Mums on mat leave with bottle fed babies...

[MsFrog]

...do you do every night feed every night? I know different things work for different couples. Is it reasonable for one person to do all the night feeds? Is that a stupid question?

In RL it’s obvious within minutes whether new/newish fathers are doing a fair share, from how couples look and seem.

Night parenting should be shared IMO (not necessarily 50/50, but much, much fairer split than 90/10), unless one of the parents has health issues that mean sleep is even more important, or one of a small number of jobs where sleep deprivation could be a safety risk.

Apart from a small subset of jobs involving safety risks, fathers working FT don’t need more sleep for their health and wellbeing, and ability to perform their role, than a mother on mat leave parenting a baby.

Unless a baby/toddler sleeps very well. the mum doing more than is fair can lead to exhaustion and associated health (and safety) risks.

I experienced this with DC1, who slept terribly until age 2. DH didn’t do a fair share at night, I did 90% or more. After 9 months or so I became unwell, physically and mentally. Also had a minor injury and a some scary near misses due to fatigue, eg boiling water and the baby, crossing roads.

Meanwhile he was sprightly, socialising and doing ten mile runs! We changed things with DC2, who slept better, and even then and sharing the work more fairly we were both very tired, but OK.

Haven't RTFT but we split the night in shifts, while I was in mat leave and DP was working. IIRC I usually slept 9-2 then we swapped for DS to have his bottle and DP slept til 7ish. My memory is a bit hazy sorry!

I'm currently pregnant with twins and our daughter will be 2 years old when they are born.

We've been talking now (still can't decide whether breastfeed or formula) however have come to the decision that he will focus on the two yea old if she wakes and I have the twins. If he is in the spare room (which to be honest he will only do in worse case scenario) the. He will have the monitor for the 2 year old with him.

That plan doesn’t sound at all fair on you, craving. V v difficult to recover from birth them stay well and be OK to parent three DC during the day, while doing a high proportion of the night parenting of twins!

Nooo my husband shared night feeds v

@cravingmilkshake

I'm currently pregnant with twins and our daughter will be 2 years old when they are born.

We've been talking now (still can't decide whether breastfeed or formula) however have come to the decision that he will focus on the two yea old if she wakes and I have the twins. If he is in the spare room (which to be honest he will only do in worse case scenario) the. He will have the monitor for the 2 year old with him.

Good luck 🤞 I have twins too, be prepared to rethink this plan 🤣🤣 even if DH could do the nappies for you it'll help, it's really difficult managing 2 screaming babies alone (yours may be better behaved than mine) they've always been high maintenance 🤣🤣💐

Had twins, DH did the midnight feed so went to be late but did anyway before children, I went to bed about 9pm and got up for the 3 am and 6am feeds. But after the 6am feed unlike every other person I know, I did not get up and start cleaning the house or whatever, I went back to sleep until the next feed and got up then about 9ish.
If we had had older children my DH would have got them up and out to school and in fact does now, as one of them requires medication at night which I get up and give them at 6am. I go back to bed and he gets them up and out for school.

I did all the week and one weekend so we both got one lie in over sat/sun

It’s not ‘help’, or doing things ‘for you’, it’s parenting! For which fathers are, with mothers, responsible.

Why do so many of us prioritise a man’s sleep (health, wellbeing and wishes) over our own, at a time when we’ve been pregnant and given birth and need to recover and care for tiny DC?

DH does the day shift, I do the night shift, so yup, I've always done the night feeds.

Suits me. I like being able to sleep / lounge around all evening / weekend and not feel lazy.

No we shared all of the night feeds. If you take them in turns it’s so not a big deal because you’re each getting a 5-6 hour uninterrupted stretch of sleep.

DH works 9-5 five days a week and we have split the nights. Up until a week ago, DD2 was co-sleeping with us and we would take it in turns. Now she’s in her cot, we alternate who gets up. We both get a decent amount of sleep this way. He wanted a baby too so is happy to do 50% parenting. Being on maternity leave isn’t a holiday.

One night each at the weekend and in the week I’d do them as DH was in work. It would have been unfair for him to be up most of the night when I didn’t have to go to work the next day.

I did all of the night feeds during the week, and on the weekends we did one night each. Mine only ever woke once a night though, around 3-4am, and they stopped that completely around 4 months old so it wasn't too big of a deal getting up.

We split it and did one night each at the weekend.

My first was bottle fed. Dh made every bottle and I would feed her and put her back to sleep. Literally every single bottle until she dropped night feeds at 9 months. It’s actually much more work to bottle feed and a lot of faffing about.

We both had to deal with night wakings and work once we were both back to work so no reason it was any harder for him to get up in the middle of the night when she was 3 months compared to 13 months. And he did it while working 50+ hours a week starting a new business (just like I did working long hours and commuting to London when I was back at work).

For the 2nd, I bf and it was a lot easier and I didn’t need as much help, though he did a lot of the nighttime settling in the early weeks so I could sleep.

I think with 2 kids napping in the day is very difficult so the split should be more even.

I Breast fed.

I went to bed 8/9pm. DH kept baby with bottle of expressed milk and did night shift from about 2am wake onwards. This stopped about 6 months as co-slept (non sleeping baby).

Now a non-sleeping toddler and both working we share nights 70:30 with me doing bulk as 1. I work Part time, 2. Light sleeper.

But generally it’s whoever gets there first.

Weekends, one lie in each. If one of us is very tired/ill etc they generally get both lie ins.

When my husband had paternity leave, we did the bottles 50/50. When he wen back to work I obviously did most of them. He did the early morning one before he started work and did the middle of the night one on Saturdays.

When I had DS I did every night feed during Mat leave on the nights where DH had to go to work the next day. He would then do fri and sat night as he had the weekend off, and that gave me a bit of a break to recharge.

We were lucky though. I'd dreamfeed at 10:30 before I went to bed myself and then DS would want a feed about 2-3am and then he'd sleep until 6 which is when we naturally would be up for work anyway. So it was only one interrupt to my sleep anyway

I did all the nights on maternity leave. Luckily when I went back after 6 months (which was what you got when son was born 20 years ago) he slept from about 6.30 til 8.30 so husband used to have to wake him up to take him to the childminder!

Husband is on furlough so we share. We take turns in who does first feed as often baby's second is at 6/7am so there's only one wake up.
When he goes back to work, me and baby will be in baby's room on his working days and my husband will take at least one night/share one night on his days off.

DD would go to bed at 7ish as a baby. I'd go to bed shortly after. DH would do the next feed (10pm or so), which meant that I got 6-7 hours' good sleep before DD woke again around 2am.

When I was on maternity leave, my husband would stay up to do the 1/2 am feed and I'd do the next one. We had a good routine.