When CIO Doesn't Work...

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Man I really wonder how some of y’all stay married. Most of these cosleepers probably never have sex, which is precisely why cosleeping is off the table for both my DH and I. OP, he’s not a bad husband for wanting to share a bed and sleep with his wife, depression or not. Hire a sleep consultant. This isn’t hard.

It’s pretty easy to have sex while cosleeping. It’s not that different from having them in a crib or other room except you have to be quieter I guess. With young babies, you can just get them asleep on another part of the bed. With older babies or toddlers, you can get them to sleep then go have sex in another room. I mean, how do you think people had sex for most of human history before separate bedrooms became common?

There’s always time for sex no matter where your child sleeps or how bad a sleeper they are. Even if they wake up every hour, that is still plenty of time to have sex. I know because I’ve been there.

Sounds so much easier to simply have your kids sleep in their own rooms. People coslept for years because they had limited space and no other options.

Actually no. In my experience, it’s way simpler to cosleep with an infant that go through the whole thing of soothing then, putting them down, hoping they stay asleep, analyzing why they’re not sleeping, etc etc.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Man I really wonder how some of y’all stay married. Most of these cosleepers probably never have sex, which is precisely why cosleeping is off the table for both my DH and I. OP, he’s not a bad husband for wanting to share a bed and sleep with his wife, depression or not. Hire a sleep consultant. This isn’t hard.

It’s pretty easy to have sex while cosleeping. It’s not that different from having them in a crib or other room except you have to be quieter I guess. With young babies, you can just get them asleep on another part of the bed. With older babies or toddlers, you can get them to sleep then go have sex in another room. I mean, how do you think people had sex for most of human history before separate bedrooms became common?

There’s always time for sex no matter where your child sleeps or how bad a sleeper they are. Even if they wake up every hour, that is still plenty of time to have sex. I know because I’ve been there.

Sounds so much easier to simply have your kids sleep in their own rooms. People coslept for years because they had limited space and no other options.

Actually no. In my experience, it’s way simpler to cosleep with an infant that go through the whole thing of soothing then, putting them down, hoping they stay asleep, analyzing why they’re not sleeping, etc etc.

Cool. Well sounds like it’s not going well for OP.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Man I really wonder how some of y’all stay married. Most of these cosleepers probably never have sex, which is precisely why cosleeping is off the table for both my DH and I. OP, he’s not a bad husband for wanting to share a bed and sleep with his wife, depression or not. Hire a sleep consultant. This isn’t hard.

It’s pretty easy to have sex while cosleeping. It’s not that different from having them in a crib or other room except you have to be quieter I guess. With young babies, you can just get them asleep on another part of the bed. With older babies or toddlers, you can get them to sleep then go have sex in another room. I mean, how do you think people had sex for most of human history before separate bedrooms became common?

There’s always time for sex no matter where your child sleeps or how bad a sleeper they are. Even if they wake up every hour, that is still plenty of time to have sex. I know because I’ve been there.

Haha just when I think I am fully liberated I read this and realize how puritanical I really am.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Man I really wonder how some of y’all stay married. Most of these cosleepers probably never have sex, which is precisely why cosleeping is off the table for both my DH and I. OP, he’s not a bad husband for wanting to share a bed and sleep with his wife, depression or not. Hire a sleep consultant. This isn’t hard.

1. Why are you obsessed with other peoples sex lives?
2. Trigger alert: There are other places to have sex outside of a bed and/or master bedroom.
3. if a grown a$$ man wants to share a bed and sleep with his wife (has feelings about that) then why wouldnt a small child also want to sleep with his mother/parents. Or is bed only for sex and thats why its weird? My couch can be both a place for people to sit AND a place for sex. Cars, kitchen, stairs, garage, dryer, bathroom, shower, etc.

