I'm the father (32/m). During those difficult few months of a new child's life I would try and give his mum as many opportunities to sleep in her own bed without the baby at her breast as every single tiny movement he made would make her jolt out of her sleep. So when they were both asleep I would gently take him downstairs, let him lie skin-to-skin on my chest as I would lay on the sofa.Obviously even though I was tired as well I knew I couldn't safely fall asleep with him on my chest as he may fall off the sofa. I don't drink caffeine, and I couldn't watch anything on the TV because it would also make me dose off, so I would play xbox on mute to keep my brain engaged and awake.One time however I did fall asleep, controller in my hand, midway through a game, I probably just closed my eyes during a loading screen and drifted off. When I awoke I found that I had rolled over, my son had got his head buried in gap in between the sofa cushions and his cries were muffled by the surrounding cushion. I don't know what woke me. His legs were flailing around in the air. I instantly pulled him out, put him back on my chest, and soothed him back to sleep with a few minutes. He was fine. My heart was pounding....Fast forward a year and a half and yes, there have been a few other near-misses by both myself and the mum, and I get over those easily enough.But I still can't get this fucking image out of my head of his head stuck between cushions and his legs flailing about in panic.I've never told my wife about this. At the time I wasn't handling fatherhood very well at all (I was really useless) and I thought that giving her more of a reason to doubt my fathering ability was not a good idea.Does this ever go away? The image of his head buried in the sofa has made an appearance in 3 very vivid nightmares since it's happened. I can't stop thinking about the worst possible outcome of in the situation.Any advice to make the guilt go away? via /r/Parenting http://ift.tt/2wD0lic
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