Hourly wake ups and relationship going to…

[Uptown2022]

…s**t.

My baby is eight months. She’s EBF and won’t take a bottle now.

Since Xmas I’ve been dealing with wake ups at least every two hours. I can manage every two hours but anything less and I struggle to manage my irritability when my DH is around - much better when it’s just me and baby!

He seems to think that I can just make a choice to not be irritable and moody. When we argue that’s the result of it - no offer of help or even any understanding. He just says, ‘Yeh, I know you’re tired, but you can be tired and nice.’

No question really, just a rant.

I don’t want to do traditional sleep training and I’ve stuck to a good nap and bedtime routine and it makes no difference to her sleep. Don’t know what I’ll do when I go back to work!

Coming from someone who had two babies who woke every 1 - 2 hrs until they were 18mths, I know how you feel. Having said that, I don't remember being overly irritable, or at least DH didn't complain that I was.

I know it takes much more effort and brainpower when you're sleep deprived but you can be 'nice', especially if you're managing to be nice with the baby. Maybe he could help with the wake ups where she doesn't need feeding?

I had this with my DS, he’s only 6 months now but had the hour/2hourly waking for 5 months. So massive sympathy…it really sucks!! Who will be taking care of her once you’re back at work? IME nursery staff are basically magic and will be able to get her to take a bottle so if that’s where she’s going I wouldn’t worry too much.

good luck to you and hope she will sleep a bit more soon. I know you didn’t ask for advice and don’t want to do traditional sleep training but FWIW for both my DCs it was night weaning and ‘stay and support’ sleep training over 3 nights that got them to sleep through

@Sleepingallday thanks. How did you night wean? I don’t feed to her sleep and she’ll settle from her first wake up without feeding but when she wakes for a second time (usually about 10pm) she will just scream until she’s fed! We’ll then co-sleep for the rest of the night usually. I would like to at least delay the co-sleeping until the morning if possible!

Firstly, sorry youre going through this. Its crap.

Secondly, you haven't done anything wrong. Some babies are tough when it comes tI sleep and they need a lot from you. I've got 4DC and I've done bedtime the same way with all of them and all 4 slept differently as babies.

You dont have to sleep train. I never have
I wasn't drastically against it, but it's not my style so I just kept putting it off! Even theworst sleepers don't stay like that forever. Equally, many people do sleep train and seem happy with it. Do whatever works best for you and your family, and don't feel guilty either way. Happy mum is important.

Your DH isn'tmuch help at night. Mine wasn't either. There didn't seem to be any point in disturbing him as well. BUT that doesn't mean there aren't ways he can help. He can take your DC out for a playground trip so you can nap.

When children sleep badly, you need to find ways to catch up, and DH needs to support you in that.

It's easy for the person not having their sleep interrupted to say you can be tired and nice. It's actually very hard to be not irritable when you're exhausted. He would know that if he was living it.

Why not say, you're finding it hard right now because of the lack of sleep and offer up a solution? He can do bedtime (after you feed) so that you can get to bed right away. He can wake up at 5am with baby until he goes to work so you get an extra few uninterrupted hours of sleep. He gets up every weekend morning and allows you a lie in.

Why are you dealing with all night wakings? Your baby doesn’t need to be fed every 2 hours. Your husband can find another way to soothe her back to sleep and give you a long stretch

It feels a bit unfair of your partner to say you can 'choose to be nice', easy to say if he's (presumably?) sleeping all night! It's quite natural that you are grumpy when tired, and especially so when you are using the energy you do still have to be lovely and present with the baby!

Our baby was the same, every 1-2 hours until about 7/8 months, then 3-4 hours until he was 1 or so, with a bunch of random awful regressions in there too. We split the night- his dad would have him from 'bed time' till about 11pm, then would get up at 6am with him after a solid sleep (whilst I got up with baby between 11pm-6am). When it was really bad we'd switch to me doing till 3am, him doing 3am-morning. Would something like that be possible with dad settling between feeds, as baby could be ok with not feeding every 2 hours now?

Sometimes I think people forget/are a bit much saying you should just manage and that the dad should get to sleep as he's working. I would argue being on mat leave with a non-sleeping baby is harder than a lot of jobs!