"Hello babies. Welcome to Earth. It's hot in the summer and cold in the winter. It's round and wet and crowded. On the outside, babies, you've got a hundred years here. There's only one rule that I know of, babies-"God damn it, you've got to be kind.”
Why the hell would you bathe an infant at 10 pm? No, you won't be up until midnight. Bedtime does naturally drift to about 7:30 pm by a few months in. Just pick him up and feed him when he cries and put him straight back to bed. Team DH.
Post by mainelyfoolish on Jul 29, 2014 21:18:59 GMT -5
Skip the bath.
I'm not sure how old your baby is, but my kids weren't on any kind of a real schedule until at least three months old. As soon as you think you have a pattern, the kid changes. Roll with the punches.
Post by bugandbibs on Jul 29, 2014 21:21:44 GMT -5
Team you. The person who deals with MOTN gets to decide when bedtime is.
My babies have always had later bedtimes so that their major chunk of sleep time meshes with mine. I understand your frustration. Skip the bath and try to treat any wake ups as regular MOTN waking.
share.memebox.com/x/uKhKaZmemebox referal code for 20% off! DD1 "J" born 3/2003 DD2 "G" born 4/2011 DS is here! "H" born 2/2014 m/c#3 1-13-13 @ 9 weeks m/c#2 11-11-12 @ 5w2d I am an extended breastfeeding, cloth diapering, baby wearing, pro marriage equality, birth control lovin', Catholic mama.
I would be totally annoyed if I were you, but mainly because H disregarded a plan/schedule that was important to me without discussing it (regardless of who's idea is more right). Him deciding without me would make me feel trivialized and disrespected and that combined with being tired would turn me into a ragey bitch. So I just wanted to chime in and say I totally get where you are coming from and hang in there. In my experience, these situations in my house seem less annoying in the morning light
Post by ilikedonuts on Jul 29, 2014 21:31:56 GMT -5
Your schedule is what we did with both kids until like 3 months old. I would have been pissed if my DH screwed without it without discussing it with me especially since you are nursing.
Buuuuuut when you are tired is not the time to argue about it. I would see how your son does and if it does not go well, this is exactly what your husband needs to see especially when you are dealing with the MOTN stuff.
Post by AlpineSlide on Jul 29, 2014 21:34:05 GMT -5
I mean, I'm team you because *I* thrive on a routine/schedule so a change to what I expect throws me off and I'd be mad too, the baby doesn't know what's happening at that age. With that being said, your H wasn't wrong either, so forgive and forget IMO. Get yourself to bed and have him bring you the baby when he wakes up.
If he does wake up at 4am and thinks it is morning, keep it dark, don't talk, act like it is still MOTN (which it is!) and just work quickly (diaper, feed) and quietly to get him back to sleep.
YOU are right. If he has a suggestion about how to handle the nighttime routine he should talk to you about it, unless he is handling the majority of the MOTN duties.
DD is 7.5 months old and she shifts her schedule by an hour either way about every 2 days. So I wouldn't be too worried that his schedule is now off. I would just roll with his wake ups and sleepy times right now but obviously no playing in the MOTN, keep the room dark, etc.
But yeah, I would be pissed that your husband disregarded what you were trying to maintain. This has led to severe blowups in our house and only now has my husband agreed that yes, we need to be on the same page and sometimes I am the one who knows what that page is.
My DH totally defers to me about the night schedule because I do all Motn. We are on a similar schedule. We bath at 11:00 and then I feed her and to bed for a 4ish hour sleep. I would be annoyed because it changes my sleep routine.
He's 5 weeks? What would the baby have been doing if he wasn't asleep when your H put him down? Schedules and routines are for your benefit at this point and basically mean nothing to the baby so I'd try to get past this.
You being upset doesn't automatically mean you're right." Honestly it sounds like you need a break. Can your H take a MOTN feeding?
What would you have had DH do? Newborns sleep when they sleep. Whether he calls it "bedtime" or "last nap" is pretty irrelevant and will make no difference to when morning is.
I totally understand how you feel. In the beginning, we would only let j do one nap/set of sleeping in the swing. That's when she gave us 3-4 hour stretches. And I absolutely needed those for my sanity.
In your shoes, I'd ask H to take morning duty if you have a rough night. Then you sleep.
Have a discussion tomorrow about bedtime and be consistent.
You're both right, sort of. At five weeks you need to roll with the punches, but if you're the one doing MOTN, you get to direct the shitshow that is having a newborn.
FWIW, dd was going to bed around 10:30 around that age and she naturally settled into her own schedule. Now bedtime is between 7:30-8:30. Sometimes she sleeps until her last nursing session, other times she wants to wake up and play. I'm still breezy on this because she sleeps through the night.
I think I vote both right, but mostly you. At this age "bedtime" isn't all that important for the baby, but it's important for the parents! If MOTN falls more on you then you should be able to exercise some control over when the long sleep stretch happens. If the night is hard, can dad take the baby whenever baby is up for the day?
Also -- and I struggle with this too -- it might be worth trying to be zen about ZOMG CHANGE IN ROUTINE WHAT WILL IT MEAN FOR BABY'S SLEEP? At some level, baby's gonna do what baby's gonna do; letting the nap schedule exercise total control over mom and dad's life isn't exactly a plan for sane living.
Also -- and I struggle with this too -- it might be worth trying to be zen about ZOMG CHANGE IN ROUTINE WHAT WILL IT MEAN FOR BABY'S SLEEP? At some level, baby's gonna do what baby's gonna do; letting the nap schedule exercise total control over mom and dad's life isn't exactly a plan for sane living.
This is so true. Sometimes, you have to go with the flow even though it is really hard to let it go!
