Getting Your Partner Involved

I know it is not the case across the board, but I find that often it is usually one parent who handles the bulk of the nighttime responsibilities.

And that parent, in a male/female relationship, is almost always Mom.

Wait, before you go accusing me of sexism or stereotyping, I would just like to point out that there is a reason this happens. As a sleep consultant, I am usually contacted by parents who are having issues getting their babies to sleep, and that is almost always because baby has an external sleep prop that they use to get back to sleep when they wake in the night.

And the most common prop I see, by far, is nursing, which pretty much leaves Dad out of the equation.

Now, this is a problem for a couple of reasons. Obviously, if baby is waking up six times a night and demanding Mom come in to nurse her back to sleep, that is taxing on mother and baby.

But there is another person who tends to suffer in this scenario, and that is Dad. It might be hard to imagine, if you are currently reading this in the middle of the night with a baby hanging off your breast, listening to your husband snoring contentedly from the other room, but it is true.

Dads, the vast majority of them anyway, want to be great dads. They want to have an active role in bringing up their kids, and they love it when they feel like they are succeeding in that role.

But because Mom is the one with the magical breast milk, Dad often feels powerless to help out in the sleep department, which means Mom is up every time baby cries, and Dad, while sympathetic, cannot do much but go back to sleep.

This can lead to some hostility from a sleep deprived Mom, who feels like she is doing more than her share, and some defensiveness from Dad, who feels attacked for something he has no control over.

But here is the good news for both of you!

If you have decided to give sleep training a try, it often goes better if Dad takes the lead.

You heard right! Take a load off, Mom. Dad is taking point on this one. Because Dad does not nurse, and baby knows it. So when it comes to breaking the association between nursing and falling asleep, baby tends to learn quicker and respond better when Dad comes into the room during the first few nights of baby learning to fall asleep independently.

Here is the funny thing. Whenever I drop this little tidbit on couple I am working with, Mom lets out a big woot-woot and teases Dad about how much fun he is going to have getting up six times in the night.

But then, night one, as soon as baby starts to cry, Mom shoots out of bed and goes straight into baby’s room. Or even more regularly, Mom stands in the doorway instructing Dad on the right way to settle Baby back down, correcting him every step of the way.

I have literally sent full-grown women to their rooms in this scenario.

If Dad is going to get involved, him and Baby have to find their own rhythm, and Mom needs to be hands off. And as much as a mom says she will have no problem letting her husband take the wheel, when it comes down to the moment of truth, many women have trouble giving up control.

So remember, Dad might just be the magical solution to your baby’s sleep issues, but you are going to have to let him take over. Take heart though. Most of my clients see dramatic improvements in their baby’s sleep in just a couple of nights, so you will not have to control yourself for long.

After that, you and your partner will have the evenings back to yourselves, and your whole family can get back to sleeping through the night.