Should a Brain Surgeon be up at night with a baby doing night feeds ?

[Mondaytuesdayhappydays]

Should a surgeon working full time, operating on patients each day be up with a baby at night doing 2/3 hourly feeds.

If they were operating in your child and had had only 3/4 hours sleep each night over the last fortnight would this be acceptable to you?

I don’t think that was because of how much sleep she had or didn’t have, though, was it? I mean, are you saying that if she’d slept lovely eight hours she’d have backed down over the miners strikes? Because she wouldn’t!

Since when did surgeons earn so little?

11 pages and the enigmatic OP hasn’t been back.

@CareerDerailment So you are agreeing with me but just explaining why that's the case? 😆

No but surely these things are discussed before you have the baby? I wouldn’t have a baby with or as a neurosurgeon having never thought about what would happen at night time. I’m sure a neurosurgeon has enough money to source help if they need also.

Ex DP was a firefighter and we spent some time trying for a baby. He worked 4 on 4 off and I knew I would be doing all 4 nights of night feeds because he couldn’t go into work exhausted (and two of those 4 were nights anyway).

No. This is one if those situations where safety has to come first. Surgeons, airline pilots etc must be well rested or should call in sick as they are not safe to do their jobs sleep deprived. People's lives would be at stake.

If the neurosurgeon is the mother, then no she should be on maternity leave. If ML has ended and baby still not sleeping though, then they need a night nanny.

If it is the dad, then no Mum should be dealing with night feeds unless he is on paternity leave.

Since NHS salaries haven't kept pace with inflation for the last 10-20 years

The surgeons on my road, at the private school I work at & in my family aren't short of a bob...

They need to buy in help at least one or two nights a week so that presumably the mum gets a break too.

Dh wasn’t a brain surgeon, but was still working very long hours in a demanding job where wrong calculations/instructions to his team would have been very serious.

So as a SAHM at the time, I thought it was solely down to me to do night feeds for both of ours.
Though in any case both were EBF so he would have been sod all use anyway. 🙂

My DH worked full time (not a brain surgeon alas) and I was at home full time so I did all the night feeds, for both kids. Wasn’t an issue and was the logical thing to do. I didn’t have meetings or have to make important decision affecting others or simply hold a conversation, so I did the nights and slept when the baby slept during the day. This obsession that men should do their “equal” share of the nights and simultaneously hold down a FT job is simply ludicrous when the mother is at home all day.

I do wonder how Mums with these sort jobs manage with non sleeping toddlers. Our worst patch of sleep (apart from first few weeks) was after I went back to work at 12 months and we had endless teething and nursery illnesses for the first year back. I was a shell of my former self and made so many mistakes at work although luckily I am not a neurosurgeon. Would everyone in this situation be able to afford a night nanny or does other partner take over the wakeups?

I doubt it is in the financial remit of most people… but definitely affordable for a neurosurgeon. And it only needs to be temporary.

Why specifically a brain surgeon? A train driver, a pilot, an ICU nurse among many others, all need adequate rest between shifts. Should people with responsible careers forgo having children?

It’s interesting how many people think it would be wrong for a neurosurgeon sleep deprived due to caring responsibilities to work, yet don’t seem to have any understanding of how the organisational structures within which they work will be contributing to fatigue:

Quote taken from the report posted a while back. “Fatigue arises from a number of personal and organisational factors, which can overlap. Organisational factors that contributed to staff fatigue included workload, long shifts, insufficient rest facilities and inadequate rest breaks during and between shifts. Personal factors that contributed to an increased risk of fatigue included caring responsibilities, menopause, pregnancy, religious practices and socioeconomic factors.”

Honestly, I appreciate this is a parenting forum so the focus is more on the impact of a baby on fatigue, but fatigue is such a wide ranging issue, with so many causes. The suggestion that a neurosurgeon with a baby will be fine if they have a nanny - even though the organisation they work within may be switching them between day and night shifts, sandwiching on call responsibilities during shifts, not giving them enough breaks - is bonkers. For example the report above reflects on the fact that there is often no compensatory rest for being called into the hospital whilst on call - so a consultant may work a day shift, immediately be on call over night where their sleep is repeatedly disturbed and they may well have to attend the hospital - and then immediately go into their next day shift. And if they make an error due to fatigue, they will most likely be held accountable. Would you get on a plane if that was a pilot? They drip, drip of patient harm is always there, but it doesn’t have the same impact as a smoking hole in the ground when a plane comes down.

Why isn't this "brain surgeon" on maternity leave, with such a young baby?

Have you actually got a stake in this question or just trying to make a point about some jobs are Very Important and so the poor little man should not have to have his sleep disrupted to help with his kids?
Or that Brain Surgeons are a special class of Very Important Job who should have a Get Out of Jail Free card for parenting?

If someone cannot do their job effectively and their family will be carrying an unreasonable burden, that person needs to find a way to get them the support they need.

on the days that they work probably no, brain surgeon should not be up at night unless he can get a ‘top up sleep’
eg. 6-8am, on the days that they don’t work work- yes absolutely they should be up & helping. Since they have demanding job that pays very well I can imagine they should ensure a night nanny covers their shift ( if we want to be technical & fair).

then again there is a mom who is up every night with no help whatsoever expected to look after a human being(s) day time - their lives can be in danger if a mom is sleep deprived while eg. driving them places etc.

so I am not sure if you get the ‘right’ answer for that, imo no-one should be sleep deprived

And yet when I told people that I didn’t want DH up in the night to our baby (many years ago) because he had a 1.5 hour drive to work every day I was told he should just learn to cope on less sleep! Someone falling asleep while driving on the M25 could kill multiple people, a tired brain surgeon could kill one person.

car insurance for doctors and other shift workers is higher, as they are more likely to be in a car accident too due to sleep deprivation at the end of a shift. So the tired brain surgeon is possibly more of a risk driving than a tired other person

Or paternity/parental leave.

I think it totally depends on the person. They need to know their limits and call in sick if they’re not rested and unable to work safely. There are many families where both parents are critical workers who need sleep. They have children. You just have to manage and know when to call it.

What’s your actual question here? Are you the surgeon, or their partner, or the parent of a sick child? Hope you are doing ok.

This is bonkers. You do realise an nhs neurosurgeon is paid on the same salary scale as all the other nhs consultants?

I would say absolutely not! Someone with a job that important needs to be as on the ball as they can be or they can literally kill someone