Co-Sleeping. Ignoring my wishes

[TuesdaysChildIsBloodyDifficult]

I want to caveat this with I'm 3 days PP, I've had 4 hours sleep, max and I'm really bloody emotional, and this is not a discussion about co-sleeping.

As stated, 3 days PP, with my 1st, my husbands 2nd.
I have always been very clear that I do not wish the baby to co-sleep with us. There was a tragic incident in the village where I lived when I was a teenager and it has stuck with me.

For background, DH's ex suffered with her mental health and didn't/couldn't seek treatment so care of DSD was left to my now husband as she would often disappear out for days at time with mates. This, whilst giving me confidence in my DH having an idea of what he's doing, it's also given him an air of "I know what I'm doing" if that makes sense.

I first brought up co-sleeping when he said that his favourite memories were falling asleep with his DD asleep on his chest.
I explained my feelings and reasons and said that this was probably my one hard and fast No. But I did say that if the other parent was awake (for example this afternoon, I was awake, DH was napping with DC on his chest, I was in the room) it was a slightly different thing.

Tonight DC is not settling, my milk still hasn't come in, baby is hungry, and I'm beating myself up with Day Three Blues and feeling like I've starved my poor child. DH and I share a bed, DC in a moses basket next to the bed on my side. Baby is wailing, I'm trying to sooth, and wake up DH, who is snoring peacefully. I end up kicking him awake on the 15th attempt at asking him to help me because I'm REALLY FUCKING STRUGGLING. He gets up, picks baby up, walks around the bed, gets back in and puts baby on his chest. Tells me to go to sleep.

Am I being a dickhead or is he actively trying to upset me? We have had an incident earlier tonight where he had let me fall asleep with baby on me (I feel guilty, and I also asked why he didn't wake me/take baby as per my feelings) He said "it's OK when you fall asleep with the baby on you" No. It's not, I never said that! In fact I asked pre birth that he wake me or take the baby!
He then told me to stop stressing and that "it's fine".

But it's NOT fine. I'm terribly anxious about something horrible happening and he's just ignoring me.

Someone please talk rationally to me and help out an anxious FTM who's trying to keep her shit together on tea and custard creams.

I think you both are tired and emotional- you need to find some middle ground. Yes you are right and it’s dangerous to sleep with a baby but a newborn baby needs human touch they will never be settled ( well mine wasn’t ) in a basket by themselves. Your baby has come into a new big scary world and needs human touch

I think you might need to take shifts to sleep one person awake from 7-2 then the next person awake and the awake person can go watch tv while holding the baby if awake
the first four months are hell on earth but you have to keep baby safe in multiple ways physically and emotionally

@PivotPivotmakingmargaritas thank you. He's very much "sleep when baby sleeps" which I find difficult, and I'm also finding it hard to not take on everything myself.... which given I'm 3 days post c-section is probably making things worse.
I think I'm also probably being a bit resentful that he's letting me. I will address this in a grown up manner when it's light and I can fathom being a sensible human being.

Oh this is so so difficult, especially when coping with a c section and collective tiredness.

I think at this point, he should be doing everything he can to stop you feeling anxious, and if co sleeping is a hard no especially at this point, then he should respect that.

You'll be feeling the 3 or 4 day blues today btw which makes everything 10 times worse, and milk will come in any time over the next couple of days :).

As you said this isn't a discussion about co sleeping, but I want to add that I co slept from the offset but never with baby in arms, because I didn't feel this was safe and i didnt like the idea of the risk of baby slipping off under an arm or something whilst I was asleep.

This website might be a good link to share with your husband about dos and donts: www.lullabytrust.org.uk/safer-sleep-advice/co-sleeping/

Thank you. And thank you for the reading. I'll have a look and ask we go through it together to see if we can find some middle ground.

Just sending some love. Day 3 was awful, hormones just terrible!! Is there anyone who can come help you for a little bit? Take baby for a walk while you sleep?

This was also a no no for me, still is and always will be for the same reasons as youZ when the midwife comes mention to them that your worried about co- sleeping and they will support you in front of DH. at the beginning I would sleep early evening then stay awake through the night and feed the baby and then around 5/6am DH would go downstairs with the baby and let me sleep until baby needed a feed.
Maybe this could work for you, it will get better I promise- hormones and the pain settle x

I am fully, fully with you on this one, OP. You are so vulnerable right now, and he needs to be prioritising you and your emotional and physical health. You can explain to him in the morning that for a few weeks, you need to have the leeway to call the shots based on how you're feeling, and about what you've just been through. That even if he thinks you're wrong, to just go with your way for the next while. I hope he listens. My husband didn't listen and prioritise me in the immediate aftermath of both of our children, and we never got past it - it ruined our marriage.

