dd won't be comforted by dh at night

[patronus]

for the first 6 months, dd slept in an arm's reach co-sleeper on my side of the bed and i would attend to her if she woke at night. at 6 months she physically grew out of the co-sleeper and we transitioned her to the crib. to which i thought "great, this is a good opportunity for dh to help with nighttime parenting!"
since moving to the crib dd wakes 3+ times a night (she would almost always sleep all night when in the co-sleeper). if light comforting isn't working i nurse her and she usually goes back to sleep pretty easily. i probably nurse her about 50% of the time when she wakes at night.

if dh tries to comfort her, 100% of the time she will just become more and more upset and i will end up coming in to nurse her so she can calm down enough to be put back to sleep. -and i'm awake listening to her cry the whole time, which totally defeats the purpose of dh taking on some of the burden of nighttime parenting.

dh is becoming very frustrated and is feeling inadequate because he's never able to sooth her back to sleep. the other night after i took over and she calmed immediately, he yelled from the other room "i can't help her, i don't have milk!!" poor dh. and poor me, i'm exhausted.

anyone have any words of wisdom for me? i want my dh to be as involved as possible and i'd love some help at night, but things are not going well. should i just resolve to be nighttime parent on duty until we are weaned? (not planning on weaning at 1 year or anytime soon after that)
it's extra crappy because it feels like bfing has become a divisive issue for us. he's a huge bfing advocate and doesn't want her to wean or anything, but he's so frustrated that he can't comfort her in the way that i can. i don't think it's a possibility for him to give her a bottle in the middle of the night. she would just be freaking out for the 10 minutes or so that it takes to get & warm a bottle and i don't feel comfortable with that.

[sunnygir1]

It might not be until you wean, but I think your best option is to do the nighttime parenting yourself. As a fellow sleep-deprived mother, I feel your pain, but our family has not found a solution to this problem with little babies. As a toddler, dd began to be fine with ds with night wakings, but even at 3.5 she still occasionally throws a fit for me until I get up. We night weaned at 17-18 months and aroud and after that time dh began to be able to help a little.

Ds is 1 and there is no way dh can comfort him at night, so I still do the vast majority of nighttime parenting.

[raqi]

I know this isn't exactly what you were asking, but could you side-car the crib? More room for babe, less getting up for you (and for DH)!

[shotmama]

DH is also a huge BF advocate (the one who convinced me it was the right thing to do actually), and he's a very hands on dad. but for good while up until a few weeks ago (DD is almost 11 mo), he wasn't able to night comfort her. his feelings were really shot for a while. our LO still nurses a whole bunch through the night, but times when she needs more comfort (like teething periods) DH would just make her more upset. he would be doing nothing wrong or different from what i would do, she just wanted me. even during the day she preferred me, almost ignoring he would exist.

is your LO needing more daddy bonding time?

it took a few months, but as soon as i noticed his feelings were too hurt about it, i had DH feed her dinner when he came home, and hold DD whenever possible, and whenever she allowed him to. when we go shopping for groceries, i make sure he carries her while i push the cart. when he's taking some 'down time' after work, i would encourage him to at least make her laugh, smile, etc. while he was at work i made sure to talk about him often. like, "wonder when papa will come home? maybe after your nap?" "papa's car is not here! it will be back soon!" and "papa likes this, too!"

and i know this sounds corny but whenever we hear his car pull up i bring her to the door or a window and try to get her excited about it. we greet him at the door, too. i figure i won't do that anymore when DD doesn't need prompting anymore about getting excited.

i also make sure to kiss DH, and cuddle with him in front of her. (i think this is important.)

although it's not full proof, he can now comfort her 60-70% of the time he attempts to. she now crawls to him a lot during the day and gives him slobbery baby kisses, hehe!

[Asiago]

Originally Posted by raqi

I know this isn't exactly what you were asking, but could you side-car the crib? More room for babe, less getting up for you (and for DH)!

My thought also.

[MamaPhD]

It was the same for us until we weaned at 18 months. DH and I actually both preferred me doing the night duty because DD only woke once at night most of the time from early on, plus I could get her back to sleep under 5 min. I didn't mind having to wake up & DH didn't mind getting to sleep because he works long hours. We have activities/jokes/plays/etc that DD only does with DH which is enough to make DH feel special without being involved in night feeding/comforting. Maybe it's all how you look at it?

