So probably a bit silly but will post anyway as it is niggling at me.
My DS is now two. From about nine/ten months right to being about eighteen months his sleep went absolutely horrendous (it wasn’t brilliant beforehand.) He would go down like a dream, but then wake without fail around three hours later and get absolutely hysterical if he wasn’t taken from his cot. I’d cuddle him, he’d fall asleep on me, try to return him and he’d wake and scream hysterically, in real distress. The whole thing would then start again until I’d finally take him in with me through exhaustion. He has never been a snuggly MN approved co sleeping baby and would thrash around, burying himself into various parts of my body and still waking repeatedly. I’d say as a rough estimate, for around eight months my sleep pattern was sleep 9-midnight, up with DS midnight-1, awake with DS thrashing all over me 1-4, fall asleep in an uncomfortable, exhausted state 4-630.
It was horrendous and it really affected me. I gained weight, became quite low, was so angry sometimes. (DS would not accept DH - only me - and irrationally at 2 in the morning this used to make me furious!)
We got a sleep consultant in - very much instigated by me - and DS sleep was transformed in one night.
Expecting another baby now and DH remembers this so differently to me. His memory is that DS had problems with his ear (he has had problems on and off since being fourteen months) and slept badly for a week because of this. I know there will have been nights when he’ll barely have been aware of what was going on, but it did make me feel quite strange in a way, as if we’d been living parallel lives for nearly a year.
He is a very decent man and he certainly isn’t abusive or anything. So it isn’t gaslighting or similar. He genuinely has a very different memory of it all than me. While I don’t want a load of misery I do want to just bring it up and point out how bloody awful that period was for me - but how to do it without sounding as if I’m accusing him of not caring or being lazy or similar?