Cosleep transition, Getting DH more involved.

[EssJohnson]

From the time my now 17 month old was 7 months old, she's been sleeping in bed with me. In the beginning she slept with me and DH but as time went on, DD has become quite a bedhog and there simply wasn't room for three of us in our queen bed. So DH sleeps on a twin in our guestroom. It's been that way for 7 months. I simply started cosleeping because I was exhausted from waking up several times a night every night...even the times when she just needed a diaper change or rocked back to sleep. I think that in order to get her to sleep on her own I will need to night wean her, but I also BADLY, DESPERATELY need DH's help when it comes to getting her to fall back asleep at night if we have any chance of success because I simply can not do it alone since I do 100 percent of the parenting and get barely enough sleep as it is to get by. I am simply burned out from doing too much and not really having encouragement or support from anyone. Yes, there is resentment on my behalf towards DH because I don't feel he does his fair share. He works a full time job and has other projects he does on the side, but always finds time for his hobbies and himself while I'm stuck picking up the slack. I've talked with him before and told him the only way to get DD to sleep through the night and in her own bed is for him to help me do it, but he's yet to actually follow through. How can I get him to help me not only get her on the path to sleeping in her own bed but also help me with parenting her?

[Emmery'sMom]

HUGS Mama If you figure out the answers, let me know... I deal with the same thing from my DH.

I thought I would need DH's help with night weaning too, but it turned out she wouldn't have anything to do with him at night because she wasn't used to him even being in bed with us. If he so much as tries to touch her at night when she wakes up she flips her lid. And he wasn't consistent in sleeping with us when I asked him to start doing that (he did it once a week?) so she never could get used to him.

I ended up night weaning her on my own, no tears. Well we are on night 9 now, but it's gone so smooth. I know it's been SO much better than it would have if I had involved my DH.

My experience with making sure he takes on his share of parenting duties- last week after we had a pretty remarkable 2 solid days of his being totally involved, he made the comment that DD and I must be getting more sleep with the night weaning because I was in a better mood. I made sure to tell him that I was actually getting less sleep in those first few days, but that it was his help, his involvement, his being present that had made all the difference in the world for me. That was yesterday. He sorta went back to his prior behavior today We'll see what the weekend brings.

[tamaricek]

baby in her own bed

Dear moms,
From the beginning I tried to get my baby girl to sleep in her own bed. At first, every time she would wake up, I would have to get up and help her go back to sleep, and it would completely exhaust me!
However, my dear mom had a great idea, which I now use with great pleasure!
Baby's crib has wheels, so at night I put it right next to our bed, so we see each other and when she wakes up it's just me putting the hand through her crib fence and holding her hand, she falls asleep immediately without me getting up or her waking up before I could reach her bed. Best of all, our bed has remained my husbands' and mine, which I believe is the only way to gain closeness between him and the baby, to get him to cooperate by realizing what parenting really is, by being there and helping out !
Best of luck!

[EssJohnson]

While I can empathize with you, Emmery's Mom (love the name Emmery) I am actually glad someone else is having my experience. I thought it was my fault or that I am just asking for too much or something. Still I would love to hear how to get DH more involved everyday. My DH does the same thing as yours..helps out every great once in a while and in front of his relatives but isn't consistent. I don't get it.

[Emmery'sMom]

Oh Geez! In front of friends/relatives my DH is father of the year!!
He eats meals with us but the rest of the time he's in his office playing WoW. I have to MAKE him come out for 10 minutes and play with her or take her outside. And then he's on his blackberry texting his friends and ignoring his daughter

One of these days he's going to wake up and wish he had spent more time with her instead of on computer games and his phone. And I WILL say I told ya so.....

[Louisep]

It took us a long time but now DH can see to every waking and also we take it in turns to cosleep with him. Here is our experience:

At 9.5 months, DS was no longer nursing to sleep and started to not like being bounced to sleep (by me), so every night dh and I lay either side of DS until he fell asleep. Usually I would be cuddling him. This got DS used to having DH involved at night. After a few weeks of that, DH then started trying to put DS back down at the first wake up (after 45mins to 1.5 hours of being asleep). It didn't work at first, so I would go back in after 10 minutes or so depending on how bad the crying was (2 minutes of bad screaming and I would go in, light fussing I would leave them to it for 10 minutes).

I'd say we had this routine for 2 months and DH slowly started having success at the first wake up. There were also times when DS was up for hours in the night and I had had enough. I would give him to dh and go sleep in another room (dh was sleeping in another room at this time) and ds would sleep just fine for a few hours with no crying.

The next "step" for us was partial nightweaning at 12 months. I don't really know if it helped the number of wakings, but it probably helped ds accept comfort from dh. I did it so so so gradually that there was no crying involved, maybe fussing, and I didn't even get dh involved in the weaning. But after the weaning and continuing with our nightly routine, dh was able without fail to go to ds on the first and sometimes subsequent wakings.

Fast forward another 2 months and ds had weaned altogether (kind of child-led kind of mama-led). At this point, I had dh come back in the bed with us and he would attend to the night wakings every other night. If he couldn't do it, ds would come to me.

Now, another 2 months on, dh and I take it in turns to sleep with ds who wakes 1 to 3 times a night but increasingly only once. I have terrible insomnia issues and dh snores which is why we do not all co-sleep.

I guess our story is that it takes a lot of time, patience, and consistency. I also get the sense from reading posts that some babies are just so much more attached to boob than my little guy ever was and that probably helped some. However, he was up there with the worst night wakers - every 1-2 hours or less. Getting all his teeth through by 14 months absolutely was the final breakthrough to good sleep and naps.

Sorry, this is long, I hope it helps. I would just start slowly getting your dh/dp involved in a consistent way and stick with it.

Hugs, the babes sleep eventually. I was glued to this board on a daily basis for months and months and I've seen so many of us with poor sleepers get through it.

[allisonrose]

We also found that our queen size isn't large enough to accomodate all three of us. You might consider moving that twin size bed into your master bedroom if at all possible. We have a queen and a full mattress next to each other on the floor. So we sleep in the same room but separate surfaces. Although just because my hubby's in the same room, he doesn't necessarily help out and unfortunately our son will be all about Mommy sometimes.