It is really normal to be feeling how you are feeling. Your feelings are valid, as in you are upset for a valid reason - your responses are just much bigger than usual because of the hormones. He needs to respect that, and help you to feel calm - not to trigger you and push you. You poor thing, OP.

My mum is here for a couple of days, and that's the plan (I have terrible sleeping habits, have had since a child) I've had a couple of appointments with midwives etc and they've been very "we'll be there between 8 and 6" so I felt a bit like a prisoner and unable to sleep in case they turn up

I'm going to go for a little walk today to get some fresh air with my Boy and my dog and come home and go to actual bed for an hour or two with some nice strong pain relief and wake up a nicer, more reasonable person. Thank you for the love. I didn't see this side of it all in the pregnancy small print!

Day 3 is really, really hard. Can you ask your mum to sit UP with the baby so you can sleep knowing someone is definitely watching the baby? The baby doesn't need this but if you do to actually get some sleep it could be worth it.

I remember I had this huge anxiety about falling asleep as the baby would be 'alone' but it got lots better once I actually had some sleep myself.

This would upset me too. Co-sleeping works for some people and I’m not judging others but the idea of it has always made me very nervous. My husband once fell asleep with our newborn in bed with him while I was in the shower. I was furious with him and he didn’t even do it on purpose (he struggles not to fall asleep when in bed, so we made a rule after that that if he was watching the baby he couldn’t be in bed). We moved on from this quickly because I knew it wasn’t intentional and he did respect my wishes from then on. If he’d continued to do it or argued with me about like your husband is I would have struggled to get past it and probably would have avoided leaving him alone with the baby at all.

Day 3 of BF is tough. Please go easy on yourself.
I am pro-cosleeping. But falling asleep with baby on you does not follow the safe guidelines (as far as I know) - that would be the concern here. Can you show him some guidelines around this.

• just as a btb.... I never felt my milk come in with baby 1. I never really had a 'aha' moment. I just kept feeding. (There was a lot of anxiety and stress around this but I just kept feeding....midwife had given a bottle in hospital and I was worried that had ruined everything, bf kept wanting to give another as midwife had done it.....there was lots of discussion about sons weight because he was born +15 days at 90th centile and dropped to 10th.....stayed there consistently. All my kids are skinny beans. Eat more than any other kids I know. That one is now over 6ft, daughter tall too., youngest not 6ft yet and desperate to be!!)

Don't worry about being asleep when Mid wife comes. You can be woken up. They really won't mind.

Honestly I think he is right. Learn to cosleep safely, preferably you, the mother.

Day three is hell. Newborns can be pretty awful in general tbh, but day three is a special flavour of hell.

YANBU about the co sleeping thing, he's not even talking about doing it safely.

However, many (most?) newborns won't sleep in a moses basket, they just want to be close to you. We used to take it in turns to sit up in bed with the baby on our shoulders, reading on our phones. Would you feel comfortable with him doing that, and trust him to respect your wishes and not drop off?

Safe co sleeping is a very different thing to what you're describing here, and much much less risky. Read the rules so you're aware anyway, but would you be comfortable with him doing that? Personally I could never get on with it, too uncomfortable, but it works well for a lot of families.

Another vote for safe co sleeping.

I sympathise, I've had two C sections and my first dc resisted sleep in an extreme way.

Baby asleep on your chest is not the safe way to do it, so in that respect he's wrong.
In short basically you want: flat mattress, baby lies next to you, you curve around the baby in a C shape, no loose blankets or pillows near the baby. You can pop a pillow behind your back to support you.

Babies (and children and adults and most mammals really) need touch. They cry when they think they've been abandoned. It's an important instinct for them.

Also please don't worry too much about the worst happening if you do fall asleep with baby on you.

It's not ideal so aim to co sleep in a safe position, but AFAIK the cases that have ended in tragedies have usually had other factors as well eg parent is on drugs (medicinal/recreational), smoking or alcohol.

Otherwise be assured, if your baby slips off your chest you'll almost definitely wake with a start. Breastfeeding mums sleep lighter.

