UPDATED - My DH rocks! Why am I so nervous?

Last night I could NOT get lucid during the girls 4am feeding. It was physically painful to move! My DH asked if I was feeling okay and I told him that I haven't really slept since the girls were born. Even when they have good nights with 5+ hours stretches of sleep(and they have quite a few), I'm still alert to every sound and watching them sleep and thinking about what needs to get done the next day.

So, we made a date! He's going to "take over everything" on Saturday night and I'm going to pop some Tylenol PM and really sleep.

I think it'll be great for all of us, but I'm SO VERY NERVOUS that something will happen with the girls that he won't be able to handle or something will happen while he's sleeping and he won't wake up. Do you ladies have any words of encouragement so I won't chicken out on my medically-induced chance to sleep?

TIA! Laura

OH! And I wanted to add that if I do chicken out, its really going to hurt DH feelings because he already thinks I don't trust him since I can't sleep when its his "shift". KWIM?


I posted an update/vent about our evening. Post #15 below, I think.

 

Laura, don't chicken out! Let your DH take the wheel for a while!

I totally understand what you mean, but he needs this boot camp top prepare him for the next 18 (or longer) years for your twins' lives! Its not going to be easy so he needs to just jump right in and handle.

And Tylenol PM doesn't really knock you out all day and night, you can still get up if you need to and help him if he is really stuck.

I think he is going to do great -- he sounds like a good and loving man!

 

What a wonderful DH! I think you definitely need to take him up on it. They won't suffer one night if things don't go exactly like they do when you're involved, and you'll be amazed at how much better you'll feel when you can get some much needed sleep. Let us know how it goes!

 

That is awesome and let your DH take the nite. U deserve a good nites rest and I am sure he will do great. Take the PM and have a good nites sleep it will make all the difference in the world the next day.

 

Wow, what a great thing for your DH to do!!! Take him up on that and enjoy your rest. He may not do things the way you would do it, but that doesn't really matter as long as the results are good, right?

Enjoy your sleep!

 

Your dh is awesome!

My first word of advice is, go where you cannot hear crying. You won't be able to relax because you'll want to go in there.

Second, do you have anything stronger than Tylenol PM like Ambien? Tylenol PM never really knocked me out very well and I always felt fuzzy the next day, but the Ambien was heaven!

 

Laura!

What a wonderful thing for your DH to do! Take advantage! And remember, you will be right there if he does run into any trouble! Enjoy your night of sleep, you deserve it!

 

No advise but I understand your reservation! I am always in ear's shot away from dh when he has babies. And I do think if you "interfere" it will hurt his feelings, I know it bothers my dh!

 

Girl, you can do it! Get some zzzs.
The worst that will happen is someone has a huge poop and he has to clean the baby and crib up. Consequence? Baby might need a bath in the morning. No biggie!
So much of this is trial and error; he just has to DO it, kwim? None of us are born knowing how to get a poopy onesie off a baby without spreading it all over - you just do it and learn!

Another thought: even if you do wake up, fake sleep unless it's an emergency. Let him build his confidence level so that you can take advantage of him (and I mean that in a good way) in the future. You don't want to ruin years of good Daddy parenting by shaking his confidence now. Just a thought.

Night night!

 

Laura, I hope you have a wonderful night's rest, you deserve it. And DH will handle things like a champ, I'm sure!

My DH was great about giving me one night a week beginning when DS was about 6 weeks old. That was absolute heaven! I reciprocated by giving DH one night a week of not being "on call" (since some nights I did ask him to get up and help with something) and we both loved the arrangement. We did the same thing with our second child as well, but with DD we started it from Week #1 because it made our lives so much easier. You can get through many sleepless nights if you know you have a guaranteed full night's rest in the near future!

DH and I always commented on how interesting it was that on my night off I NEVER heard the baby cry, and on his night off he never heard cries either! It was like our brains knew that the baby was in good hands and didn't need to respond to the cries.

The first night that DH let me sleep through, I woke up amazed (and refreshed, hooray!) thinking that the baby had "slept all night" because I hadn't heard one little peep, only to find DH bleary-eyed and half-asleep because the little stinker had woken up and cried every hour!

It's amazing how our brains can trick us that way sometimes. I hope yours will do the same for you and let you get a full night's sleep!

Sweet dreams!

 

Laura-

Get some sleep, woman! I think that I'd go a step further and get some ear plugs! DH will do fine, and you'll feel great with a good night sleep.

 

My In-laws took the boys for the night when they were first born. It wasn't easy but all I remember was laying down and I awoke 8 hours later. Enjoy your sleep. If your Dh needs you he will wake you. Have a good night.

