6 month old will settle with husband but not me

[NewMum293]

I’ve a 6 month old daughter who, until recently, was EBF (we’ve now started weaning and introducing the occasional bottle of formula).

I always used to feed her to sleep for naps and bedtime but she would often use me as a dummy and would sometimes fall asleep feeding and then wake up when being put down and think she’d had a full nap, so my DH and I agree to bottlefeed her (normally expressed milk) for all naps and bedtime.

It’s helped in that it’s quicker but I find that unless she falls asleep on the bottle with me, I cannot get her to settle to sleep whereas my husband can quite easily now. I’ve tried wearing his clothes to disguise the smell of my milk but it doesn’t seem to help. I’ll try and settle her for well over an hour with no luck, and then my husband will take over and get her down in a few minutes. On one occasion when he was out, I tried for nearly 2 hours and in the end had to just abandon her afternoon nap.

Yesterday the same thing happened at my parents - I tried to settle her for over an hour then my mum took over and had her asleep in 15 minutes.

I’m starting to feel like a bit of a failure not being able to settle my own child when everyone else seems to be able to. Is it the smell of my milk or am I just a bit rubbish? Has anyone else been through the same?

Any help/advice/tough love welcome x

Oh God please don’t be so hard on yourself! It IS the smell of your milk! I had the same. In fact I couldn’t even wear a sling because my baby was such a milk fiend it drove her crazy being close to my breast. Just get others to settle her whenever you can and take the moment to have a cuppa.

In the end the only way I could ever settle my DD was in the pram. I must have walked miles. It wasn’t that successful though and some days I did try for 45-1hr only to have her wake as soon as I got home. It really wore me down and frustrated me that I couldn’t help her with this basic thing but she is 4 now and sleeps beautifully in her own room on her own bed. With hindsight the only really problematic effect was how exhausted I was.

Try to see it as a positive! Leave the house to see a friend, go for a walk, have a long bath or just watch a whole episode of your favourite programme uninterrupted whilst you DH takes some time with his baby! You've nailed the first 6 months, you'll nail the next 6 months! Both my daughters prefer my DH but when they are poorly, I'm their number 1! I sometimes (just joking) hope they get a bit poorly just so they need me again 😂

When we my baby needs a nap but won’t settle, I sit down with her, rock her while holding her hands to her chest with her dummy in, she settles rather quickly when I do this, I have to take my hands away very very slowly though so she doesn’t notice I’ve let go. If you want to put her down, I suggest doing this with a pillow underneath at least her upper half, then you can slowly move her on the pillow to somewhere you can put her down, obviously keep an eye on her and pad her out so she doesn’t roll off. Hope this helps!

Thanks all. My husband is very good at sharing responsibilities (eg he does all dream feed which allows me to head up early) and it is lovely to be able to share nap/bedtime duties. It’s more that I’m now actually reliant on him, so that if he goes out, I know it’s going to be a nightmare, if not impossible. Last night I managed to get my daughter down for bedtime but she was screaming throughout (and she’s not a cry-y baby at all) and I was in tears.

I’m starting a phased return to work next week (my husband is on shared parental leave) so I think I’m extra sensitive as worry that it will just get harder for me to settle her as I won’t be around much to do so.

We don’t use a dummy so unfortunately that’s not an option for settling. She used to suck her thumb which helped but gave that up a while back of her own accord.

Bumping in case anyone has any advice for what to do when my husband isn’t around to help x

(Update: I just tried the rocking as you suggested @Sparkey47 and it did settle her and she eventually went into her cot “drowsy but awake” and fell asleep after I left the room. Will try the same next time - thank you x