Sleeping arrangements with new baby

[NCsleep]

NC as DSis is on here and DH knows I post.
We are expecting our first DC any day now, currently 40 weeks. DH will be taking paternity leave for 2 weeks and then going back to FT work, fairly stressful job and he's currently out of the house approx 8am-7pm.

He has said that after paternity leave has finished, he'll "have to" sleep in the spare room as he won't be able to function at work with such broken/lack of sleep. He moans now about being knackered with 7+ or 8 hours sleep while I'm getting sod all sleep as am so uncomfortable

I think that is slightly unreasonable as I'll be knackered too and it's our first baby - also neither of us know quite what to expect yet and how well DC will sleep etc. So I don't feel like we can plan that far ahead yet, whereas he seems to have it in his head that this is what is going to happen.

How do others deal with night times when their DP goes back to work? Some people i know do "shifts" but DH said he couldn't do his job properly if we did this.

I am planning on EBF (so it would be a case of me feeding and him doing nappy changes I guess) and he is generally great, absolutely pulls his weight and will be a good dad so it's definitely not a "why are you having a baby with him"/LTB situation!

I think YABU if he has to go to work and you don't. He isn't going to be able to have a nap with the baby during daytime hours is he, as hell he working. You do have the choice to go to work instead and leave him with the baby assuming you have no ongoing injuries from Labour so therefore I think you are being selfish.

@Hey1256 is intending to EBF, going back to work immediately would make that extremely difficult. She could attempt to express sufficient for a ten hour day, but I'd think that was nearly impossible. She'd be expressing non stop, it would interfere with her work or she'd be up all night breastfeeding or expressing.

Not a great idea her going back to work as soon as she's healed from labour.

Agree with separate bedrooms Sunday to Thursday. My ex used to commute on a busy motorway, he needed to be alert.

Ds slept with me and I got to the point I could bf without opening my eyes. I used to sleep every second that ds did.

I agree with you that it's not sensible to try to plan before you both know how it all goes. I wouldn't have managed without DH being up in the nights with me initially - I couldn't stand or walk unaided for 3 weeks PP. Hopefully your DH will change his tune a bit when he sees what you go through getting the baby out!

He should maybe do the early shift before work, so he does 6-8 for example and you do the rest. At weekends he can help more overnight although if you’re breastfeeding there’s not. Lot he can do. If there are no other risk factors (look at lullaby trust for these) then cosleeping can help you get more sleep but please please research this properly and discuss with your Health Visitor who should help you reduce the risks and show you how to do it safely

I did all night stuff which meant DP could function at work and do lots of housework and take the slack in day when I was tired. Don't see point of him waking to change a nappy. It only takes about 2 minutes max to change a nappy!!!

@theretheirtheyrenotno I didn't quite mean immediately after the birth I'm just saying that once healed and breastfeeding stops then it's always an option. I believe it's a choice beyond this to be the primary career, and is up to the OP if she wants to do it but while she is the primary carer I don't see what benefit it is to both being woken by the baby.

It's entirely possible to feed and change the baby alone throughout the night, not desirable no but totally pointless to need both hands to do it - it seems the OP wants it to be joint more out of fairness than anything else.

The way I see while you are on maternity leave the baby is your job in the main. When you go back to work it becomes equal.

@Hey1256 so what's the solution while the OP is breastfeeding?

Because I believe that's what the OP was asking?

Not all babies sleep well, so even if on maternity leave I believe that the co parent should be helping.

Your post certainly didn't make it clear that it was return to work "when breast feeding was finished" it came across as if you don't like it then go back to work after you've healed, I mean you'd expect to heal before breast feeding was finished surely?

while she is the primary carer I don't see what benefit it is to both being woken by the baby.

Well, if the baby’s a terrible sleeper, then they could share the load of night wakings just a bit so she gets enough sleep to function. That’s quite a benefit.

Sleep deprivation is so horrendous. I wouldn’t have had much respect left for my husband if he’d seen me shattered and sobbing on 3 hours broken sleep a night with DC1, and still insisted on me doing it all while he got an uninterrupted night’s sleep in the spare room.

We don't have a spare room, just a small room that is now our 6 month old's. The baby slept in a next to me crib and DH just had to grin and bare the wake ups. He was fab about it.

I say it every single time someone mentions it on a thread but not all babies nap for very long during the day. After about 4 weeks, my son napped for 30 mins at a time, 4-5 times per day. You can't always sleep when the baby does, so he may have to do some night shifts with you.

@53rdWay
Well, if the baby’s a terrible sleeper, then they could share the load of night wakings just a bit so she gets enough sleep to function. That’s quite a benefit.

Yes I agree, perhaps at weekends he should take the load absolutely, but Monday to Friday I don't think he should even if the baby is a terrible sleeper.

If you are EBF what’s the point of him waking up in the night? Nappy changing takes 3mins. My DH slept in spare room Mon-Thursday and I only woke him when I was struggling. I am working FT now and it’s a LOT harder to work in a demanding job than caring for a baby and having the day to sometimes have a rest or lie-down. And I struggled a lot with sleep deprivation. So seriously don’t be resentful because he gets to sleep, working 11-12 hours a day is also very hard.