I need to get me one of these babies that sleeps more than 2-3 hours at a time. I have one that basically only naps so a bedtime really doesn't matter. Baby sleeps when baby sleeps.
I guess I'm on team neither/both. At 5w you're both still in survival mode/figuring shit out. He should communicate what he's doing but you should cut him some slack.
Post by jeaniebueller on Jul 30, 2014 3:38:39 GMT -5
At 5 weeks old, you should let the baby fall asleep when he wants. I get your point and understand your frustration, but you really have to go with the flow more with a baby that age.
And you'll need to update later how the night went.
If your baby is tired at 730, I don't see why he shouldn't be put to sleep at 730. 5 week olds really don't have schedules and it will evolve on its own. Try to roll with it! When baby wakes up at 4am, just feed him quietly, change him if necessary and try to put him back down to sleep. He will eventually pick up on the fact that nighttime isn't playtime.
PS I'm impressed that your baby can stay up for 2 hours straight! Mine would turn into a crying mess after an hour of being awake for the first 2 months or so. She is just now being able to stay up for several hours.
Post by curbsideprophet on Jul 30, 2014 7:35:40 GMT -5
What did you want DH to do at 7:30? That is three hours before you wanted to put him to bed. I certainly would not expect a five week old to stay awake for three hours plus (I am assuming he was awake for a least a little before 7:30). So LO would need a nap somewhere in there. I am with everyone else on the bath. Definitely not necessary at 10:30 pm.
I will tell you our experience. I know every baby is different and maybe DD would have been a whiney mess in the evenings no matter what but...
With DD we put her to bed when we were going to bed after the first few weeks. This worked for a little while. Then evenings just became a disaster. She was giving what we thought were hunger cues. We thought she was just cluster feeding/hungry and everyone talks about the witching hours, so it seemed normal. Really we now think she she was tired. We started moving bedtime earlier and things got much better. I honestly do not remember when we moved bedtime earlier, but wish we had done it sooner.
With DS we have pretty much started putting him to bed whenever he seems tired/hungry between 6:45 and 8 pm. He is only 7 weeks so nothing is a strict time yet. We have been doing this since he was about 2 weeks old I guess and it is going so much better.
I absolutely understand the logic/desire of putting the baby to bed when you go to bed since it seems like that is how you will get the most sleep. However an earlier bedtime may not be as bad as you think.
Post by dcrunnergirl52 on Jul 30, 2014 7:54:48 GMT -5
I'm sort of Team DH. If the baby was tired at 7:30pm, how were you supposed to keep him awake? I'm a pretty routine/flexible schedule oriented person when it comes to babies, so I get being upset if DH messed with what I had going on. But, on the other hand, if the baby wants to take a long nap/go to bed at 7:30pm, I'd embrace it and enjoy the downtime to take a long bath, have a glass of wine, etc.
My LOs started 6:30pm or so bedtimes around that age, and I swear it is the one of the keys to our (DH and me) happiness...that downtime together in the evening. In some ways, it was almost more important than sleep.
Post by barefootcontessa on Jul 30, 2014 8:04:03 GMT -5
I think your DH should defer to you since you are doing the bulk of the overnight childcare. one thing that really worked for us is me going to bed with my older children (so 8pm) and then my husband would take care of chores and prep for next day. when the baby would wake around 11pm he would get baby changed and then I would nurse and my husband would get him settled back down. this gave me a head start on sleep and then I would take over MOTN duties.
Post by teatimefor2 on Jul 30, 2014 8:11:21 GMT -5
At five weeks, we were still sleeping when he slept. I would get rid of the 10:00 pm bath.
If he sleeps at 7:30 pm let him sleep and just act as if his bedtime is at 7:30. Until 7:00 am just nurse and try to put him back down. Baby will learn that it's not play time. We nursed, but if DS wasn't going back down after I would tag DH in to parent.
At this point, everything is still new, you're both tired. Give yourselves a break. Stop arguing over who is right and go to bed. At that time, I think we were going to bed at 8 and I was nursing at 10:30/1:00/3:30/6:30.
Ok, so he's a little young to start a schedule, but if he is tired and falling asleep at 7:30, I think you should roll with it. Keeping babies up when they are tired is no bueno. Even if he has one more wake up than normal by putting him down earlier, he will likely still get more overall night sleep, which is good for you and him. In most cases, sleep begets sleep.
I can't "like" this enough. I can still vividly remember that I'd try to keep DS up until he got "really tired". Thinking it would help him sleep longer overnight. Then I read "put them to bed at the FIRST sign of being tired." and the whole sleep begets sleep thing.
That night I tried it and, well, it worked. He went to bed SO much easier and he had his longest stretch of sleep to date at that point.
I can't remember how old he was- but he was YOUNG. Under 2 months old.
Granted, every child is different, but for me - from that night on, I put DS down at the first signs of sleepiness and never looked back.
I agree I think you're both right. I mean, little babies fall asleep when they fall asleep and you shouldn't really try to schedule him yet ., so I can see why your husband let him sleep. Otoh, you're the one dealing with the fallout so he should have discussed it with you first. Hope you slept well!
At 5 weeks the girls were still on a 3 hour(ish) schedule, so it was a constant rotation of eat, awake for a little bit, sleep. I don't think there's any real "bedtime" at that age, but if my H had changed the routine on me I would have probably started crying hysterically. Between hormones, sleep deprivation, and wanting to see some order during a time when there really is none that would have made me really upset, even if it shouldn't have.
I would try to go with the flow now but also make sure that he understands that when your LO gets older a schedule is very, very important and should only be changed when you've talked about it. From 3-12 months we lived and died by a schedule.