Hellobee Boards

wow that sounds like a heavy sleeper! mr. bee was a pretty heavy sleeper, but he definitely became a much lighter sleeper when he was taking care of charlie. i remember when we were in the hospital after charlie was born, charlie was wailing his head off a couple feet from where mr. bee was sleeping and he didn't wake up. that scared me for what was to come!

but now mr. bee even hears charlie before i do sometimes! i used to be the lightest sleeper when it came to charlie noises, but now that i can depend on mr. bee, i actually became a heavier sleeper.

i think the best thing to do is have him have the baby monitor with him at all times on the highest volume. maybe even two baby monitors! those things are really loud. if he wants to take a nap, he should sleep with a baby monitor on each side of his head.

good luck!

I totally get where you are coming from. DH is a very heavy sleeper too. He will fall alseep anywhere when he's tired and doesn't hear the phone or knocking. When I was home taking care of DS during my maternity leave, DH would sleep through everything! It was frustrating, but he went back to work at 3 weeks, so I let him sleep.
Then when DS was 12 weeks old DH was home with him for the summer. DH doesn't sleep any lighter, but he is much more attuned to DS and wakes when he hears him. We can both tell the hurt/scared "real"cry from the fussy cry, and we both bolt out of bed when we hear it. DH now wakes during the night before I do most of the time. And in the mornings he hears DS right away, while I'm sleeping more heavily at that time. So DH has definitely been "trained" to hear DS while he's sleeping.

There were two scary incidents. Once, I called to say I was coming home, and when I got home DH was asleep in the bed and DS was in the crib screaming. DH never heard him. Thankfully I knew everything was okay 10 minutes earlier, so I wasn't too upset, but it still scared me. Since then DH doesn't nap during the day unless someone is home and we got a very loud monitor that he sets right next to him.

The other incident was a little while ago when I hit a deer with my car during a run to town for diapers. I called about 30 times and he never woke up. I wasn't hurt and made it home okay, but it does scare me that he won't wake up if something serious happened. We don't have a home phone either, so I have to rely on his cell being on high and charged.

Also, Graco makes a few models of baby monitors that vibrate (and I'm sure other brands do as well). The portable part doesn't look that big, so maybe you can have your DH keep that with him while he's home with the baby and the combination of noise/vibration will wake him.