First year of parenting

[Akrasia]

Did you argue much with your spouse?

DS is 6 months old, and is a really rubbish sleeper. At the moment, he's waking up every hour throughout the night - and this is an improvement. DS and I have moved to another room, so that DH can get some sleep/not wake us up (he wakes up often throughout the night, too).

But I am worried about how much we argued. We have a grip on it now - we can see how much we rowed in the first few months.

It was all down to sleep deprivation, and we tried as much as we could to not do it in front of DS. But he must have caught a lot of it. I'm really scared that I have somehow damaged him, and/or ruined his chances of forming healthy relationships when he's older.

Yes, I appreciate how pfb and crazy this sounds. And maybe it's all down to lack of sleep. But it is on my mind. Is arguing lots in the first few months normal? If not, then please do tell me and give me some ideas about how I can remedy things.

I argued too, I found it much better rather than sleeping in separate beds, was to get up and go to another room as soon as DD made a noise, so she could be fed and changed and it didn't wake DH up. Is your DH a very light sleeper?

I think we were a little like this.

Sleep deprecation is a killer and if baby is waking every hour?? Dear lord...

It's also the adjustment in your relationship your baby now comes first not each other.

Your baby prob won't be scared at this early stage.

Is it possible you and h can have some nights out together on your own?
Also can Dh do the night shift so you can get sleep?

Your sleep is just as important as dh's

We didn't argue - we've just completely withdrawn from each other Not anywhere near back on track yet (at nearly 11 months), though we do talk about the fact that it's all gone wrong and that we really want it to get better! Those talks help, and I hope they will keep us together long enough for things to improve.

I hope they'll improve when I go back to work, as I won't feel so much lime I'm doing it all myself (nursery can take a turn!), and I'll have more to contribute to conversations than baby stuff. I also hope that the sleep situation will improve, so I'll be less tired and we can share a room again.

Fingers crossed we can hold it together long enough to fix it! Sounds flippant, but I am really not and you have my sympathies.

I hope things improve for you soon. I also hope neither of us has caused any long term problems for our babies. I hope suspect that the 12 hours of 'happy mummy' will outweigh the 20 mins of sad/agouti mummy. I really really hope so.

Shouty, not agouti!

Those first few months are really hard on your relationship and i definitely underestimated it. Until DS was born i really thought that DH and I agreed on how to raise children. Turns out we do, but older children,not babies. Men can find babies frustrating and are pretty clueless, especially when your focus changes from your DP to your DS/ DD. A classic from my DH shortly after my DS was born was "he's doing this on purpose" with regard to his awful noises at night time. He now knows how ridiculous that sounds, but lack of sleep and constant bickering can warp a person's perception. It got loads easier from about 12 weeks and now we rarely argue and we're more or less back to how we were. And our DS is none the worse for it - he's one of the happiest little boys i know.