Sleep deprivation is so horrendous. I wouldn’t have had much respect left for my husband if he’d seen me shattered and sobbing on 3 hours broken sleep a night with DC1, and still insisted on me doing it all while he got an uninterrupted night’s sleep in the spare room.

My husband couldn't physically do much even if he was awake. I EBF baby so that was my job. Nappy changes were few and far between overnight as long as no poo occurred. Even then if I was awake feeding it made sense for me to do a 2 minute bum change. How would my husband being awake have helped? At least if he slept, he could keep the house clean, cook and take baby in the day/evening to allow me to rest.

@Hey1256 so he gets 8 hours a night, she gets two because baby is dreadful sleeper!

You don't think he should cut down to 6? Why not? If it's dangerous then it'll be dangerous when she goes back to work, so that's no reason.

So what's the rationale?

I am working FT now and it’s a LOT harder to work in a demanding job than caring for a baby

Babies vary! I found it WAY easier going back to my challenging f/t job than caring for DC1 all day. DC2 in contrast was an absolute doddle. (I also got more sleep when I was working f/t because I could nap on the train but I realise that wouldn't work for everyone's commute, please don't attempt if you're driving...)

How would my husband being awake have helped?

For your baby, maybe it wouldn't.

For my baby, it meant that when someone needed to spend 2-3 hours in the middle of the night walking the baby around/rocking the baby/letting the baby sleep on their chest, it didn't have to be me 100% of the time.

The OP and her husband don't know what kind of baby they'll get, so it's not fair to lay down the law on her doing all the night waking at this point.

'Babies vary! I found it WAY easier going back to my challenging f/t job'

This.

I would have a chat with him about waiting to see how things are to decide how you are going to manage things. Everyone is different and you don’t know what sort of sleeper your baby is going to be or how you will cope or what it will all feel like.

For me after the first few nights I was perfectly happy doing nights by myself. I was breastfeeding anyway so not much anyone else could do and I got a baby who only woke to feed and would always just wake, latch, feed and go back to sleep without any fuss. I can’t imagine how my partner being up with us would have been of any benefit at all. And there was a huge benefit to one of us getting enough sleep and so being more able to take on more of the cooking and cleaning and food shopping and general keeping our life ticking over.

Other babies can have long wakeful periods in the night or take ages to resettle and that must be incredibly hard to do alone when sleep deprived and just desperate to be allowed to go back to sleep. Some babies take a bottle and will have expressed breast milk or formula feeds at night and then the non-lactating parent is more able to do the baby care at night.

The real issue is making these decisions about how to make things work should be made between both of you based on how things are rather than your partner just assuming that no matter how you are doing he is going to be able to continue prioritising his sleep.

That is exactly what we did. I didn't get stressed worried I was going to wake DH and he actually got a good night's sleep. It's part of being the mother and on maternity I'm afraid. Our partners have to get up and leave the house, drive there safely, work machinary/make big decisions/concentrate on whatever it is they do to keep money coming in for our family.
We can nap when baby naps. Wait until you have more than one child unless there's a big age gap then this is the easy part.
Quit whinging and get on with it

Our partners have to get up and leave the house, drive there safely, work machinary/make big decisions/concentrate on whatever it is they do to keep money coming in for our family.

Many of them will be doing these jobs alongside working mothers, whose children did not magically start sleeping through all night every night once we went back to work. Heaven only knows how we managed without expecting someone else to provide us with a lovely uninterrupted 8 hours per night... I suppose we just quit whinging and got on with it.

We sleep in separate rooms Sun/ Thurs. We either share feeds on a Fri and Sat or I'll have a night to myself if it's been a particularly wakeful week. I don't understand why anyone would be happy to see their OH working full time on broken sleep. Yes you'll be tired but you can sit in your jammies all day if you need to. Of course if you really are exhausted you can have a few hours to sleep uninterrupted when your DH gets in from work. It's tiring but you do adjust

I ebf and co sleep with my ds. I did find it hard in the early days that dh could have a full night's sleep but it also has its plus sides... i can always have a sunday afternoon nap with ds2 while dh entertains ds2 and i can sneak off to feed baby if an annoying relative comes round

Quit whinging and get on with it - who is whinging?! I'm just asking for others advice (which has been very helpful) because it's our first and I want to make sure we do the best we can while not wanting to kill each other. I am not suggesting he gets up pointlessly while I feed, or anything of the sort. I'm just aware of how sleep deprived both parents might potentially be and other people have come up with some useful advice for a nervous first time mother!!

DH slept in the spare room. He often took DC in the evenings and then put them to bed (in my room), he also used to get up early and take them downstairs.
This got easier when I had to swop to bottle feeding obviously.
When I did BF, he would bring DC to me, often I could go back to sleep after.
It’s fine if he pulls his weight in another way.

He’s not BU and neither are you.

But, trust me, as someone who has co-slept with each baby while DH slept in the spare room - give it a try! We loved it! We loved being able to sleep when we could without waking the other up. I could bond with the babies while not feeling too bad about waking him when I knew he had a job to go to all day and I could probably nap here and there during the day when the babies napped.

Like others have said, there is no point in two people being sleep deprived. Let him have his special time with the baby when he’s home from work and at weekends and maybe even some mornings before work. If he gives you a break whenever he reasonably can, he’s being a good partner.

Congratulations and good luck!