Disagree with my husband about baby sleep

[MarieF321]

I’m trying to work out if I’m being u reasonable, and whether my baby’s sleep is normal, or not, as my husband and I aren’t seeing eye to eye and it’s causing a lot of tension in our already strained relationship.

my baby is nearly 8 months old. She’s never slept brilliantly, but at 3 months would go down in her cot at 19:00, maybe stir once, then wake at 01:30, 03:30, 04:30 (when we started cosleeping), 05:30: 06:30. So not great, but we had our evenings and she was still tiny.

then the 4 month sleep regression hit and she was waking so often (every 30-60 mins) I went to full co sleeping. My husband moved into another room for the odd night initially and now we’re always ins separate rooms. She currently goes down in her cot at 18:30/19:00, and wakes 2-4 times before I go to bed at 22:30, when we co sleep. She feeds every 1-2 hours overnight.

She has always nursed to sleep, wants nursing when she wakes (she settles again quickly, but screams louder if someone else tries to settle her), and until recently only happening car/contact/sling, although now she settles in her pram too (although usually only 45 mins)

This is pretty exhausting - some nights are better than others - but in a way I’ve come to enjoy cosleeping, and her pram naps have helped me get a few things done around the house. However, at times I do feel overwhelmed by the to do list and having no free time, and that I’m failing due to not sleeping well for months. However, I try to reassure myself this is just a phase, babies have disturbed sleep, they’re all different, and it will keep changing.

However, my husband think that our child is abnormal, that she should sleep through the night, in her own room, and settle herself when placed in her cot. He tells everyone that she ‘hates sleep’ and I feel infers some blame on me - and her. He wants to ‘sleep train’ but is not specific about how. I think it involves some CC but I refuse to do that, and he also hates to hear her cry. At this age, and for a while longer, I believe babies can’t self regulate and so the parents do it for them. It doesn’t help that our evenings are now disturbed, although I do all the work. He also says she’s ’obsessed with breastfeeding’ but aren’t all BF babies? She doesn’t eat many solids, although I’m doing a combination of baby led and purées, and can’t force feed her. She’s never taken a bottle but I’ve tried repeatedly, which my husband has tried a few times with minimal success, so given up.

Every time she cried now he huffs, and I feel like I’m failing because she’s waking, and doing something wrong because I’m going to get, and doubly wrong because I’m feeding her to sleep. But am I? Is our situation so abnormal? I’m exhausted but can keep this up for her, but not with the added pressure and judgement from my husband. Is he right, am I doing it all wrong?

Sounds exactly how my two children have been. Both exclusively breast fed, both refused bottles, both co slept. My youngest is now 19 months and has now started sleeping though and just has one good breastfeed to go to sleep at 7pm. She only just stopped waking once/twice in the night last month and that was because i refused her milk, only took her two nights before she realised that there was no milk. Eldest is 5 and sleeps great now, they aren't little for long and I know it will get better but I love the extra snuggles with my youngest especially as I know she will be my last!

I think normal is somewhere between each of your expectations. My second is 8 months, so a very similar age, and I would say is a fairly typical sleeper, maybe slightly less good than average - he goes down in his cot between 7-7:30 and wakes around 3 times between then and morning for a feed (10-ish, 1-ish, 5-ish). I don't feed to sleep at bedtime but do for night wakes (he's also breastfed).

For me, your situation would be unsustainable and if it were me I absolutely would sleep train with some kind of controlled crying - I did for both of mine and don't regret it for a second - but not wanting to do that is a totally legitimate choice too. I don't think you can keep going with the current situation though, you'll have a nervous breakdown, and having so little time with your husband can't be the ideal situation for either of you. Would a no cry sleep training be something you'd consider? Lynsey Hookway on Instagram is a really good holistic sleep coach and has good advice too.

Have you considered sleep training? DT’s were in separate cots in our room for their first six months and although we sleep trained at five months, we moved them into separate rooms from six months as we were all disturbing each month. They slept through the night reliably from then and everyone slept better. They were formula fed and weaned on pouches if that makes any difference.

This was exactly me with my two.. breast fed only.. and on demand every 1 to 2 hours.. breastfed to sleep etc
. Weaned at 8 months but not much. Breast fed until they were two.. but my husband didn't sleep seperate.. he would pick the baby up and cuddle us both while l fed.. change the nappy etc.. sometimes baby slept with us if didn't settle.. husband would make sure we were all safe.. gosh it was lovely.. made us close. Never ever have l made a bottle in my life.. when they needed water at eight months it was a sippy.

I have lots of sympathy for both of you. For you because you are doing your absolute best, and you must be knackered, and you are having to deal with him huffing and undermining you which is making you feel worse. For him because your baby does sound like a bad sleeper for an 8 month old (sorry) and perhaps some form of sleep training is worth considering, but he can't do that if you don't agree. (I had three breast fed babies btw.)

I breastfed and co-slept (they started the night in their cots so we had an evening), but my husband stayed in the bed.

It worked perfectly for us and I’d not do it any differently.

