DH and I disagreeing about sleep training

[IcouldstillbeJoseph]

Not sure if this should be here or in Sleep but ....

DD is 11months - 2nd child, have 3yr old DS with no sleep issues.

DD had initially been a good sleeper but since 5 months has been dreadful. I had resisted all suggestions to restrict night feedings, CIO etc and at 10 months, out of the blue, she started sleeping through for 12 hours, or just waking once. That lasted about a week and then she contracted a sickness bug. Since then we have regressed bigtime. The bug finished a month ago.

Things are now so bad that she is back in bed with me most of the night and DH is in spare room.

However, I am sort of happy to just carry on (not back at work till March) and hope she will sleep again soon.

DH however is suffering. He works full time and finds it hard to go back to sleep once she has woken him overnight. Ear plugs don't help. He says he "misses his wife" and wants me back to my normal, happy self. He is grumpy with me and sometimes (shamefully) DD as he sort of blames her too. That makes him sound far more of an arse than he is.

He thinks I need to get tough and stop feeding her overnight (she's still bf). I am torn. I don't want to upset DH but also cant bear to listen to DD crying.

DD is seeing a paediatrician in 10 days due to developmental issues and I had a terrible pregnancy and feel VERY lucky to have her(I was in ITU twice). DH understands this but feels 'enough is enough'.

My argument is that, when she started sleeping through before I hadn't done anything differently so eventually it will happen again.

I feel I am facing a choice between DD and DH and its agonising. Can anyone advise?

Sorry I know its a long post already but just to add that DD can self-settle. I can put her in cot wide awake and she will suck her thumb and nod off. She will not entertain DH going in overnight, let alone offering her water,. She goes absolutely beserk and vomits etc

help

see what the paediatrician says and go from there. I can see both view points.

Whenever there is a conflict between your relationship and your child's needs I think you should always choose your child.

However this is a tough situation because it is about determining exactly what your child needs. I did some sleep training with mine because lack of sleep makes me crazy (mine were all bf too between 1 year and 2years). I never left them to cry though. There are ways of gently sleep training without crying or bf'ding to sleep/bed sharing that maybe you could compromise on?

That's exactly what I have negotiated last night actually! but DH thinks that as soon as I have seen them I will come up with 'another reason' to delay 'getting tough'

I can also see DH's POV of course but like I said, feel torn

I don't think you should be 'getting tough'.

We have never disagreed on parenting stuff before which is why I'm struggling. He is supportive of me but I can see it is aging him and he is so grumpy etc. He has recently been promoted to the 'big boss' at work so that is not helping his stress levels

Offred - can I ask what helped your DC stop feeding so much overnight? DD eats so well during the day she cannot possibly be hungry but she will not settle with anything other than me and a breast

I was never prepared to do controlled crying or cio, but I think sending your DH in to her in the night with cuddles and water sounds like a very reasonable compromise. Yes, she might be livid about it at first, but she will be fine.

If she's in bed with you and bf on demand over night though, how is she disturbing your DH in the other room? If you want to continue with the current set-up, can you not keep her quiet overnight?

Honestly I have tried the DH/water thing and she just won't have it. She goes INSANE and starts being sick and getting herself into such a state, sweating etc. I can't bear it.

Our house has the thinnest walls so even if I pounce on her with a boob as soon as she wakes it is enough to wake DH. She doesn't really feed too well on her side so I normally have to position her a bit and the developmental delays mean her dexterity isn't amazing enough that she can do it all herself just yet. And also, she sometimes cries out a bit at the end of a feed, just as she gets comfortable again

DH thinks I should go and stay at my mum's overnight so I can't hear her crying and he will just offer her water but I'm not really up for that.

He's right, you should just stay away a couple of nights and let him comfort her. It isn't fair for him to keep being disturbed at night because you can't bear crying. She's not a tiny baby and he isn't suggesting leaving her alone.

But there are no guarantees that it will work anyway even if I stayed away for a week, sleep isn't linear like that

Personally I think you should sleep in a separate room with your DD while your DH catches up on sleep.

She does not need water. She needs love and her mother, and possibly a well rested and non grumpy father.

I say this as a mother who works full time who never sleep trained. Don't go against your instincts, please. Maybe go stay at your DM's house for a night or two WITH your dd so he can sleep? Either way he sounds unreasonable but sleep deprivation makes people bonkers

The current situation isn't working though, so what alternative have you suggested (other than your DH just putting up with it)?

But not working for whom? Babies cry. They need milk. And love. They don't sleep all night. That's what being a baby is. Perhaps the DH needs to man up and realize parenthood isn't that easy?

OP my dd is 22 months and if she cries for more than about 30 seconds in fear or distress she vomits. It's not behavioural (many many specialists have verified) so I never let her cry if I can help it (sometimes she will not be soothed).

At one point I was sleeping entirely apart from my DH as he wanted to 'train' her. Now she sleeps in our room all night and that's the deal. He gets me, he gets dd. It's not perfect but the alternative is a sweaty vomit covered child sobbing to herself. I feel your pain!

