ten month old baby & relationship with DH tough going

[Chloris33]

Would love some wisdom from mums, any tips and will it pass? Our first baby is 10 months now and has always been a terrible sleeper. (I cope by co-sleeping, don't want to sleep train at this point). Relationship with DH feels a bit shitty. Not terrible but just that we are arguing a lot and there is no intimacy. He sleeps in a separate room. He takes our baby at 6am while I go back to bed for a couple of hours. He feels he needs an unbroken night's sleep to do this & work, & I am completely dependent on the arrangement to survive the sleep deprivation. We have hardly any physical contact and haven't had sex for a month and a half. We go to bed two hours after baby, again to cope with bad nights and we are always tired at that point and just veg out with TV. We don't have any family locally and haven't yet gone out without baby. In a few weeks my mum is coming to stay, though, so we can try that. Our relationship feels like it's just (often grumpy) co-parenting at the moment and no more...

It bugs me when people say they are following an attachment parenting 'method'. There is no 'method' with attachment parenting. Attachment parenting is about responding to your child's needs. It's about getting to know them, differentiating between wants and needs and parenting kindly as well as considering the needs of the whole family.

Giving a ten month old milk at night to comfort them when they are teething is just the same principle as sticking a dummy in their mouths to shut them up IMO. It isn't responding to their needs.

None of mine cried to sleep, they were all given physical comfort (not milk) when they were learning to be ok in their beds. My whole objective was opposite to the extinction method stuff - to make sure they knew their beds were nice places, I was still available but that bed meant time to sleep and feeling like that is an ok thing.

Following methods also bugs me... Attachment parenting is a principle not a method.

The first year is grim. I have had two children now and I look back on how things were with my first and frankly marvel how my marriage survived.

DD was a crap sleeper so she went to bed in her cot and more often than not one of us would end up co-sleeping with her in the [thankfully] double bed in her room by the morning. We were both working by the time she was 10 months old so we were wrecked.

We didn't do ourselves any favours. We were PFB about giving her "drugs", cue a lot of crap teething powders and no infant ibuprofen when she was in hindsight clearly in quite a bit of pain. We didn't sleep train her at night. We didn't go out and leave her with a babysitter except in very rare occasions despite not BFing by then. So we had very little to talk about that didn't relate to our child or work.

Things were very different with DD2 but hindsight is a wonderful thing.

It's your choice re the co-sleeping but it's important that your husband is also on board and that there's a plan to improve things. You don't say that you are back at work so I'll assume that you are not. Starting to sleep train even gently at 1 yr is going to be tricky if you are also starting back to work then. Make a plan!

Go to bed in the same room, if you are not BFing then go out for a few hours at least once a week. Think of it as an investment in you marriage. In my opinion actually leaving the house creates a better dynamic to reconnect. alcohol may help too

Painkillers if required and only water in a bottle overnight is a good place to start. A hot water bottle inside a large cuddle toy can help too.

It is hell having a non-sleeper, my DS was dreadful until he was 3 so I feel your pain. My 2 older dc had been great so he was a real shock to the system. DC4 is also not a great sleeper, 10 months like yours.

I've read your OP a couple of times and the thing that really jumps out is the fact that you are doing all the nights while your DH sleeps in a separate room then takes the baby at 6am. Can I ask why he is so exhausted too? To me 6am is a normal time to get up, esp after a full nights sleep. I think you need an honest discussion with him stating that for your relationship to improve and intimacy to resume you need more sleep, rest and down time. I know I used to really resent my DH telling me how shattered he was after 7 hours sleep ehen I had been up all night with a grumpy baby. And that did not make me want to have sex with him.

Does your DH take over the night shift at weekends? When I was breast feeding on Fri and Sat nights DH just used to hand the baby to me to feed but he would do all the winding, nappies, soothing etc. made a huge difference and made me feel as though we were a team again. Now he works away Mon to Fri and always does night when he is at home. He says it's the only way he gets to see the baby!

Without trying to sound hard or un caring I think you are just going to have to suck it up for the time being.

There is no intimacy between your DH and you because there is no chance of intimacy, there is a little human in the way.

I'd guess it's normal and will continue to be like this while you are co sleeping and in separate beds.

Your DH will need to come to terms with the fact that he has lost his wife but gained the mother of his children.

If you can't suck it up you are going to have to try and review your routine so that you and your DH can create intimate times but without it being too contrived iyswim.

*I was a terrible sleeper as a child. I hated it.

I wish someone had taken the time to teach me how to sleep well, it would have been such a gift.*

So much this. I'm STILL a bad sleeper. I resent my parents for it.

My DD didn't sleep till she was 4. I tried every possible approach, & finally went for an cranial osteopathy session with her. She slept from that day on.
Why not try? it certainly won't hurt her & may be the beginning of a new life !

Your DH will need to come to terms with the fact that he has lost his wife but gained the mother of his children.

But the point is you can be both. Yes children come first, any husband who doesn't understand that is, frankly, selfish. However, it is possible and dare I say important, that you make time for each other too.

That said, it goes both ways. I do agree that if he isn't pulling his weight he needs to step up. It's easier to make time for each other if you're both pulling your weight.