Perhaps he is missing tired/hungry/nappy signs? I know when faced with a crying baby my H would often go into "cheer the baby up" mode and sing, read him books, distract, distract, distract... but not realise that actually he was really tired!

My son also would not settle to sleep with my H from 6 weeks old... till about 18 months. We don't have family around so it was just us and I'm not sure if my son would have gone to someone else but for all that time I had to be there for sleeps.

Do you have a sling? That was one thing that worked really well for us- my H could take our son out in the sling and all would be fine. Gave me some much needed moments of sanity.