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?