Hahaha yes - OP needs to sleep train her husband so he can learn how to spend the night alone without getting depressed. Pretty ironic that everyone feels bad for the husband sleeping alone but not the baby.

so much this.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Man I really wonder how some of y’all stay married. Most of these cosleepers probably never have sex, which is precisely why cosleeping is off the table for both my DH and I. OP, he’s not a bad husband for wanting to share a bed and sleep with his wife, depression or not. Hire a sleep consultant. This isn’t hard.

It’s pretty easy to have sex while cosleeping. It’s not that different from having them in a crib or other room except you have to be quieter I guess. With young babies, you can just get them asleep on another part of the bed. With older babies or toddlers, you can get them to sleep then go have sex in another room. I mean, how do you think people had sex for most of human history before separate bedrooms became common?

There’s always time for sex no matter where your child sleeps or how bad a sleeper they are. Even if they wake up every hour, that is still plenty of time to have sex. I know because I’ve been there.

Haha just when I think I am fully liberated I read this and realize how puritanical I really am.

Im very liberated and draw the line at having sex with children in the same room but only because of the idea of consent.. Anyone in the room is not necessarily a participant but a young child may wake up and be scared to say anything but has to listen or hear. I think the previous poster made it seem like they were having sex while in the bed with their children present in the same and I cosleep but do not condone that if that is what she/he meant.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Man I really wonder how some of y’all stay married. Most of these cosleepers probably never have sex, which is precisely why cosleeping is off the table for both my DH and I. OP, he’s not a bad husband for wanting to share a bed and sleep with his wife, depression or not. Hire a sleep consultant. This isn’t hard.

It’s pretty easy to have sex while cosleeping. It’s not that different from having them in a crib or other room except you have to be quieter I guess. With young babies, you can just get them asleep on another part of the bed. With older babies or toddlers, you can get them to sleep then go have sex in another room. I mean, how do you think people had sex for most of human history before separate bedrooms became common?

There’s always time for sex no matter where your child sleeps or how bad a sleeper they are. Even if they wake up every hour, that is still plenty of time to have sex. I know because I’ve been there.

Sounds so much easier to simply have your kids sleep in their own rooms. People coslept for years because they had limited space and no other options.

Actually no. In my experience, it’s way simpler to cosleep with an infant that go through the whole thing of soothing then, putting them down, hoping they stay asleep, analyzing why they’re not sleeping, etc etc.

Cool. Well sounds like it’s not going well for OP.

Why? She only cosleeps occasionally and it’s when her baby Sleeps best. We’re telling her to just do it all the time. It’s keeping her baby in a separate room that’s not working for her.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Man I really wonder how some of y’all stay married. Most of these cosleepers probably never have sex, which is precisely why cosleeping is off the table for both my DH and I. OP, he’s not a bad husband for wanting to share a bed and sleep with his wife, depression or not. Hire a sleep consultant. This isn’t hard.

It’s pretty easy to have sex while cosleeping. It’s not that different from having them in a crib or other room except you have to be quieter I guess. With young babies, you can just get them asleep on another part of the bed. With older babies or toddlers, you can get them to sleep then go have sex in another room. I mean, how do you think people had sex for most of human history before separate bedrooms became common?

There’s always time for sex no matter where your child sleeps or how bad a sleeper they are. Even if they wake up every hour, that is still plenty of time to have sex. I know because I’ve been there.

Haha just when I think I am fully liberated I read this and realize how puritanical I really am.

Im very liberated and draw the line at having sex with children in the same room but only because of the idea of consent.. Anyone in the room is not necessarily a participant but a young child may wake up and be scared to say anything but has to listen or hear. I think the previous poster made it seem like they were having sex while in the bed with their children present in the same and I cosleep but do not condone that if that is what she/he meant.

