1) I feel like I was extremely well prepared for how to handle a baby - but I wasn't prepared how much this was going to affect my relationship. People generally don't mention it - but I feel like going throught the stress of living with an infant puts an enormous negative pressure on a relationship(it did for me). Things which normally wouldn't have bothered either of us, have erupted into full on arguments because we were both so tired. We're good now(or better at least) but yeah.....at least try to remember that both of you are going through this together and no, your partner isn't leaving out dirty bottles on purpose.
2) if the baby isn't sleeping through the night by 6-8 months, pay for a sleep consultant. That's what we've done, it was the best spent money in the world, I'd pay 10x as much as we have. Our baby boy was waking up literally every hour at night from 4 months of age until 8 months, I think we were on the verge of going mad, it was completely unsustainable. After a 2 week training session with a consultant he started sleeping through the night, now sleeps solidly from 7pm till 5am(which is fine with us).
> 2) if the baby isn't sleeping through the night by 6-8 months, pay for a sleep consultant. That's what we've done, it was the best spent money in the world, I'd pay 10x as much as we have. Our baby boy was waking up literally every hour at night from 4 months of age until 8 months, I think we were on the verge of going mad, it was completely unsustainable. After a 2 week training session with a consultant he started sleeping through the night, sleep solidly from 7pm till 5am(which is fine with us).
Out of curiousity: what was the exact reason your baby boy didn't sleep through the night? I'm a father of 13 month old baby as well and my boy has just started sleeping basically all night long
It was basically the fact that we were going up to him and picking him up the second he would wake up at night. Like, it's a parental instinct, right? Baby wakes up, so you go up to him to comfort him and help him go to sleep. Which.....sure, works, and is nice, but turns out that he became completely dependent on it, and it was something that the sleep consultant immediately pointed out. The "training" was basically teaching him that yes, he can fall asleep on his own, and no, we won't be there within 60 seconds of him starting to cry. For the first few days we'd just sit next to his bed without picking him up, then next few days sit in his room but further away, then start leaving the room after 10 minutes, then 5, then immediately, and after 2 weeks it broke his association that he can only fall asleep in our arms - and started settling himself to sleep.
Every kid is different though, and that's where the consultant comes in - they made a plan specific to our baby, and he was always available on WhatsApp 24/7 to answer any questions we had.
Couple things:
1) I feel like I was extremely well prepared for how to handle a baby - but I wasn't prepared how much this was going to affect my relationship. People generally don't mention it - but I feel like going throught the stress of living with an infant puts an enormous negative pressure on a relationship(it did for me). Things which normally wouldn't have bothered either of us, have erupted into full on arguments because we were both so tired. We're good now(or better at least) but yeah.....at least try to remember that both of you are going through this together and no, your partner isn't leaving out dirty bottles on purpose.
2) if the baby isn't sleeping through the night by 6-8 months, pay for a sleep consultant. That's what we've done, it was the best spent money in the world, I'd pay 10x as much as we have. Our baby boy was waking up literally every hour at night from 4 months of age until 8 months, I think we were on the verge of going mad, it was completely unsustainable. After a 2 week training session with a consultant he started sleeping through the night, now sleeps solidly from 7pm till 5am(which is fine with us).