How to sleep with baby and daddy w/ out waking both

[cookiemom]

Hi
I have a 6 mo old who has been exclusively breastfed and wakes up 3 times a night in our bed to nurse. If I don't catch her in time she flails and cries loudly and wakes up my husband who has to go to work in the morning. I have been having a hard time sleeping in anticipation of her cries as well and she tends to run hot which also keeps me awake. My husband is considering getting a crib for her--but that won't solve the crying at night--especially in the same room. Will the night feedings go eventually once she has more solids in her diet? She constantly needs a nipple in her mouth to fall asleep--even for naps! (we don't use pacifiers) If she can' be nursed (ie: in carseat) she screams until she wears herself out. Baby also likes to have a hand on me and her feet up on me, so if I get up to use the bathroom, it often wakes her up and she screams. I'm trying to be gentle with her, but my husband needs his sleep and I cant go too far with her in a 1BR apt. Any ideas on how to make this work? :yawning

[MommaCrystal]

Ummm... ask your husband to relax and deal with it? Seriously! He can't handle being woken up for a minute or few times a night? My guess is you have the babe quiet and settling back down in the time it takes your DH to roll over. I think the expectation that your husband will never be awoken by your baby when you live in a 1 bedroom apartment is unrealistic.

[akind1]

At 6 months she should be past the point of possibl nipple confusion - you could try a paci (it wouldn't hurt) although DS started rejecting them around 5 months in favor of his thumb.

Does she sleep on the outside of the bed, or between you and your DH? will she cuddle with your DH at all - meaning could you move her gently close to him for cuddles while you get up and pee? If I do this, I nudge DH and let him know to cuddle the baby, he doesn't need to be fully awake to do this, but it helps him be aware of DS at least.

Once I come back to bed, usually DS rolls over to me anyway, but it helps for DH to have some involvement at night time.

[ErinYay]

My husband also has to get up early for work, but fortunately he understands that sometimes you're tired when you have a baby; it's just part of the deal. I'm very blessed to have him- he is a full partner and knows that our daughter doesn't only have one parent at night.

You might want to reinforce to your DH how much MORE disturbing it would be to remove the baby- you'd have to get up and get back into bed each time, and you'll end up so sleepy that in a few days, baby will end up awaking fully and screaming- good luck to him sleeping through that 3+ times a night.

V takes a paci, and most nights just resettling her with her paci next to us is all she needs- she hasn't nursed in the middle of the night for a week straight now (she goes about 50-75% of the time STTN, since about 6 months.) If your little one isn't used to a paci, though, he may not take one. My girl would take any brand at any time when she was a newborn, but now will only take her Mams (she'll chew on Nuks and some weird pink vanilla one, but not chill out with them.)

[cookiemom]

Thanks Katrina, maybe we will give a pacifier one more try. DH usually grabs her when she wakes up to protest, but maybe we can work on a gentler handoff like you suggested.

I'll try anything to make things better for both of them at night. She hasn't accepted any pacifiers since birth--she won't even drink a pumped bottle of breastmilk if I leave her w/ DH. DH tries every minute that he's here to bond with her, but all she wants is me. He's tried to take her to bed with him and she just cries until I'm there to nurse her down. He can't placate her for more than ten minutes when it comes to sleep.

I appreciate the suggestions from everyone. Sorry I didn't clarify my DH's involvement. He actually was my doula at our homebirth and was amazing. I am disturbed that people would make assumptions by the way I wrote my initial posting. I was looking for ideas, advice, support. Not implied husband bashing, or bragging. I probably don't need to explain myself but, he thought a crib might be a way to help the baby as we are new parents and wondered if we were setting her off at night somehow with movement being in the same bed. I just see how tired he is, and he's our livelihood at this point, so I just want him to be able to function at his job so he doesn't get fired. It's probably me not sleeping more and worrying---I'm just hoping eventually the nightfeeding will go down. Dr. Sears had some suggestions about night parenting, but it seemed more geared toward toddlers who nurse. I want her to feel comfortable about nursing and do it as long as she wants, so I don't want to do anything to discourage her now.

just wondered if there was anyone out there in a similar situation, oh well. thx.

[astar326]

i hear you. we co-sleep and i worry about dh getting enough sleep. i have found introducing foods to have little to no impact on how often he nurses through the night. some nights it's every hour, some nights he doesn't for 6-8 hours. early on dh and i discussed our night time parenting, i nurse him to sleep and if ds wakes and is loud dh will ask me to take him to another room to calm him and nurse him back to sleep. this being said we only have done this 2 or 3 times (mainly due to teething issues). in your case having a small place would make this a challenge. fyi we co-sleep: with ds next to me and not both of us.