't get to tell you to make the job of keeping your baby fed harder and to make you even more sleep deprived.

Tell him to jog right on. You are the one doing all the hard work here, not him. If he insists on coming back to the main room and baby moving to the spare then I’d go with baby to the spare for the whole night. The fact he’s not helping at all is crap let alone him now trying to dictate how you manage the night wakings. If your current set up works stick with it and don’t allow him to bully you into changing it. Good luck and hold your ground!!

Your husband should be sharing night feeds when he's not getting up for work the next day. End of.

DH has two options?

Continue sleeping in spare room.
Sleep in your bed with cot next to bed until baby largely has dropped night feeds.

Mine just stayed in our room, he would go back to sleep if baby cried and I fed him, sometimes he would help resettle / change baby if he was awake anyway. He would just go straight back to sleep after.

I think he is being unreasonable. 6 months is the minimum amount of time a baby should be in same room nor the maximum .

6 months is still very young and it's really not unusual for a baby to still be waking a couple of times in the night or for a baby to still be in the same room as their parents.
I think it will definitely make life harder for the OP.

YANBU at all and I'm glad you're sticking to your guns. You may be a bit ambitious imagining night weaning in a month or so though. Teething and the slow increase of food in the daytime will probably make that happen later than you're anticipating. You should just do what works for you. Your DH is clearly a selfish man.

I EBF at night (he bottle fed to sleep with DH at 6pm), put him in his own room at 4 months because I wasn’t sleeping and he was waking constantly 8-10 times a night. It dropped to 2-3 times a night wake ups and then DS night weaned himself at 11 months and slept through. You don’t know how your baby will manage, we must have been disturbing him or he preferred the cot in his bedroom to the next to me, but for us going into his own room improved his sleep and I didn’t find it hard going back to sleep after a quick feed in the night, you can only try it and see if it works or tell your DH you don’t want to and if he wants to sleep in your room then the baby will be there too.

But the baby is breast fed. What’s the point of both losing sleep?
DD and herDH have a new baby, once the first couple of weeks were over and her DH returned to work ( he is a surgeon) then DD does all the night feeds, changes etc. If he has surgery the next day he might sleep in the guest room. Seems sensible to me.

I didn't want to either - best thing I ever did.

Give it a try!