Why Won’t My Baby Settle with my Partner?

How to manage parental preference by a holistic sleep coach & mum of 2!

I am the only one who can put my baby to sleep, it is so draining! I just want my partner to do the odd settle!

Sound Familiar?

In this blog post I am going to talk about why this is happening, and the steps you can take to begin helping your partner settle your baby to sleep.

The most common scenario….

Baby is breastfed, feeds to sleep, and at first this worked brilliantly, but we are several months in now, and I have had to do every bedtime and resettle this whole time, and I am exhausted!

My partner tries, but my baby cries so I take over and boob to sleep, it’s just easier, than watching them struggle.

My partner feels like a spare part, it has knocked their confidence, they feel like they can’t support me, and they feel like they don’t have a strong bond with our baby…

Sound Familiar

You are not alone!

I work with predominately breastfed babies, and this is one of the most common issues parents I work with are desperate to change.

Mum may be going back to work, or in a sleep crisis, or simply she wants the odd evening she can pop out!

Whatever your motives I want to reassure you, you are not alone, and I have helped both parents settle hundreds of times.

I am going to share some tips to get you started!

Don’t Replicate Mum’s Routine….

The Number one error I see is when mum, tries to get their partner to replicate their bedtime routine….

Different settlers should settle in different ways, and trying to replicate mums routine step by step, is often why this transition it is failing.

Don’t Rip Off The Band Aid!

I common scenario I see which leads to this process failing, is the second parent dives straight into trying to settle baby.

Wow this is a huge change, and naturally the baby is overwhelmed and confused, and due to the pressure the second parent is often very stressed out, desperate for this to work….

So the second settler tries, the baby cries a lot, the parent is stressed and anxious because they want this to work, and baby is upset, and they know their partner is listening in….

The dysregulation of baby and the parents escalates, and a dysregulated parent cannot regulate a dysregulated child. So mum ends up taking over and boobing to sleep…

Slowly Does It….

Having worked on this scenario with hundreds of families, I find with any change tricking a baby into a change by going super slow is the winner!

Begin by having dad present for bedtime, and gradually have him take over elements of the bedtime routine, such as bath time.

Bit by bit have him doing more, and begin popping out of the room. Allow both the second parent and baby to get used to this.

When feeding baby to sleep, add in swaying, and pass to dad for a few moments, and build on this.

The idea here is you build on this change, until baby can settle with second parent, this will look differently for differently families.

I hope you found these tips helpful, for steps by step guidance on your partner settling to sleep, grab my baby sleep guide