Baby will only settle for dad

[Luce988]

Recently my almost 6 month old, who I’ve always nursed to sleep, stopped being able to fall asleep on the boob, except for overnight wake ups. I’ve assumed it’s either a developmental phase or reflux, which seems to have gotten worse and he’s in pain after feeds and needs to burp and spit up constantly.. but for day naps and bedtime he’ll only settle for dad now! When I try to rock him or shhh him, he just cries and cries until I hand him over. I also struggle to rock him as well as my husband because baby is almost 10kg.

I feel really bad that I can’t settle my baby without the boob. Has this happened to anyone else? I’ve only really heard of the opposite problem.

Did you recently write a post saying that you thought your baby hates you?

Get a rocking chair

I feel really bad that I can’t settle my baby without the boob.

You smell of milk and your partner doesnt. When hes with you, he wants milk which is why hes probably so agitated.

I think its probably as simple as that.

That's frustrating but just to let you know I think it happens a lot. Certainly for me and DS is 3 now, still settles after some quiet time with daddy and is asleep, but won't settle without boob for me! It is because you smell of milk as pp said.
I've heard people who wear a t shirt smelling of daddy to mask the smell of the milk, don't know if that works but please don't think you're doing anything wrong.

Yes I wrote that after he refused to nurse to sleep for what seemed like the 10th time so I tried to rock him instead and he screamed until I got my partner. I got some nice responses so thought I’d ask some more

What's the problem?! Hand him over and get some sleep!

Have you started him on solids lately? That can make reflux worse depending what you're giving.

That's sweet that your baby is bonded nicely with dad. I think at that age, lots of naps were buggy or car.

At that age my daughter stopped feeding to sleep, and then stopped wanting to sleep on me at all. She settled only for daddy for a week or so, and then she stopped settling for him too! We eventually worked out that she just wanted to be left alone (she comes by that honestly enough) and so we started putting her down in her cot and patting her to sleep. Generally took 5 minutes, and after a few weeks of that we tried leaving her to it entirely and she fell asleep by herself.

It could be that your baby is just getting more independent and needs a bit of space to figure things out for himself.