Dad not hearing baby?

[Cherryy]

My DH just doesn’t hear our DS when he wakes. I’m pretty sure it’s genuine because he carries on snoring!

The thing is this, we sleep separately because of his snoring, so when DS wakes in order to get DH to go in I’d need to go and wake DH, by which time it’s easier to have gone into DS myself. But it means I do all the night wakes which is really unfair. Anyone else with this problem?

I don't think going to a hotel for the night will change a man's hearing. I left my husband for 3 nights with 3 young ones agreed 1,3 and 4. I had just stopped breastfeeding the 1 year old and they all tended to wake up for various things at that stage. I got home and he had had 3 undisturbed nights and they were all still alive and smiling. He probably sleep trained them by just sleeping through.

I think they don't hear it because they don't want to hear. My DH was the same, slept through the crying, happily snoring away. But the I had a bit of a meltdown due to broken sleep and he realised how much I was struggling. After that he did hear it, because he wanted to hear it.

I worry about this too .

My DP doesn't wake if I come in the house when he's asleep , key in lock , open door , bang around , turn lights on and get in bed next to him ... not even a murmur of waking .

If I'm asleep and he comes in I wake hearing him outside the door putting the key in the lock!!

Maybe he needs a vibrating bed pad alarm!!

Same.... whenever her dummy need putting back in it's me...luckily the proper wake up wakes him but I could do with not getting up 3-4 times every night to put the dummy back in!!

My dh was like this, still is now, nothing wakes him. Fireworks, storms, he has to be physically shaken to wake him up.
Consequently, I did all night duties for both dc.
What he did do though was get up for the early feed and then stay downstairs with them so I had a couple of hours uninterrupted sleep.
It worked for us.

Same here. DH is a very deep sleeper - pre-baby, he slept through all the house alarms (ours and the street) going off due to a power cut in the early hours and a police incident taking place right outside out house. I've had DS screaming merry hell during a nappy (and clothing) change at the end of the bed and he's slept right through. I'm bloody envious!

100% this.

I never would have believed it to be possible, until DC1 went through the 2-year-sleep regression. We had a newborn at the time. Before the baby was born, I heard EVERY TINY PEEP made by DC1. When DC2 came along, DH and I decided to divide and conquer for nights. The first few nights, I’d wake up each and every time either DC woke up. After a few nights of telling myself “DC1 is not my problem” I could stay TOTALLY asleep through her waking. Like… she could walk into our room and have a conversation with DH and I’d be none the wiser. It’s amazing what “not my problem” can enable one to sleep through… whether that’s consciously training oneself to ignore certain sounds, or whether it’s a man’s ingrained sense of entitlement to not deal with newborns… :-/

DH can literally sleep through a bomb going off (he has done!!). One small child? No chance.

Seeing a doctor about his snoring (which was actually sleep apnea) did help.

Someone else suggested this too how about DH share a room with baby? Then you can just use a monitor maybe every other night or something to split the nights and you could sleep with ear plugs in the other nights? I have a feeling if you threaten for them to share a room perhaps he will find a more desirable solution and suddenly be able to wake...

This ^^
And go with the baby monitor suggestion.

Yes. Mine would sleep through the four horsemen of the apocalypse passing through 🤨
Get a loud baby monitor and put it next to him. The Motorola sound only one amplifes nice and loudly 😏

I didn't hear the kids - I co-slept so they were attached to me during breastfeeding years. When moved to their own rooms DH would hear them first. I now wear hearing aids due to hearing loss in the upper register. So I couldn't hear high pitch sounds like young children crying, bird song, alarms etc. DH used to get v frustrated but I literally couldn't hear them.

So get his hearing checked.

If men couldn’t hear babies crying in the night then surely gay couples wouldn’t be allowed children…?

they choose not to hear it as others said, monitor in his room is definitely the best bet and then keep waking him up if that doesn’t work until he gets the message. You deserve rest too.

I know, but I get no rest when I’m having to wake him all night!

It is annoying, I’m sure there’s some element of knowing that they don’t have to wake up so they don’t, but equally he is sound asleep. DS is now 18 months and he does usually sleep through but there’s the odd bad night. Mostly though it’s when he wakes very early - somehow it’s always me who gets woken at the crack of dawn while DH snores away!

I'm the 'man' in this situation. I am a very heavy sleeper and after about 8 weeks I stopped waking up when mine cried in the night. DH would have to wake me up if they wouldn't settle.

Both of my kids slept through 7pm-5am at 12 weeks and I sometimes feel guilty that it was because they gave up waking up because I wouldn't wake up with them! They have the same sleep pattern now at 15 and 5 respectively- both early to bed and early risers!

This is incredibly annoying, I think it's a fairly common thing!? I had the same issues. It's to do with the way a male brain has developed at an evolutionary level. If there was smashing glass/ large bang/ footsteps etc in the night it more likely the man would wake first because his brain is built to 'protect the cave' yours is built to protect your young so you are hard wired to hear and wake with any noise.
Do you have a sound monitor that can be right next to him at the loudest volume on his nights?

I think it’s to do with subconsciously knowing that it’ll be taken care of. When my boyfriend is home he will always attempt to get our toddler back to sleep before I step in (he’s breastfed and we’re trying to wean), in this situation I don’t wake up if I’m in a deep sleep. However my boyfriend often works evenings and on those nights I wake up straight away, it’s like even in my sleep my brain knows what is and isn’t my responsibility.

Ds2 has Type 1 diabetes and we have an alarm that goes off if his blood sugar is out of range. Dh and I take it in turns to have the monitor and be responsible for him at night. When dh has the alarm, I sleep through it. It’s right there in the room, a couple of feet further away, just as loud, but I sleep through it because my brain knows I can.

if you wake your dh up in the night, and go back to bed, his brain will start to accept that’s it his problem too. Obviously it means you’ll both be awake to start with but if you’re consistent it will work. Worth it if you’re planning another baby!

Have a few months when all night wakings are his job - you’ve done 18 months so that’s fair - and get a loud baby monitor with a vibrating pad under his pillow. And wake him up every single time.

Single dads manage. Your dh sleeps through because he can.

oh - and once your child starts getting out of bed in the night - train them to go to Daddy!

Mine wakes (most of the time) as ours lights up at sound, but then sits on the edge of the bed while he comes to enough to get up and go deal. It really annoys me. I’m then properly awake just staring at his form in the dark sitting on the edge of the bed like a big sack of Maris bloody Pipers while the monitor lights up like a Christmas tree from DS’s room.

The RAS in the brain is responsible for waking up. It is hard wired in mother's to be more sensitive to their offspring. That said I found it can be overcome by sharp elbows!

I have to confess that I was the one who never heard our DC and my DH got up for them when they cried in the night. If I was BF he changed them if needed then gently roused me to feed them. When I was bottle feeding he just did it all. He manages so much better than I do on little sleep than me and this worked for us.