Omg the only time you have sex with the “child” in bed is when they’re like <6 months old. They don’t even know what sex is!! And if they wake up, you can tell - a newborn isn’t awake and quietly staring at you in fear and waiting until you’re done having sex before they start crying….????? And anyway how is it any different from people who have sex while their infant is in a pack n play or bassinet right by their bed?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Man I really wonder how some of y’all stay married. Most of these cosleepers probably never have sex, which is precisely why cosleeping is off the table for both my DH and I. OP, he’s not a bad husband for wanting to share a bed and sleep with his wife, depression or not. Hire a sleep consultant. This isn’t hard.

1. Why are you obsessed with other peoples sex lives?
2. Trigger alert: There are other places to have sex outside of a bed and/or master bedroom.
3. if a grown a$$ man wants to share a bed and sleep with his wife (has feelings about that) then why wouldnt a small child also want to sleep with his mother/parents. Or is bed only for sex and thats why its weird? My couch can be both a place for people to sit AND a place for sex. Cars, kitchen, stairs, garage, dryer, bathroom, shower, etc.

Hahaha yes - OP needs to sleep train her husband so he can learn how to spend the night alone without getting depressed. Pretty ironic that everyone feels bad for the husband sleeping alone but not the baby.

+1 This made me laugh out loud. The real solution to this thread is the husband needs to be sleep trained. I recommend CIO.

[Anonymous]

Sounds like he's already crying it out. For real, why must women choose between their babies needs and their husband's desires? I'm sure dad would like more intimacy... more energy... more restful sleep. I bet mom would love all those things, too. Sometimes sacrifices are made short-term when raising kids. Why can men not handle this????? Why must women be made to feel like they have to choose between collecting a d remaining married? Who is the baby in this situation again?

[Anonymous]

*cosleeping. Not "collecting a d." Sounds spicy lol.

[Anonymous]

I nursed both my kids to sleep until they weaned around 18-20 months. One slept through the night around 7 months, the other at 2 1/2 years. Years!

For our crappy sleeper, we got a comfy long couch for his room and each parent spent countless nights sleeping on it. The thing that worked? Time.

Both kids sleep all night in their own rooms without issue now. It seems like forever when you are in it, but I promise your kid will eventually sleep.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:My almost 8 month old sleeps terribly. We have always had to feed him to sleep and then transfer him to the crib, even for most naps. Sometimes we have to feed him to sleep and then he will wake up in an hour or so and then we have to rock him. His long stretch was between 2 to 4 hours. He is also high needs and suffered from reflux until about 5 months.

At six months my husband started on insisting on sleep training. I sleep in the nursery with the baby and my husband sleeps in the bedroom alone. I was against sleep training but my husband is suffering from male post-partum depression and he felt that he needed me back in the bedroom with him instead of getting up with the baby all night.

I followed the book Precious Little Sleep and started with softer sleep training techniques. None of it helped. After that we tried extinction. The first night he literally cried for three hours. It was better some nights in that he only cried for an hour or so. The crying did not get progressively shorter though. Even when he cried it out he would only go down for a four hour stretch at most. Some nights he’d be up 40 minutes after he fell asleep. We did this for two weeks but overall there was no improvement in his sleep habits. It was torture for me to listen to him cry. My husband wants the baby to cry it out indefinitely which I think is cruel.

Since then, I have gone back to feeding my son to sleep. Right now, he has no long stretch at the beginnig of the night but has sometimes gone three hours or so in the middle of the night. I will admit that sometimes if he has no long stretches by 3 or 4 am I take him into bed with me and he will sleep in bed next to me. He sleeps really well that way but I stay awake to watch him and keep him safe. I know this is not sustainable! Has anyone else had this experience? Where do I go from here?!

You do whatever gets the most sleep. Nursing is not a crutch at this age. Pediatricians talk out their a$$ about nighttime feedings. There is so much good stuff that is provided in nighttime breastmilk and its completely normal to need to nurse at night for some kids.

You husband does not need you. He wants you. Your child does need you. Meet your child where they are. The more you pull away and push independence the more they will cling. You can erect boundaries in gentle ways. Do not limit feeds until water can be introduced in sufficient amounts. 2-8 oz is the limit for up to 12 months.

