To think sharing night wakings can be so important?

[Bumpitybumper]

Whenever I see a thread posted by a SAHM or woman on maternity leave complaining that their partner does not get up enough with their child in the night, there will inevitably be a number of posters that express the view that the working partner's sleep should be preserved above all else and basically the mother should willingly push herself to the point of exhaustion. The logic is always that the working parent needs a full night's sleep because they work and I have seen this extended to all jobs, not just those that are physically/mentally demanding or those that are safety critical. The OPs of these threads are usually absolutely knackered, desperate for some support and I do wonder what it would take for some people to accept that a person still needs a certain amount of sleep to safely function as a human and parent even if they don't need to go to work the next day

I then read this story:www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-7142159/Mother-jailed-killed-grandmother-car-crash-fell-asleep-wheel.html

For those not wanting to click, it's basically a really sad story about a mother who killed a woman as a result of falling asleep at the wheel of her car following a disrupted night of sleep with her child. I think the mother in this instance was back at work, but it really highlighted the importance of making sure that the interrupted sleep that children bring is shared between parents wherever possible in a way that makes sure that both parties can carry out their activities and duties in a safe way. Realistically SAHPs and women on maternity leave will do loads of things that require a decent level of concentration (driving, walking to town, supervising kids etc) and it is in everyone's interests to make sure that they aren't unintentionally falling asleep or losing focus whilst undertaking these activities.

I agree. My husband is a doctor and still did some night wakings. My mental health was genuinely on the line (bad sleepers and anxiety are a potent cocktail....)

But your point is somewhat undermined by fact this woman was not a sahm. She was back at work.

I agree, My DH is always willing to share, but when you’re the one with the boobs...

Yep!

Whilst on maternity leave you are usually spending long amounts of time on your own with a small baby. I believe you should be at least rested and not a total zombie for this to be safe for everyone. If my DP has a particularly stressful day at work the next day I do the night feeds but we usually share it evenly so I can sleep and be alert the next day and the best mum I can be!

I think it depends on your situation, I cope much better on less sleep than my partner. So I do nights because I’m generally fine and when I’m not - he’ll get baby early so I can get a bit of sleep before he goes to work. Equally when a baby is breastfed there’s potentially little a partner can do.
The story is very sad but I don’t think we can make generalisations from it. When we drive we need to assess if we are competent to do so - it is part of the responsibility of getting behind car. So perhaps anyone who is sleep deprived for any reason should question if they are safe.

Yes, but...how? when you bf, and the baby is waking because it's hungry, what is the point in the man getting up? my experience was that a crying baby woke us both up, and neither of us slept again until it was quiet!

I see both sides, though that's a very tragic story. I thought my parents got it right with much younger sis. Mum would go to bed at 10 and dad would stay up to do the 1am feed then go to bed for 7 hours. That meant mum had 10-4 uninterrupted sleep when there were no extenuating circumstances like illness/ teething. She could then feed and change and go back to sleep til 7. My sis was obv a good baby so this worked and know it wouldn't work for everyone by any stretch, but I think there are ways for the working parent to help without having to do half the wake up if that makes sense

You Dom what’s best for you as a couple and a family. My husband couldn’t feed so not much point him getting up. I could have a nap during the day.

I agree my husband did some shifts in the early weeks despite working in a hospital for twelve hours. We both got a reasonable stretch of sleep because of that. No he didnt get a solid 8 hours but honestly I dont think anyone with a new baby should be expecting that whatever job you do! Sleeping in shifts in the spare room so one of us did the first half and the other the second meant we both got about 6 hours unbroken sleep each .

I was doing all night wakings with my 1yo when I fell asleep at the wheel and mounted the pavement. DH insisted that his sleep was more important because he commutes on the motorway and it’s quite busy and dangerous. He said he didn’t feel confident driving early in the morning and back again 10hrs later unless he was fully rested. No consideration for me driving the baby around!

