Do you get up when you hear baby crying...

(((newmama))) I understand where you're coming from on this. When Will was younger, this was a tough area in our house, too. A lot of the time, I *knew* that if I just got up and took 30 minutes to soothe him back to sleep, we could all go to sleep. But if I let DH try, Will would still fuss, and I couldn't sleep while hearing it, so no one got any sleep.

What I finally did was make an agreement w/myself. I would *try* to go back to sleep when DH was working w/Will, but if after a certain amount of time, or if Will got fussier, I'd get up and take over. I know that a lot of people will tell you that if you constantly take over from DH, he'll never learn how to soothe the baby. But (in our case), DH could try all he wanted and sometimes Will just wanted ME. Now that Will's older and DH has spent more time w/him in a non-fussy mode, it's easier for them to work together. In fact, when DH is home at Will's bedtime, he has MUCH better luck getting him to sleep peacefully - now. When Will was 2 or 3 months, that just wouldn't happen - he needed mama.

If, however, your DS fusses regardless of who's got him, I guess I'd say leave it w/your DH. I know it's tough to "ignore" your baby, but remember he's not being ignored - your DH is with him. Make sure your DH knows he can wake you up if he starts to get too frustrated, or if he thinks you could nurse DS to sleep, or if he really thinks DS just wants you. Maybe it would help for DH to take DS as far away from the bedroom as possible so you wouldn't hear and worry about them.

Good luck. I hope you're able to find a solution to this. It's no fun being a sleep-deprived mama. Have you tried bringing DS into your bed and letting him nurse/fuss himself to sleep? For awhile, that's the only thing that saved me. I knew that DS was safe - he was right beside me, but I was still able to doze. And a lot of the time, if I was relaxed/sleeping, DS would doze off, too.

How about ear plugs?

You don't nurse, right? So probably you don't have any tricks dh can't do or learn and you need his help. Your son will be fine with your husbands loving care. You need to get some some sleep. Taking care of yourself is just as important as taking care of that sweet baby Although I can totally see how you can't sleep when he is crying or even fussing- that's why I recommend some ear plugs! Perhaps if you and dh agreed to certain times that he would wake you up then you could sleep knowing that dh would get you if ds just needs mama.

I agree that your DH needs to handle this. Teh baby needs to become intuned with him also. since your not nursing(I'm assuming) there's no reason your DH can't try to handle this. I know hearing your baby cry is agaonizing maybe you can tell him a few things to try or let hime bring a shirt with him of your scent. also he can try the kangaroo method(skin to skin contact). Maybe you can give it so many days without helping him to see if it helps. My firstborn was bottlefed and Dh use to tell me all the time to go back to bed he had him nut I would just hear him cry and have to intervine. Finally Dh told me one day that it made him feel like I though he didn't know hwta he was doing so I stopped after about a week of it they got in tune with each other.
Maybe that's why he supports me nursing now cause of the bad flash backs :

I agree with Kinsey. Let your DH do his best for 45 minutes (or whatever time limit you set for yourself), then go in and help. I absolutely agree that your DH needs to do his part in quieting your DS, it is important for both your DH's sense of confidence and the babe's sense of comfort with DH. But I personally couldn't possibly sleep while DH tried to comfort the babe for HOURS... I just wouldn't physically be able to stay out of the room!