I'm an ex nurse/ midwife .. retired.
Never did we reccomend sleep training in my day and this is what the NHS says.
Does NHS recommend sleep training?
Try mindfulness – visit NHS Choices or apps such as Headspace. Allow another carer to attend to your baby if possible. As a service we do not recommend any sleep modification/training techniques that involve leaving your baby/child to cry, such as controlled crying, pick up/put down.

Mumsnet really isn't the best place to ask, lots of low nurture types on here. In my view you are doing absolutely everything right, come and find your community of respectful parents on FB groups like Happy Cosleepers and follow Nurture Neuroscience Parenting on Instagram.

You're doing great and as you say, it doesn't last forever.

NHS might not recommend it but sleep training done properly works and both parents and babies need sleep, particularly when parents are working full time.

I haven’t had this issue OP, I put my baby in her crib when she was tiny, and she slept 5pm to 7am - initially with two bottle dream feeds, which then fell to one, and she dropped them entirely from about 5 months old.

But my friend has a very similar story to yours - full co-sleeping crept in, and breastfeeding was regular throughout the night. Poor Mum was knackered - she eventually hired a £300 sleep consultant who fixed the problem in 2 nights. Best of luck to you, it does sound like something needs to change.

@Kaleidoscopeofbutterflies Sleep training does not necessarily mean leaving them to cry it out. I taught my baby to sleep from day one, and never left her to cry.

You’re not doing anything wrong. My youngest was an appalling sleeper (much like you’ve described above) until around 1 year when she got a lot better. She’s 3.5 now, sometimes sleeps through the night, sometimes wakes once or twice but it doesn’t last forever. You’ll get there.
I didn’t co-sleep though, mainly because I was terrified about safety.
I think your DH undermining you isn’t fair, it’s bloody hard when you’re exhausted but you are a team.

I was absolutely recommended it by the NHS health visitor service 6 years ago - as many others I know have been… it’s not recommended under 6 months but if you are having difficulties after this is pushed as a method

That sounds tough. If you want to make improvements, you can, you don't have to make do with bad sleep. And there are so many other methods of sleep training that don't involve crying. Do some research, are you on Instagram? If so, please follow 'sleepy little bubs' I have got so many good tips/info/advice off this lovely account

I agree with your DH, my 3 DC slept 8 hours per night at 8 weeks and 12 hours at 12 weeks. I valued my own sleep and mental health.

You are not doing anything wrong. You are doing everything right! My youngest woke a lot too and I could never sleep train so stuck it out and things did improve a lot by 11 months. Your dh sounds awful and with no understanding of baby development. Well done on always being there for your baby.

My son was like this until nearly two.

His sleep his far from perfect but finally he will have a decent chunk when he goes down, maybe 3/4 hours so we can have an evening.

Sounds exactly like my baby who is now 16 months old and still wakes through the night about 3-4 times (on a good night). When she was younger I used to compare to other babies and thought something was wrong because she didn't sleep 7-7/settle on her own. I'm much less anxious about it now I know it's completely normal, every baby is different. Your baby needs you at night and there's nothing wrong with that. X

I mean, I think this is ‘normal’ for a lot of breastfed babies. Normal as in, it doesn’t indicate there is a problem with your baby. It is a phase and they don’t wake up every hour forever.

For me it became intolerable though by 10 months and we night weaned. Sleep improved rapidly and I don’t regret making changes.

If you are happy with the situation though then just roll with it until you aren’t.

Except it isn't working if it's upsetting the parent partnership. It's not only about baby, they are a family with individual needs and feelings.

What’s a low nurture type - Mn seems to invent phrases daily!

No you're not doing it wrong, you sound like a wonderful, responsive and nurturing parent. That said, you can tweak things without sleep training or leaving them to cry - if you want to! Second star to the right and Lyndsey Hookaway on Instagram are great accounts to follow to help normalise baby sleep. Both have suggestions, like habit stacking, to optimise settling without ever leaving the baby to cry. My favourite phrase from second star, is nothing is a problem or a bad habit unless it's a problem for you. Has got me through many a night!

For what it's worth, my baby was very similar at the same age, frequent wakes, co-sleeping and pram/contact naps only. She's 18 months now and we're down to 1-2 wakes on a typical night. She's even slept through a handful of times! Naps can now be in the cot or the pram. We still co sleep when teething or I'll and she still breastfeeds to sleep each night and on any wakes. My approach was the same as yours and I didn't change a thing, other than minor tweaks to wake windows etc. She just gradually started sleeping longer stretches from around a year old. Obviously there's no guarantees but I always found these stories hopeful when I was in the thick of it!

Your baby is normal for a bf baby. You can't compare to bottle fed babies.

Thank you, I try to reassure myself that it will be ok, and I think I’ll be happier setting boundaries, as it were, once she’s older, but research and instinct makes me feel she’s just too young to self regulate at the moment, and by responding I’m offering reassurance that’ll eventually help her feel safe enough to sleep, as opposed to creating over reliance on me or ‘bad habits’. But then again, I’ve not done this before and there’s so much conflicting advice out there!

Mine were breastfed and mainly slept through with the odd wake up by 8 months. But I always put them down after a feed awake and they learned to self settle which did involve letting them cry for short periods. I think dh is right.