I agree in principle but would work so much better if men could learn to lactate

If I had been able to unstrap my boobs from my body and pass them to DH, we would have shared the night wakings when the DC were babies.

They’re all off the boob a few years now and we share the night load now if someone’s sick or wets the bed etc. Both of us work outside the home.

I went back to work when my baby was 3 months old. Part of the agreement for that with dh was he’d share the load. He still does and dd is a year old now. He also helped me when I was on maternity leave although not quite as much.

@Amibeingdaft81
But your point is somewhat undermined by fact this woman was not a sahm. She was back at work
I acknowledge in my OP that she was back at work, but my point is that she was doing an activity that wasn't part of her job that many women on maternity leave and SAHMs would do too (I e. Drive). Many SAHMs and women on maternity leave may need to drive in order to do school runs, get to the doctors etc so it's not like it suddenly becomes optional just because you don't have to go to work.

I agree OP. I’m at almost 21 months without a proper sleep now. I am still breastfeeding but I wish DH and I had worked out some way he could help with the nights because I am on my knees. Initially it seemed to make sense because I was on mat leave but now i’m back working 3 days a week. I get so mad with DH when he goes on at me about me needing to get DS to spend the full night in his own room (he comes in with me after his first wake up). Because he has no idea what it’s like to be on call 24/7. When he goes to bed, he can shut his eyes and know he can sleep until morning. I wish we had worked out a way of sharing the nights.

"Tiredness kills" is always plastered on motorway billboards. There's a reason for that. She shouldn't have driven if she was so tired.

Yes I agree. The vast majority of adults are surely capable of getting through their day after some disruption to their sleep the night before. Otherwise how do they cope if woken by a house alarm, passing emergency vehicles, noisy neighbours and so on? Would they all just take a days leave ?

I especially feel sorry for those with partners who move into a different bedroom while the baby is in with mum. I don't mean for the odd "night off" but the threads you see saying "Oh DH sleeps in the spare room". It just seems such a strong message of you WILL be dealing with it all even if you're awake all night.

I agree, partly because it is difficult once you are in a routine to get out of it. I did most night wakings with both kids - dh did one night at the weekend. But I went back to work when ds was 9 months, but a bad sleep til he was 2. We had got into the routine of me doing all the nights - dh would rarely stir because he had got used to not needing to. And all of a sudden the need to ensure that a parent working out if the home needing a good nights sleep was not such an issue. Funny that.

By the way I was a breastfeeding mum so understand the limitations the come with this, but there are still often opportunities for the father to take over, especially when night wakings extend beyond a child just being hungry and are about the child generally being unsettled/teething etc. In my experience it's when the child doesn't settle for long periods that the real exhaustion kicks in but also when being able to lactate isn't a prerequisite to be able to just sit and comfort a child

My DH would get up to fetch the baby then I'd feed them and put them back to bed. So we were both knackered.

Mine were BF and do I did most night wakings, but their dad still shared when it was things other than milk they needed.

If we’d had really good sleepers maybe I would have done 100%. We didn’t though and I would have been seriously considering divorce if DH had let me get by on 3 hours sleep a night while he was getting 8.

DH and I shared them but DS was bottle fed so he was at least doing something useful.

tidy that’s what my DH did with DS1, we were both so tired!

When DTs came along, DS1 still didn’t sleep all night so I dealt with them and DH dealt with DS1! Everyone still knackered.

Now they’re 5.5, 4 and 4 and we all sleep all night unless someone’s sick

My young babies didn't want DH during the night, they wanted me. Him attempting to do attend to them lead to them becoming inconsolable which lead to less sleep for me.
He came into his own when we had two under 18 months and dealt with the older one at night but even then sometimes only Mummy would suffice.

I think people need to be sensible. It says in the article the woman chose to drive sleep deprived despite her husband also being in the vehicle. It wasn't as though she had no other option.

It's important to share the care, but it doesn't need to be in the night.