 

Go for it...take him up on the offer and enjoy your sleep! If my DH offered I wouldn't hesitate, but the offer hasn't been extended yet There was a time when I would have been hesitant, so I know what you're feeling. But, now he feeds one DD at night and I feed the other...I often sleep right through when he is feeding DD now. I still bite my tongue when he doesn't do things how I think they should be done, unless I think it may compromise their safety, of course. A couple of my friends gave me some advice before I had the girls...they advised me to let DH be "hands-on" from the beginning so that he becomes confident in his ability to care for them and so that he remains "hands on" as they grow. Anyway, that was their piece of advice and I took it, although it's not always easy!!

Wish you lots of good sleep tonight

 

Your DH is a DREAM! Take him up on it!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

 

Hi Laura ... well, inquiring minds want to know ... DID YOU SLEEP?!? Hope so!

 

Okay, so things didn't exactly go as planned on Saturday night. Please excuse my VENT. Both of the girls were grumpy and off schedule ALL day yesterday. They cried and cried between every feeding and nap and they fought sleep all day, so the naps were a real struggle too. By the evening, they were so unbelievably over tired that nothing worked! It was a crazy day.

To top it off, my DHs little cold has turned into an endless cough. He's a big guy and every time he'd cough he'd scare Genevieve awake!

So, fast forward to 1AM when she's finally sleeping, I've been trying to soothe McKenna for almost an hour, DH is snoring loudly on the bed inches away from Genevieve in the cosleeper and she's starting to stir from the noise. I wake him up (after several attempts) and by then I'm not exactly happy. I grumbled something along the lines of "i guess i'm not getting that sleep tonight then" and he starts to stammer and finally says "well, i suppose.." Is he kidding me? I can't wake him up by calling his name and physically shaking him multiple times and he thinks i'm going to walk off and go to sleep?! Then, he tells me I just "need to get over this thing and go to sleep". I explained that that was kinda the point of this whole deal and he says I'm being ridiculous and that nothing is going to happen. The scene wasn't really pretty after that!

I left the room with McKenna, re-swaddled her and got her to doze off. When I brought her back in the room, he's snoring away and disturbing Genevieve again. After I put McKenna down, I sat in the rocker for a few minutes...too angry to sleep...and getting more and more angry with every one of his snores. HOW CAN HE JUST LAY THERE AND SLEEP?!? Then McKenna woke up again and I put her back to sleep. So around 3:30AM I get in bed and tell him to move over so I can sleep by the cosleeper. He says he's sorry for dozing off, blah blah blah and I snapped that I have 30 minutes to sleep before they'll probably wake up for a bottle and I didn't want to talk about it right now. They woke and I fed them at 4AM, still giving DH the silent treatment. When they woke at 7:30, he valiantly declares "I'll do it, you go to sleep" Oh, gee, thanks! So, I slept from about 7:30AM until 11AM after he slept from 11:30PM until 7:30AM. Not exactly what I had in mind.

Anyway, he's been all about apologizing all day long. I don't know if he really feels bad about not helping me get some extra sleep or if he just feels bad that I was so upset about it. But I guess I'll just have to be happy he feels bad and get what I can out of it. Don't get me wrong. I love my DH and I know he wasn't feeling well. He's been so great through my whole pregnancy and he's awesome with the girls. But how can he be so clueless to tell me to "get over it and just go to sleep"?!?! I thought we'd already covered the part where I can't sleep deep enough to get rested. I thought we covered that a long time ago. Supposedly, we're going to pick another night and "try again" but I'll believe it when it happens.

Sorry this is so long, but I had to vent! I really appreciate all of your sweet comments and advice. Hopefully, I'll have better news to report when we try this again.

 

I'm sorry it didn't work out as you had planned! Vent away!

 

Men

That has happened with us more than once Next time you try again, can you go sleep in another room? Far far away from the babies...he will eventually wake up if they start crying, not as fast as you would, but he will wake up

 

awwww .... I was thinking about you and rooting for you, but I guess it didn't work out as planned, huh? Men have good intentions and ideas a lot of the times, but turning those intentions and ideas into reality is a whole nother thing ... just last night I asked him if he was going to take the first feeding, he said Nope, I'll get up and help you with every feeding! Well, the first one he did, he got them up and changed which was great, but the second feeding he just mumbled at and slept through, and the entire time they were up from 4am until 7, he slept ... I ended up with Con in the recliner holding him because he just would not stopp fussing, tried to doze off in the chair, when I finally put him down again he was up in 5 minutes, I said "I can't take this anymore" and again, mumbles and no help. So much for helping all night long.

 

I am soooo sorry things did not work out. That really sucks but maybe it will work out the next time. : )

 

Believe it or not, the sleep will come eventually. Whether he will ever believe that he's not helping....IDK. My only advice this far out is to keep standing up for yourself and give him another chance to let you sleep it off. I do have a friend who actually went to a hotel to sleep while DH did the duty, but I'm guessing you're not feeling that secure yet.

and sleep vibes!