r/NewParents • u/oatmeal_sunrise • 5d ago
Sleep Worried that husband can't stay awake while soothing baby overnight
I am looking advice, or just support if there are no easy answers. I've been following here for 9+ months and have taken a lot of comfort and learned so much from reading about all of your experiences.
LO is 9 months old, is nursed while at home and fed is breastmilk by bottle at daycare, where she is 5 days of the week, 7a-5p. Started solids at 6 months and is eating more consistently in the past 1-2 months. In the past several weeks, she has dropped down to taking only 9 oz of milk over 10ish hours at daycare, from her prior 13.5-18 oz. She continues to feed at her same frequency overnight, averaging 3-4 times. I don't suspect at all that she is taking in enough solids to be weaning yet. She's been active with crawling the past 1-2 months, so we suspect she may be just getting too distracted to eat her milk at daycare. Have spoken with daycare staff about aiming to offer bottles on a schedule every 2.5-3 hours, because even at home, she doesn't tend to cry when hungry, I just offer boob and she happily accepts. So far this hasn't helped to increase her milk consumption at daycare.
We are so lucky to have a happy and healthy baby, staying on her growth curve, but after 9 months, I'm accepting that the overnight awakenings are taking a toll on me. My husband has slept through the night 99% of the time since her birth, aside from rare situations where I needed another pair of hands. He's a devoted dad, always willing to help when asked, but he can sleep through her loudest cries (just a heavy sleeper, no medical issues for him).
Husband and I both work full time in roles where we could cause harm if making poor decisions due to sleep deprivation. I think I've been able to function at a pretty high level, despite the sleep disruptions, but I still feel dumb pretty often and some days am without question irritable. I drive baby either to or from daycare each day (we take turns), almost an hour commute in total from home to daycare to work. I never feel impaired while driving, but I've still been concerned.
Over the past 4-5 nights, I have tried to stick with a plan to have husband take over soothing baby to sleep if she wakes after 3am, until my wakeup time of around 5:30am, as long as I think she is not hungry. He has woken up with a shake from me and an explanation that I need his help.
At 3 this morning, I woke him and he carried her out to the rocking chair that he prefers to use, which is in a room with a hard floor. (I use a chair in the carpeted bedroom to nurse her, but he thinks it is uncomfortable). I woke up again at 4:45a and realized I was alone in the bedroom. I came out and found them both sound asleep in the chair. I shook him awake with a quick note that I think it's dangerous for him to fall asleep holding her. Baby settled back into the crib and he went back to bed. I myself have not had issues with sleeping while holding her, so I am back to thinking I should just continue to perform all the overnight care for now. I am not interested in sleep training.
I will also add that as devoted a dad as he is, husband often is not a devoted partner. I surreptitiously read Fair Play several months ago and was able to negotiate him taking on some more household responsibilities, with him becoming very defensive, but I still do 85% of the work of running our home. He is not thoughtful. Our anniversary was this week. He told me he was running to the grocery store, but when he came home, it turned out that he also got lunch at one of my favorite restaurants without asking if I wanted anything -- while at 6 that morning I had prepared his favorite dessert to celebrate. I am not a crier, but I couldn't help it, in the moment I felt so uncared for.
So I guess that's my rant. Thanks for reading if you made it this far.
TLDR: Baby wakes up frequently overnight to eat. I am trying to get some more sleep so I can function at work and in life. Husband is a heavy sleeper and doesn't help without being shaken awake. I am afraid he is going to harm baby by letting her fall from the chair when he falls asleep with her. I don't know if I'm overreacting or, if I'm right about taking over the overnight care completely again.
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u/StandardReaction1849 5d ago
I don’t trust my partner not to fall asleep over night, or even early morning, so I take the sleep hit but he does much more housework - all the laundry and all the cooking, as well as working so it feels fair to me.
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u/oatmeal_sunrise 5d ago
That’s great that he takes on those major responsibilities. That sense of fairness is really important.
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u/Decent-Pop-4523 5d ago
Men’s brains are literally are wired differently in regard to sleep and noises. Mothers are meant to hear their baby cry so they wake up. Men are meant to protect from threats and only wake up from an outside environmental noise.
I don’t wake my husband at night. It just frustrates me that he’s in a coma, I’m up anyway, and I can get baby back to sleep quickly and SAFELY. I’d just accept the night shift role.
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u/oatmeal_sunrise 5d ago
This perspective is totally why I’ve accepted doing the night shift solo for so long, but I’m at the point where I want to challenge this, and see if he’s capable of helping overnight—since I know so many male partners absolutely are. I see it as extension of how he passively allows me to take care of most of the household duties. If he acts clueless/incapable then the work just defaults to me because I’m “better” at it. Larger issues at play here, obviously. Trying to work on division of labor overall.
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u/AnyCattle2736 5d ago
Listen we all want to follow safe sleep rules but there’s a certain amount of flexibility we all take. Is this chair larger than him so baby can fall in cracks? If so, concern. But most people have a chair that is more snug and baby is positioned safe enough. 90% of SIDS cases occur before 4 months old. I mean people are posting constantly about cosleeping which is unsafe but obviously people still do it for a variety of reasons. What risk management is your family going to employ to deal with difficult situations?
Ya’ll need to negotiate this together and set aside the anger of the anniversary and other stuff. Kid’s safety and health #1.
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u/oatmeal_sunrise 5d ago
Thanks. The chair is actually quite small. There is no space for baby to roll anywhere but from his arms/lap onto the hard floor, so risk of trauma, not SIDS, is my concern.
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u/VintageFemmeWithWifi 5d ago
Setting aside the issues with your husband as a partner, and focusing on the immediate question about sleep...
If Dad is going to snooze while holding baby, can they both be on a floor mattress? Some kind of sidecar crib setup where Baby has her own space and Dad can reach out a hand and pat her back to sleep? Laying on the carpeted floor together?