To feel so terrible about DH doing bedtime for the first time. Please reassure me!

[GetMeATomCollins]

My DH is currently doing bedtime for the first time with our 5 month old baby son. Our routine up to now has been DH does the bath, and then I take over and feed DS to sleep.

We gave him a bottle for the first time yesterday of expressed milk. He’s been exclusively breastfed from the breast until then. He didn’t get on well with the bottle yesterday but we tried again today and he did a little better.

I can hear our baby screaming as DH is valiantly battling on with the bottle of expressed milk and the bedtime routine. I feel bad for my DH and awful for our son.

Have we done this terribly? Is this going to scar our son for life? I just keep thinking he must be so confused about why I’m not there. I feel so terrible and like I’m going to pass out. I’m wearing headphones to try to hear the crying less.

The reason is that we have an event on Sunday that I need to attend, so DH will need to do bedtime. So this is our practice run.

Please reassure me. Will it get better? Is this going to give our gorgeous son attachment issues? Is this essentially cry it out?

I feel so awful.

Go for a walk, leave the house otherwise you'll just be tempted to go and help. Set a limit on how long you'd be happy to leave it and return then whether that's 5 mins, 10mins or 4hrs.

Best breastfeeding advice is always make sure dad can put the baby to sleep in their own way. I fed mine to sleep but their dad could alwasy do bedtime and naps without issue. Let them work it out. Baby is safe with a parent.

I would also add expressed milk might not be the way forward, a brest fed baby isn't going to fall asleep on a bottle if they're not used to it. I'd advise dad to so stories and songs, rocking/ cuddles in the dark with white noise or similar.

No, his dad's there. Watch TV or go for a walk?

Oh you poor thing, it is horrible sitting there listening.

He is going to be fine. He is with his dad. Have you ever had a night (or day) where he was just crying and you didn't know what to do? He came through that, didn't he?

I would put a time limit on it - say ten more minutes, and if it's not working, then DH should come out of the bedroom and do something else, perhaps distract him a bit by talking to him or playing a game or walk around and jiggle him. Try the milk if he seems tired or hungry. Eventually (IME) the baby will fall asleep and DH can transition him to the cot. Sometimes they get unsettled when everything else about their bedtime routine is the same but this one thing is different. Does DH ever get him to sleep for naps at all?

Go for a walk around the block if you need to. Text DH so he knows where you're going.

Or actually, DH used to take DS3 for walks in his pram in the evening to get him to sleep. It was the only thing which worked for him.

Yeah I’ve been cooking with headphones in to try to distract myself. The crying has stopped a little but it was intense for about 40 minutes. @TheStepboardisfullofbitteroddos this is good advice re DH getting baby to sleep in different ways. In fact this was fine when he was on paternity leave as he was often putting DS to sleep and into his cot by rocking him, whereas I would just feed him to sleep. But then he went back to work and I just took over the nights 😩

No, it's not crying it out, a familiar person is there providing comfort.

But of you feel uncomfortable, go in and do it together

Is the event this Sunday? It’s quite soon if you’ve only introduced a bottle yesterday. Bed time will be fine though, his dad is there and the Pugh it may be stressful it’s just one night.

@BertieBotts thank you for being so kind. I hadn’t really thought of the idea of DH just doing it differently - like taking him for a walk etc. I think we thought we should keep everything as familiar as possible (staying in the bedroom with the lights low, white noise, etc). Hearing the cries is so so distressing.

If it's a 1 off event, can your DH take him for a drive or cuddle him in front of the sofa or similar? Good to try a practise run, but also ok to abort if it's not working.

First time for my husband I went out with 2 friends to a play. Came back home at 10pm and he was stood at his computer holding the baby, who was asleep

"Why didn't you put her to bed?" I asked.

Oh me goodness. The look I got could have frozen glycol.

"She has JUST. FALLEN. ASLEEP."

I'd been out since 7. I assume there had been a lot of screaming.

She is cheery 3 year old, who will happily do bedtime with either of us. No trauma. Keep at it - you want your husband competent and helpful, so this is important.

@Esthai thank you. This made me smile!

Hey I can relate but one thing that helped with our routine is that we give baby bath, I feed her and then take her off boob (usually wakes then) and then my husband comes in and and settles her with whatever method he likes and puts her to sleep. She goes to sleep instantly with him! If I try his methods she ain't having it and wants the boob. Works to help cut the feeding to sleep need

I think the crying has just about stopped. But maybe that’s just because DS is so exhausted? So worried that he will be so deeply upset.

Some things which helped us when we went through that:

1. A baby being held and comforted while they are distressed is fine. You definitely will have held your DS and comforted him while he cried before. It's part of building a bond where they trust you.
2. You might want to go out for a walk away from the cries. You can't help, but you don't need to torment yourself.
3. This is good for their bond and relationship. That is good for both of them long term, as well as being good for you to share the load.

This was exactly me a couple of years ago. And now we have a 2 year old who doesn't mind if it's Mummy or Daddy putting her to bed and we alternate nights. It will get better and they are perfectly safe, but white noise and plenty of rocking helped our little one.

It's tough at first and definitely just a phase of getting used to a different bedtime routine. Your DH will figure out what works for your son. Don't beat yourself up, this will get better but I know it's hard as I've been there.

It can be difficult but it is good for you to switch up the routine. If you were ill he would have to do it. Your dh will learn how best to soothe the baby, might be different to you but no less effective.

I remember what it felt like when dh had to do this for ds. We had 2 under 2 and had just got into a routine of him sorting out dd for bed and me ds. I found the crying distressing and wanted to step in but gave dh the time to figure it out and he did. If I'd have stepped in I would have undermined his efforts. He is an equal parent to our 3 kids and that makes my life easier and our home harmonious.

