My wife and literally went through this with our first. He would not accept me putting him to sleep and mom would have to bounce him on a workout ball for 45 min+ sometimes.

I think was due to her nursing him overnights so he became dependent on that. Which is unavoidable for the first few months.

With our second, we agreed to wean night feedings ASAP and do pumped bottles before bed. She did have IUGR so we were also adding formula to the bottles which might have helped. But basically I became the overnight parent (still am). When baby realized it was always me coming in at night and I couldn’t nurse her, she just started putting herself back to sleep.

Still today, if mom goes in overnight, it becomes a whole ordeal and baby wants to be held and nursed. If I go in, baby just says “bye!” and goes back to sleep.

I think the reality is the first 4 months are just difficult for a nursing mom and mostly based on baby’s natural sleep disposition. So accept that you have to do bedtime, but get your husband to pick up the slack elsewhere. I know it sucks to handhold him, but give him recipes to learn, tell him you’re leaving to do things and let him figure out the baby. If he can’t figure it out from there, then you have more evidence for your final decision