Try cosleeping. Follow the safe 7 sleep and look up Dr. James McKenna and his sleep lab. If on FB or IG find the group: beyond sleep training. Find your village and get support for moms who are struggling with kids that dont sleep well independently.

You cant make kids do 3 things: eat, sleep, or pee/poop. Once you accept that, you can find techniques to help you manage and/or slowly work towards the best outcome for all parties.

Straw men abound in these debates and the idea that if you teach independent sleep, you can’t nurse at night is definitely one of them. We did independent sleep from the beginning - Eat-Awake-Sleep, put down drowsy but awake, swaddles. We had an independent bedtime (which I would define as a routine and then 0-15 minutes of crying, usually 0-3) way before we dropped the last night feed. We did a dream feed and a 4 am feed (usually, at her direction) for a while after that.

One of the dynamics here is that hold/nurse to sleep and then all of a sudden they do CIO and it works but it’s a little traumatic. If you’re doing independent sleep from the beginning, it’s a much smoother transition. But possibly more work and maybe not even feasible if you have multiple kids and need to wear for most naps.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Sounds like he's already crying it out. For real, why must women choose between their babies needs and their husband's desires? I'm sure dad would like more intimacy... more energy... more restful sleep. I bet mom would love all those things, too. Sometimes sacrifices are made short-term when raising kids. Why can men not handle this????? Why must women be made to feel like they have to choose between collecting a d remaining married? Who is the baby in this situation again?

Because there is no benefit to your children of not sleeping.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I nursed both my kids to sleep until they weaned around 18-20 months. One slept through the night around 7 months, the other at 2 1/2 years. Years!

For our crappy sleeper, we got a comfy long couch for his room and each parent spent countless nights sleeping on it. The thing that worked? Time.

Both kids sleep all night in their own rooms without issue now. It seems like forever when you are in it, but I promise your kid will eventually sleep.

so you were the only one who could put them to bed? This seems crazy but I guess if it worked for you 🤷‍♀️

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Man I really wonder how some of y’all stay married. Most of these cosleepers probably never have sex, which is precisely why cosleeping is off the table for both my DH and I. OP, he’s not a bad husband for wanting to share a bed and sleep with his wife, depression or not. Hire a sleep consultant. This isn’t hard.

It’s pretty easy to have sex while cosleeping. It’s not that different from having them in a crib or other room except you have to be quieter I guess. With young babies, you can just get them asleep on another part of the bed. With older babies or toddlers, you can get them to sleep then go have sex in another room. I mean, how do you think people had sex for most of human history before separate bedrooms became common?

There’s always time for sex no matter where your child sleeps or how bad a sleeper they are. Even if they wake up every hour, that is still plenty of time to have sex. I know because I’ve been there.

Haha just when I think I am fully liberated I read this and realize how puritanical I really am.

Im very liberated and draw the line at having sex with children in the same room but only because of the idea of consent.. Anyone in the room is not necessarily a participant but a young child may wake up and be scared to say anything but has to listen or hear. I think the previous poster made it seem like they were having sex while in the bed with their children present in the same and I cosleep but do not condone that if that is what she/he meant.

Omg the only time you have sex with the “child” in bed is when they’re like <6 months old. They don’t even know what sex is!! And if they wake up, you can tell - a newborn isn’t awake and quietly staring at you in fear and waiting until you’re done having sex before they start crying….????? And anyway how is it any different from people who have sex while their infant is in a pack n play or bassinet right by their bed?

I’m definitely in the “what did I just read?” camp. Advocating for cosleeping by saying you can have sex with your kid in the bed is…a f***ing choice. But WTF is this silly claim about it only being under 6 months? OP’s kid is 8 months already. Old enough to sit up, crawl, babble. And cosleeping lasts far far longer than 6 months. And then what? No sex at night, in the bed? For like…years? Yeah…good luck with that. Find a good attorney now.