Breastfeeding
trinny
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XP: working moms and night-waking
trinny
member
How do you share resp at night? Right now it is all me--this was ok when DD was up once a night, but now that she is up more like 3 times, it isn't working anymore. DH says I can get him up anytime I need, but that usually doesn't work so well since the perception is she is my resp and he is just a resource.
I think he finally understands I am sleep deprived and it is starting to impact work. I think we just need a better action plan.
TIA!!!This discussion has been closed.
Re: XP: working moms and night-waking
I hit the wall at about five months. I was up several times a night and just couldn't function during the day, I was short with the older boys - not good for anyone.
That's when DH stepped up and started handling the night wakings. We slowly eliminated the night time feedings (DH gave him pumped BM in a bottle) and eventually tried to soothe him back to sleep vs. feeding him. It only took about two weeks for Ryan to start sleeping through the night consistently.
As I am remembering this I need to go home and kiss my husband and thank him again because I would bring the baby to bed with me but that was a short term gain/long term loss. DH had to step up and take over night duty b/c if I went in Ryan's room at night he would want to nurse and get mad if I tried to soothe him. With DH, he settled down quickly and went back to sleep.
It worked for us - I hope you can convince your DH to help you out!
My twins are 5! My baby is 3!
DS#2 - Allergic to Cashew, Pistachio, Kiwi
DS#3 - Allergic to Milk, Egg, Peanut, Tree Nuts and Sesame
At the first wake-up, DH gets out of bed, goes up to the nursery, changes baby's diaper and brings baby into our bed, where I feed him side-lying so I can continue resting. I don't have to fully wake up (or wake for long) and doze off quickly as baby starts comfortably feeding. Baby will fall back to sleep for another 2-3 hours, then, start squirming again. I roll over and offer baby the other boob and drift back to sleep. Normally, I'll take baby back to his crib around 4:30am so that I can get the last hour of sleep by myself, as I do sleep better without baby in bed. Not ideal, but much better than when I was making the trek upstairs to the nursery 3 or more times a night.
I very much like the advice of pp above about sending DH up to do a bottle then just to soothe back to sleep. She says it only took 2 weeks for baby to sleep through the night. Sounds like a dream. I did read about this method in the No Cry Sleep Solution and we've talked about it. Perhaps it's time to implement.
I went back to work at 5 months, so DH stepped in then. I knew LO didn't need to eat as often as he was getting up (3-4+ times a night). So now anytime LO wakes before 1 am DH goes in and puts him back to sleep (he almost never gets up before this time anymore). If he wakes up after 1 am I'll feed him once (this usually happens between 1:30-2:30). If he wakes up again (which he always does right now between 5-6), usually DH will go back in and get him back to sleep. Although the last couple of nights he's been difficult and won't go back to sleep, so we've given in and brought him to bed with us and I nurse him, which totally undoes all the "work" we've been doing to try to not feed him and get him back to sleep.