To ask if any of you worked night shifts with a baby?

[newmun]

Dd is 8 months. Gone back to work to do 2 12.5 night shifts. While DH does mon - fri 7.4 hours a day(however is flexible working so can leave whenever within reason)

After being awake with baby all day AiBU to ask him to leave work early (3) so i can sleep before going to work?
Its like a constant competition in our house of whos the most tired. Does anyone have any tips with how to cope ? DH is amazing everywhere else.

Hope this post makes sense im rather tired

You need to sort childcare for the days so you can sleep - it’s not reasonable to expect your DH to leave work because you’ve been to work, and it’s not reasonable to expect yourself to be able to parent all day and work all night.

You definitely need childcare. It wouldn't be safe for you or the baby for you to parent all day and work all night, then parent all the next day again.

wait OP.. so you're currently up being the primary & only carer for a child during the day, and working the nights?

if i've got that right, you haven't planned this feasibly at all.

you need to sleep some time, just as if you were working during the day.

how you plan that best is a discussion between you and your partner (no one knows the details of your commutes, types of jobs, how flexible your own shifts need to be etc)... but you need to plan in time for you to sleep.

i don't understand how you can have planned to be awake 24hrs a day, i must have misinterpreted your post!

Yup. I did five nights 2000-0400. It is absolutely essential that you can have a sleep before going in and doing a twelve-hour overnight shift. The fact that it's only twice a week is irrelevant. The ingrained tiredness becomes cumulative, and you need to get a pattern that you can sustain.

I do recognise, though, that people who haven't done these kinds of shifts just do not understand what it's like and think "well, it's only twice a week" and I'm kind of not blaming them for not being able to understand what they haven't experienced.

I have reduced now to three shifts 1800-0200 and it's still important to me to get sleep at the right times because I go to bed at 3am three times a week. I know that some people - not DH, fortunately - think, why? It's only a late night, we all hate late nights... yup, but it's three late nights a week, every week. The cumulative effect is really really tough.

I’m just about to go back to work, DD is one, I’ll be doing some nights but have childcare arranged for the days in between them. I wouldn’t be safe to look after my DD or go to work with no sleep

Yes for about a year I did alternate nights and did all the daytime childcare. Meaning I slept every other night. There was no alternative at the time and he worked full time days. He did all the night stuff.

I did it, (work in healthcare and did 2 nights a week) and my advice is do your nights together and arrange childcare for the day in between your nights. Split nights are hell.
As for the day you start nights, will baby nap in the afternoon so you can go to bed for an hour?

I did it, it was hell on earth.

I worked Friday and Saturday nights while DH did Mon-Fri 9-5. No childcare needs because we just swapped, he did the weekends and I did the week with the children.

We had no life, it was a really miserable time. If I had to do it again, I simply wouldn't. I would organize childcare so I could sleep or even better, do day shifts.

OP it sounds really hard. Yes you do need to sleep before going to work and staying up all night. Your husband must understand this as he wouldn't expect to be awake all night and go to work the next morning. It's really unfair on you and he can't be amazing if he doesn't understand this. Have you spoken to him?

My neighbor works nights. Her kids are in child care during the day so she can sleep.

What time do you finish?

There's a mum at my DDs Nursery who works nights. She finishes at 3am, gets home, stays awake, does morning routine, drops both her kids at Nursery for 7.30am, then sleeps and wakes up at 2pm to do afternoon school and Nursery run.

Could you DH drop DD at Nursery for half a day and you then just have her from say 12.30 til your DH is home on those 2 days after your shift?

You need childcare so you can sleep properly.

I have 2 children, 2 and 6. I do two nights per week 20:45-07:30.

Wednesday- stay up, nap if 2 yo does, work at 20:45

Thursday- sleep 8-14:30, children in childcare/school. Up at 14:30 for school run back in work at 20:45

Fri- sleep till 11:30/12 pick ds up.

I’m not going to lie, it’s exhausting! I’ve actually started to despise my job that I loved at one time. My 2 yo does get his nursery hours in September and DH and I know we need to make some changes as I know this pattern is not good for my health. However, it’s worked very well for childcare, and if I had my time again I would do this shift pattern. It’s not forever and there is light at the end of the tunnel.

I did night shifts with four kids under seven. needless to say I can't remember much of that time period except that it was awful and should never have done it. It was back in the days when there was very little help with childcare costs unlike now.

You need to sleep OP. It will catch you up in the end of you don't.

Me and dp both do 12 hour day and night shifts in the same unit, we basically bunny hop each other all week and can be like ships passing in the night for 6 days out of 7. It's hard but we absolutely still have to pay for childcare when one of us is on night shifts and the other is on days. We didn't at first and doing the night shifts felt like torture.

Yes I used to do 21:00-03:00 Monday - Friday, and then I was up all day with the baby and school runs etc, it was hell on earth and I honestly have never felt worse. I did it as we couldn’t afford childcare, I lasted 8 months before I had to leave I just couldn’t sustain it.