You aren't a bad parent. This won't harm your baby. Take yourself for a walk if you need to.

You willl also want to be free of breastfeeding one day. (I am still not, entirely). So, there will definitely be a time when whatever your husband figures out becomes a key tool in the settling to sleep box.

Singing to my daughter (his method), bum pats (what she got used to at nursery) and boob (me) all work. Now she can talk, she'll often specify which sort of soothing she wants.

"Lie in bed and cuddle me?"
"Can you pat?"
And less cute "MUHMeeee, BEEbeee..." (this is usually at 3am or something)

Ds will be fine. I say this as a mum of twins and an older dd. I remember one night when twins were screaming but dd1 projectile vomitted age 3 so I sorted her, cleared up, then finally sat and tandem breast fed dtds (which I struggled with and usually did one at a time) and dd1 curled up next to us. Calm was restored. This was the point dh walked in late from work!

it’s horrible to hear so I’d suggest you pop out for 30 minutes and pick up bits from the shop then ds won’t sense you are there and you won’t need to hear it. Sounds like your dh is doing a great job. We used to say any sleep changes took 3 consistent nights.

He wasn’t alone. And the great thing about babies is that they don’t remember stuff.

Please don't worry. There is a lot of worrying social media content now which emphasises the importance and impact of every single experience/moment, but this is not a truthful picture, it's probably (intentionally or not) honed to spark anxiety because of course if you think you're finding information which relates to a risk/danger for your baby, that's going to feel important to your brain/hormones and so you're going to look longer at that information whether or not it's true, and the more often you see something repeated the more your brain encodes it as more likely to be true, even if you know the source is unreliable. And the algorithm of social media blindly rewards anything that we look at longer because eyeball time = money for them, so it's all a very self-feeding, destructive, anxiety breeding cycle. I have always been on social media as long as I've had children, I've always been on the side of feeding to sleep/not sleep training, and I can tell you it is SO MUCH worse now than it used to be when my eldest was little.

Truly, babies are not traumatised by a night of crying because they are tired and they aren't able to have their normal night time routine, when they are in the safe company of a loving attachment figure. Yes absolutely we would give them the world for them to be happy all of the time, but it's really OK if they are not. In fact keeping them happy all of the time wouldn't be kind to them, because that is not what life is like. Babies and children learn to understand and cope with feelings by going through different experiences of different feelings, being supported by someone who loves them, and experiencing that return back to safe equilibrium and familiarity. A one off where he was upset at bedtime does not cause lasting damage and harm (and two nights in a row won't, either). Where trauma/damage/harm is caused is when it's a consistent pattern of the baby's needs not being met and them not being responded to, or when the attachment figure is not consistent (e.g. if you were coming and going for weeks at a time, leaving him with strangers, or babies living in institutions without a specific caregiver). At five months old, he doesn't have the cognitive understanding to wonder where you are or be afraid or upset. It is likely that what he is upset about is he is tired and normally he breastfeeds at this time and that's not happening. Some babies do welcome the approach of keeping everything else the same and will accept a bottle instead in that situation (so I quite understand why you would choose that, and it is a sensible approach - now you know, though).

If you want a really reassuring and excellently researched book which helps debunk a lot of the social media anxiety around babies crying, I love The Power of Showing Up by Dan Siegel and Tina Payne Bryson. Lyndsey Hookway is also excellent on baby sleep and the realities of it, without being strongly pro sleep training or co-sleeping. (She doesn't like cry-it-out type sleep training but she does have suggestions for how to change sleep patterns which aren't working.) I also really like Janet Lansbury's writing about how we can accept our children's difficult emotions and understand that our job isn't to prevent them ever from having an experience which sparks a hard emotion but our job is to support and love them through the experience, and trust that they truly can handle it and will be OK. Children are tough like that

Your baby is tough like that and he is OK. I bet he gives you the biggest smile ever in the morning (or if he's anything like mine at that age, in a few hours when he wakes up!)

If it's not working back off a bit, it doesn't have to be now or never

Oh and I also 100% agree with everyone saying giving DH the space to find his own approach is really important. So if he feels that it is best to keep the routine the same then I would let him go with that.

Just wanted to second what everyone else has said about letting him try another way of getting him to sleep. I breastfed my daughter until 18 months and our bedtime routine was always really just cuddles/feeding until she fell asleep so if my husband goes to tried to go and do bedtime with her the same way (lying in bed) she would scream and scream because as amazing as he is, he cannot breastfeed😂 so he used to stand and rock her to sleep or sit in the rocking chair with her to sleep instead which never worked for me. Currently breastfeeding my 5 month old and same thing with him, if my husband tries to do bedtime the same way I do- lots of screaming, if he sits in the rocking chair totally fine!

I also think the best thing to remember is that a baby crying is meant to make you want to provide comfort and make the crying stop. It is a completely normal reaction to your child crying. I used to feel on edge when I could hear either child crying.

Think how amazing your Dh will feel when he manages to settle his child to sleep for the first time. Your baby is with his Dad, who loves him just as much as you do and he has probably wanted to do this for a while.

It is good for both parents to be able to settle a child. If it gets too much for you leave the house. Do not rescue otherwise all it teaches your child is that they can cry long enough and you will appear. Not a good thing if you are not actually in the house at some point.

You’re not being unreasonable. But just go and settle baby as s/he is used to. Hubby needs to put baby first

It is hard and I remember feeling like this. But remember that all you’ve done is got his father - his other parent - to put him to bed. It’s really not the parenting crime of the century 🤣