Edit to add: if you're on codeine then you might be sleeping deeper. But I was on codeine or cocodamol while pp both times and still woke up if my baby so much as twitched

I don’t think you are being unreasonable at all. Although there are people on here that advocate for ‘chest cosleeping’ it is one of the riskiest ways for a baby to sleep. Cosleeping following the safe sleep rules is much better but it’s not for everyone- I am bad sleeper anyway and like to turn both ways during the night so it didn’t suit me.

If they won’t sleep alone taking turns is much safer with the person watching baby staying awake (DH watched lots of films in the evening while minding DD in the early days).

Have you also tried swaddling? We really liked Love to Dream arms up swaddles when DD was a newborn. Also things like warming the bassinet, white noise etc.

I was happy for DD to sleep on me during the day (with me awake as I hate sleeping during the day) but persevered with the bassinet at night.

This

I agree with you about cosleeping at this stage. I've read some very sad stories over the years about it, often dad's sadly because they tend to sleep more deeply. One laid his hand on the baby to make sure it stayed put and inadvertently suffocated her because the weight compressed her lungs, they are so fragile.

I had a very refluxy newborn who wouldn't sleep in his crib so my husband and I split the nights. It's exhausting but not exhausting enough to not be able to function. Once baby was down for the night in crib I'd be on duty til 2 and then husband and I swapped (had a bed in baby's room) and I then slept til 7am so we both got sleep to function on.

Of course if you're planning on breastfeeding this wouldn't necessarily work due to only you feeding them, like pp say there are safe cosleeping methods for breastfeeding mothers and babies, and I did resort to cosleeping when my baby reached 6 months due to a godawful sleep regression .

We ended up cosleeping as there was really, genuinely no other way to get any sleep. But we followed the rules on how to do it safely, which what your DH is doing really isn’t.

He absolutely should be supporting you in this time. You’re both tired and emotions are running high, I’m sure he’s not deliberately trying to upset you, but he’s also not being particularly supportive right now. I’d strongly recommend the shifts another poster has mentioned - can he sit up with the baby till at least midnight, then you go to bed early and try to get at least a few hours sleep? I know this isn’t so easy with trying to establish breastfeeding but worth a try at least.

I also remember how horrendous that feeling was of trying to breastfeed and not feeling successful - I never produced a drop but I know that’s very very rare. This was also during lockdown so no support available - hopefully you have access to more/ better support - can you reach out to your midwife/ HV and ask what support is available and to be referred to the feeding team if needed? Or google breastfeeding support/ groups in your local area?

I co slept with mine. Read the safe cosleeping information, being near an adult actually helps with breathing regulation and when mine were tiny it was actually recommended as long as you aren't on meds that cause drowsiness or drinking alcohol. I'm not saying it's right for you but it's a perfectly valid choice

I’m pro co sleeping but “I first brought up co-sleeping when he said that his favourite memories were falling asleep with his DD asleep on his chest” would be a hard no from me.

OP I know you don’t want to cosleep and that’s fine but please look up and prepare for safe cosleeping, you may never do it but it’s when exhausted parents do it when they’re not prepared that things go wrong.

My DHs experience with his first child was similar to yours with co sleeping. He didn’t know it was so dangerous and the midwife spoke to him which sorted it

You need to talk to him about how this is your baby together and you make joint decisions about him. He doesn't call the shots because he's done it before.

Equally, his experience is helpful and you shouldn't just dismiss it. Every parent should know safe sleeping rules, just in case. Sleeping with baby on your chest is not the safest way to do it. Tbh I'd also not trust a father to do it with such a tiny baby. As pp said, baby on flat surface with you curled round them.

This bit is really awful, I felt like I'd been in a car crash post section. Get outside in the day if you can, it helps.

This is a tough one. And a tough time to be going through it too!

I'm a huge advocate of SAFE cosleeping (Lullaby Trust have some great resources) but baby sleeping on his chest whilst he is asleep is not safe and I think given your experience your anxiety is understandable. Some NHS trusts do now advocate for / support co sleeping (this changed where I live between having DS1 in 2021 and DS2 last year). You definitely need to try and compromise, he is baby's parent too. Unless you want to do everything for the next 18 years you need to find some middle ground. That might be "baby can only sleep on chest if you're awake" or "we can cosleep but only with safe cosleeping in mind".

3 days is horrible but you have got this! 💪