Husband taking over night feeds

[Jr9901]

Has anyone had any success with this? My daughter is 6 months and I feel at breaking point..she’s EBF and I’ve done all night wakings (hourly or 2 hourly since 3 months!).

I was trying to just co-sleep and roll with it but I desperately need a break. Husband is going to feed her expressed milk at around 11pm and 3am and just offer water and cuddles in between while I sleep in separate room for a few nights to try and break the cycle. At the moment she wakes and comfort sucks for 1 min then back to sleep..I don’t have the energy to sleep train myself now and any kind of controlled crying isn’t for me so was hoping this might help.

She does settle herself for naps and the first sleep of the night but always feeds to sleep throughout the night. I’d be fine with a couple of wakings for another 6 months but I can’t do these hourly wakings and I go back to work 3 days a week in October.

If she takes a bottle, go for it! I'd have loved to do this but not a single one of mine took a bottle!

Also I meant to say...will I need to express when he feeds her to keep supply up or is it established enough now that a few nights won’t hurt?

She does take a bottle thank god, only just started to though!

My dh always helped with nights. Even when breastfeeding we chose to introduce one bottle which was somewhere between 9pm and 2am. This let me go to sleep early. I am rubbish with interrupted sleep but good at mornings. Dh is opposite.

One thing I would say is put ear plugs in or you will wake and fret regardless. You need sleep too!

I think after 6 months skipping a feed at night wont hurt too much. I mean that's when babies should be not needing feeding at night anyway so sure our bodies can handle it.

Great thanks, fingers crossed it helps! I’ve not wanted to do anything other than gentle sleep training but hoping this will help reduce the night wakings / wean her off the comfort sucking a little whilst at the same time still giving her the milk and cuddles but from dad. Already been lots of screaming from upstairs :( he’s managed to settle her though ...very hard to switch off!

Please post updates. 🙏🏼 We have an 11mo who still feeds to sleep 2-3 times a night and I'm pretty fed up with it now so I'm planning to involve the dad a lot more when we get back from holidays.

So we tried this last night and already we’ve noticed a huge improvement, I had no idea it would make a difference so quickly! The first two wakings my daughter screamed her head off and took quite a while for my husband to settle, he Picked her up, held and sang to her but only offered water. Then she slept 3 hours which is the longest she’s slept in 10 weeks!! He gave her 5oz of expressed milk at 12:30. She didn’t wake again until 4am! He didn’t even have to give her the other feed I had ready he just settled her in her bed by holding her hand (I try this all the time and she just cries till picked up). I took over at 6am with a breastfeed.

I can’t believe it! So hoping it will wasn’t some weird fluke but this is the best it’s been in ages. He’s going to do the same for the next 3 nights then when I take over again I’m actually wondering if I should just stop breastfeeding her at night and give her a bottle of expressed milk myself. 😱

Do it. Our twins fed 2 hourly at night ( each) until they were 5 / 6 months, one continued like this for nearly a year whilst the other slept through. DP sent me to bed at 8pm and took care until about 1am so that I got a decent sleep. Stopped me completely falling apart tbh. Actually saved my life. They were bottle fed.

Lol I see I'm late to the party. So glad this seems to be working for you. Don't feel guilty about prioritising some sleep, it's good for everyone x

Glad it worked for you. I found getting my dh to settle LO at around 5.5 months was key in getting him to sleep better. Prior to this he was waking for a bf every 2 hours. After a couple of nights of dh settling him he was only waking once for a feed. Mine will not take a bottle so my dh settles him at bedtime with shh patting and I still do 1 night feed.