Baby refusing Dad at night

[KhakiSheep]

My 9 month old is refusing to let his dad settle him at night, and as we get closer to my return to work I could really do with his dad being able to resettle him so we can share the night wakes.

The background, he's EBF, for the first few months my husband would give him a bottle of EBM and was the only one who could settle him and put him in his crib. As he got older I started to feed him to sleep, the bedtime routine now is Dad baths, reads him a story, I feed him and put him down. If he wakes in the night I can resettle him with shushing, bouncing rocking ect 2/3 times, the other times I will feed him. If his dad goes into him when he wakes he will go from whining to full on screaming straight away when he realises its Dad. The only way Dad can resettle him is a pram walk or a drive.

I will only go into him when his Dad calls me, but normally that's only a few minutes of trying to cuddle/rock/shush etc. So for the most part I just deal with the night wakes.

During the day he's more than happy with his dad, will happily spend the day with him without me, Dad can comfort him when he is upset/hurt etc.

Has anyone been through this and baby has accepted Dad during the night? Any tips or words of wisdom?

You said 'if he wakes during the night' - does the 'if' mean he sometimes doesn't? If so it might be worth thinking about what triggers waking up. It might be just random, but e.g. if he's cold that's easily solved.

Otherwise, could you try and wean off feeding to sleep? You'd do it by moving the feed gradually earlier in the routine and the other things in between.

My 3 year old use to refuse Dad alot. Still does sometimes at 3 years old (I have bad sleepers so alot of night waking still)
I've noticed if Dad puts her to bed then she is more receptive to Dad coming in if she wakes in the night. I'd suggest moving away from feeding to sleep and then letting Dad do a few bedtimes a week.

the bedtime routine now is Dad baths, reads him a story, I feed him and put him down.
Try swapping this round - it worked for us (i did final feed in bathroom before handing over to dad for story etc)

Thanks everyone, like I say I don't always have to feed him back to sleep.

I'll work on breaking the sleep association

We did sleep training and the advice was that just one parent goes in at first to set up a new association, it might take 3 days or so but if only Dad can go in for a few days it might do the trick? After you've night weaned obviously.

Honestly I think it’s a lifesaver to be able to feed to sleep as a breastfeeding mum. So helpful when teething, so comforting. Such a precious moment of connection when you’ve been out at work all day. So good for attachment, and a great opportunity for them to get a good feed in when they’ve not fed much during the day when you’re at work, therefore limiting the night wake ups. 9 months is a tricky time for sleep but I haven’t done any sleep training (as I really don’t believe in leaving babies to cry and there’s mounting research evidence against it) and it’s naturally improved. My 19 month old is still BF to sleep but sleeps pretty solidly unless teething. I’m not going to lie and say there weren’t some tough nights when I first went back to work. But it wasn’t every night, and on the rough ones when she was teething about 12 months cosleeping saved us — and BF naturally soothed the teething.

I've had 3 ebf DC (youngest is about to turn 4) and I'd say that 9m is really young to try to stop night feeding.

There's lots of good research that stopping night feeds prior to around 18m is not great for babies (though it doesn't have to be breast milk).

It is hard (I returned to work with all of mine between 9 and 12m) but it is also a relatively short term problem.

You've also said your DH can settle them in other ways. My DH used to take ours for a night time walk to fall asleep if I needed a break. The more night wakes dad does the easier they'll be but while mine bf there were times when bf is the only thing they wanted. DH couldn't do that so they'd just scream until they got me (and we really did try to wait it out)- you can't reason with a hungry/tired/sore/poorly baby so for peace it will be easier to give them what they want.

Mine is the same, and doesn’t feed anymore - it wasn’t related for us. He just needs me to get back to sleep. DH going just makes him really upset, which makes it harder for anyone to calm him down and get back to sleep.

Thanks, it's useful to read other babies are like this. It makes you feel like you're doing something wrong when everyone tells you you've made a rod for your own back by responding to their needs/feeding responsively.

I'm definitely not ready to night wean yet but I was hoping DH could pick up the wakes where he doesn't need a feed. There's usually at least one a night and I know before I get to him usually whether he will need a feed or not.

I've not long put a floor bed in his room so we can safely cosleep after his last wake of the night (he won't go back in his cot after about 5am) and we've got a sleepbag with legs which makes DH taking him for a pram walk to get him down so much easier but it's not overly practical at 1am.

Im very much in the mindset of its all just a phase, his sleep is getting better slowly, teething aside!