Author Topic: Papa's turn.....help me not interfere  (Read 918 times)

0 Members and 1 Guest are viewing this topic.

Offline mango_baby

  • New, But Posting Steadily!
  • **
  • Showing Appreciation 0
  • Gender: Female
  • Posts: 92
  • Location: Vancouver, Canada
Papa's turn.....help me not interfere
« on: October 12, 2005, 16:56:45 pm »
Up until now I have been the involved in any sleep process with our 14 month old. He is extremely spirited and a little touchy ( first night of PD was 3 1/2 hours). His papa has worked pretty much 7 days a week from the day he was born up until about one month ago and I am done. We still have sleep issues, I am too exhausted to go through PD again.
Now that His papa will be home in the pm a few night a week we will start with him bathing Roaen tonite and on friday will put him down to sleep. I know Roaen will be in hesterics. The odd time in the middle of the night papa has gone to soothe him in his crib, but Roaen ends up getting hysterical because it is not mom. Yes I am guilty of stepping in because it just made things easier and happen faster.
My question is should I leave the house? Roaen and I are extremely attached and this is also going to be hell for me. Is it okay to go out, or should I stay here just in case. I can seem to bear the crying if it is me, but with someone eles it is different. His papa and him have only had some  time to play together and so this will be a huge adjustment. Am I going about it in the right way? should I leave so I don't go in and rescue? I know they have to find their own way.

Any experiences and suggestions I would love to hear.

melissa

Offline abwalk

  • New, But Posting Steadily!
  • **
  • Showing Appreciation 1
  • Gender: Female
  • Posts: 87
  • Location: Minnesota
Papa's turn.....help me not interfere
« Reply #1 on: October 12, 2005, 17:25:11 pm »
I found it much easier to just leave the house.   If I stepped in when my son was crying while my husband was "on duty" my husband began to think that he couldn't do it and lost interest in trying.  That just made more work for me in the long run!   It might be rough on both of them for a few times but they will be ok in the end.

 I found that sometimes my husband could see the problems with my son's sleep issues better than I could (because he wasn't exhausted from trying!) and would handle the situation much better than me - even though he didn't know my son's sleep patterns as well as I did.  He was also much more patient with the PU/PD.

If he's not confident, maybe you could try leaving the house for a non sleep activity (eat, play, bath) a few times until they are both comfortable with that and then try having dad do sleep.

Just a thought.