This is why I feel so torn. My instinct is to love her and give her everything she needs but I also love my DH and don't want to jeopardise my marriage (I wont tell you how long it has been since we DTD )

I have tried explaining to DH that she is still a baby and it will pass etc but after almost a year its wearing thin with him. I know it is sleep-deprivation making him irrational and stressed etc. I can understand it. Sigh

Ophelias-thank you, your words are a comfort to me.

Sounds like you get to make all the baby decisions in your house OP. That's fine if it's just affecting you, but if it's affecting other people then it isn't just your wants and desires that matter. You are happy to carry on because you aren't back at work yet.

Your DH can't expect silence overnight, but at 10 months if the baby is waking/waking him with crying several times a night and it is having an impact on his day then that isn't fair.

As far as sleep and need for nursing at night is going, she is perfectly normal for her age.

It's ridiculous, and just plain futile, to say 'Enough is enough' about a child being developmentally appropriate for their age. If only those words were enough to stop a 6 week old crying like a 6 week old, a 2 year old displaying the maturity of a 2 year old etc. We all have to 'put up with' our children being whatever age they are and it's frequently inconvenient, exhausting, annoying - take your pick.

Weaning her prematurely will quite possibly have no impact on her sleep. It'll just mean you'll lose a way of getting her back to sleep.

"DD eats so well during the day she cannot possibly be hungry"
Nursing is about a lot more than food.

It's always ironic when adults,like your husband, take for granted the comfort they gain from sleeping next to another human they love, but at the same time seek to deny a small baby, whose need for it is far greater, the exact same thing.

I personally couldn't bring myself to sleep next to a man who thought we should 'get tough' with a baby. Getting tough is the exact opposite of what a baby needs. Babies do not sleep through the night - the ones who do are an exception - babies need milk, they need comfort, they need love, they need closeness, they need reassurance, they need Mummy. They are biologically programmed to need these things because getting these needs met are what helps a baby turn into a happy, well-rounded, independent individual. Deny these needs and you are storing up trouble for the future.

Just because these needs clash with modern ways does not mean the needs can or should be ignored. Babies cannot sacrifice their most basic and inportant needs to make adults happy. All the compromise and sacrifice has to come from the adults, end of story. Your instinct to give her everything you need is correct, it is natural and innate. You know deep inside that what he is demanding is not the right choice. You know that baby's needs come first and that can suck it up, not her.

The only person who needs to toughen up is your OH. He needs his wife, does he? And that need is more important than the need of a 10 month old child needing their mother?! He needs to get over himself. Parents of babies and young children don't get a lot of sleep. They have less (or sometimes no) sex for quite a while. It's not brilliant, but that's the pay-off for being parents. What needs to adjust in this situation are his expectations and demands. He needs to accept that she is going to wake up during the night wanting milk and mummy, like virtually every other baby of her age on the planet has done since the dawn of time, and that he has to be mature and find new ways of changing his sleep situation to ameliorate it for himself, like decent fathers sonce the dawn of time have done. He needs to find ways to get better sleep that do not involve the baby's needs being sacrificed for his.

Might be worth putting a thread in special needs children too for a different perspective?

Hey, I've named changed but we've talked by PM on similar issues.

I've settled for DH in the spare room, he has ear plugs if he wishes. It works for all and it's not permanent. We're all happy and don't read into it, we have sex in 'his' room and he's less grumpy or irrational in the day and helps out much more than when we were both sleep-deprived. I'm less stressed and can leave or soothe her as I feel in my gut is the right thing to do without stressing. He's become more immune to the crying from the next room, and I know when to leave her occasionally cracking up around 2 or 3 am some night and joining him for a bit

I also don't feel guilty about taking lie-ins, dumping her on him at 5am and sleeping until 10 at weekends and I cope better. A relationship is much more than room sharing, we are happy and solid with a reasonable sex-life despite separate rooms. In fact we're happier and my room has no man smell as an added plus

I can't leave dd too it either, she can't roll and gets stuck and scared a lot. I've tried a bit of sleep-training, I'm not adverse really, but I know she just can't sleep from her reaction and I've accepted it'll take a while. You too have had another child and have managed to sort their sleep out, so I'm sure you too like me can sense there are different issues at play.

x

Babies that sleep through at a year old are not "an exception" - most are sleeping 8 hours through the night by 12 months.

Perhaps the DH needs to man up and realize parenthood isn't that easy?

This

Physical comfort which isn't feeding and gradual withdrawal of the physical comfort. It is really tough because the easiest thing to do with a baby when you're sleep deprived is feed and sleep yourself. I also used musical comfort in conjunction with the physical comfort so that the babies associated the music with that comfort. Dh might not realise that any kind of sleep training results in at least a few weeks of much less sleep than just doing the night feeds.

For me it was worth it to achieve the full nights of sleep.

I might add I never did this with any baby younger than 7/8 months (for others considering this). And wouldn't advise cutting down night feeds below six months.

If I was struggling with sleep deprivation and my DP told me to suck it up, he wasn't prepared to try anything, having a baby is tough, I would not be happy.