[ivymae]

We've been there, except my girls never slept through the night this early! Nighttime parenting is a huge stresser in the first few years (we had a lot of nights like you've described, where he's frustrated, baby is worked up, and i am laying in bed exhausted and irrationally angry), but our solution is that I do the basic nighttime parenting until they are weaned, and then daddy takes all the night time wakings after that. For me, it's paid off - I did two years of waking up a few times a night (which could usually easily be taken care of with a bit of nursing), and then he's taken on all the drama that is bedtime and middle of the night wakings with toddlers/preschoolers. It is a transition - we didn't just wean suddenly and then throw them in together while i cackled in the other room - and by the time they were fully weaned, they had come to expect daddy when they started yelling at night, not mama. We do tag team on really rough nights (with babies or preschoolers), but for the most part, everyone gets more sleep if I take the baby's needs, and he adresses the older kids.

[patronus]

thanks for your words of wisdom ladies. i've resigned myself to the fact that i'm going to be doing the night time parenting. it's fine, i'm functioning most days and i'm getting good about sneaking in a few naps during the day (like when i pump at work )
we are working on lots of daddy bonding too.

can i say though, that i'm sick of people telling me that i'm "training" her to need me at night by getting up to comfort her and or nurse when she wakes up crying?

if i share my woes with fellow parents they give me that "oh, you're *feeding* her when she gets up in the middle of the night?" (like, "you're going to regret setting that precedent").

i'd rather risk setting a pattern of her getting up than just letting her CIO until she's exhausted and lost all hope that i'll help her

[jecombs]

Another Mama who's BTDT! And is actually currently "there" and "doing that" again. I've come to think this is just normal behavior for BF babies. They don't always want the milk right at that moment, but they want to know it's available *just in case* they need it.

Take heart, because now my DH does the vast majority of the nighttime and bedtime parenting with our 3 y.o. DD, while I handle infant DS's needs. The one thing that saved me when DD was an infant and waking 3-5x per night was co-sleeping. I could roll over and nurse her, while barely waking up myself. I'm a WOH Mama, so it's important that I get some rest at night, so I can function at work the next day. For me, co-sleeping was the answer to that. When DD got bigger, we did end up side-carring the crib so we would all have more room at night.

I night-weaned DD at 14 mo. old, but went on to continue daytime nursing her until she was 26 mo. (I stopped pumping too). That was absolutely my favorite part of nursing her, because I got all the rewards and good feelings of nursing, but without the hassle of pumping or nighttime feeding!

[Asiago]

Originally Posted by patronus

can i say though, that i'm sick of people telling me that i'm "training" her to need me at night by getting up to comfort her and or nurse when she wakes up crying?

if i share my woes with fellow parents they give me that "oh, you're *feeding* her when she gets up in the middle of the night?" (like, "you're going to regret setting that precedent").

That's so sad

[skfmama]

I can relate. DS is 6 months old and I have to put him down for all naps and nightly wake ups. I think part of it is that I'm a SAHM and DH works - so DH isn't really around for naps. DS associates his daddy with playing, not sleeping, so he gets mad when DH tries to rock him and doesn't play with him.

But, some things that are kind of helping - whenever possible, they hang out. Even without me around (in another room, or even going out and getting a break for an hour or two). They've just recently started running errands together, without me. I think them being together without me sometimes definintly helps with bonding.

Usually, I'm okay with handling the nighttime wake ups. DS's sleep is okay, although the last few nights it's been pretty bad. We plan to have DH help with nightweaning, when we do that after a year. And once he's nightweaned, I think DH will take over all the wakings.

But, sometimes on bad nights I do ask DH to help rock DS to sleep. Especially if I just nursed DS and he's up again within an hour. Two times now, it's worked! And each time DS cried less and went to sleep faster. Granted, he didn't stay asleep long, but he wasn't staying asleep long when I was rocking or nursing him either.

So it's hard to handle all the nighttime parenting mainly on my own right now...especially when DH complains about how tired he is. But I know that comforting my son at night and following his cues for nursing (even at night, and especially in the first year) is how we're supposed to raise our children. DH is very supportive of that, although it is hard bc none of my friends really do that and do CIO and have babies who "STTN" (although I don't always believe them). Besides DH, I don't feel like I have much support.

And oh, I wish we could cosleep sometimes. But it's just not possible for us right now.

Hang in there, mama! You're doing a great job!