To ask how you split nights with a newborn with you partner?

[GreenHeather271]

We have a 1mo, and a toddler. I’m on maternity leave and DH works 5 days a week, 2 of which are in the office. On WFH days he wakes up when the toddler wakes up at around 8am, does brekkie, gets him ready for nursery, etc. I do the mornings days he’s in the office as he has to leave before 8am. I sleep in a seperate room with the newborn and do all the wakes, feeds (BF overnight, DH gives him a bottle before bed) and nappies. Same arrangement also stands on the weekend. I know it will pass, but newborn wakes frequently, wants to be held most of the night and I am feeling so broken from the lack of sleep. Feeling slightly resentful that DH can sleep through the night once he decides to go to bed, and I’ve barely had a 2/3 hour stretch in the last month.

We never slept in separate rooms. I bf so dh couldnt do feeds but would often help take turns resettling the baby if he didn't nod straight back off after a night feed.

If your DH does a bottle before bed can you get a longer stretch eg 7 - midnight or 8-1?

Oh god those days feel like a distant memory (even though our youngest is only 3). Stay strong it gets easier!
With a very very newborn I tended to do everything until 4am, then DH would go to bed early and get up early with them, I got a solid little 4 hour block 4-8am and he got a decent night's sleep 9-4ish.

Once they are in a bit more of a routine and only feeding once or twice a night I'd do Sunday - Wednesday nights and he'd do Thurs/Fri/Sat. So effectively he was doing one day a week at work on broken sleep. I'd also step in if it was an absolutely terrible night on a Thursday. It worked for us.

Sleeping in seperate rooms as our bedroom is next to toddlers and we don’t want crying baby to wake him up in the night when he generally sleeps through. Also DH snores like an elephant, so I started sleeping in the spare room during the last few months of pregnancy so we could both sleep better.

DH did night wakings until 1am - I went to bed after the toddler did. I got maybe 5/6? hours sleep. After that all bets were off! He got up with the toddler and would take baby down so I got maybe 2-3 hours before taking both back on.
our baby always slept with me feeding all night. My favourite few hours of sleeps is from about 6 - 8.30 still. My children are late teens !

We’re lucky because where we live gives 4 months paternity leave. I BF through the night too, and my daughter wouldn’t sleep unless she was literally on my boob. DP would get up and rock her for an hour or two in the middle of the night so I could get some sleep. I can see how that would be harder for your DH while working too, but he needs to take some of the night wakes though. BF is exhausting.

Have you had a serious chat with him about how exhausting it is? He doesn’t see your reality in the day so maybe isn’t appreciating that you’re working 24 hours a day when he’s only doing 16. Tell him he has to step up.

Husband takes over toddler in the morning and any wakes from baby after 5 am. Means I can get a good 3 hours before getting up at 7.30/8 am. He goes to bed earlier! Bonus for him if baby sleeps through, he manages to get around 8 hours if not when going to bed at 9 pm. One/two nights a week, I’ll put the sleeping baby in his room around 12 after night feed and he will deal with any wakes (normally sleeps straight through for him as he can’t smell me/milk!)

FYI baby is 9 weeks, when baby was around 4 weeks his take over cut off was around 4 am, he just went to bed straight after toddler.

We called it 1am protocol.

I covered until 1am, letting DW sleep from 7-8pm until then. I then slept from 1am onwards before heading to work at 6.30am. it ensured we could have at least some consistent hours each.

It was hard, but at least knew we could get something. In reality we had a crossover of a few hours extending it to 6 hours sleep each per night

Would it help if DH did the first overnight feed, midnight or thereabouts. You could get to bed after the last bf, around 9ish, DH does a bottle at 12am, next feed at 3am? You'd get 5/6 hours in a block.

Still plenty of sleep for DH to get up at 8am with the toddler.

I tried to get some sleep in the day to catch up and did very little except feed baby collapse chill etc I was able to have an afternoon nap with newborn or just zombie through day but dh was at paid work The point was that DH helped whenever he wasnt at work with housework and bedtimes and cooking but in order to do 8am to 7pm out of the house and survive he needed at least 7 hours sleep (he got up early with the toddler too and took baby from 6.45am onwards)

If you treating life with newborn as time to get other things done like housework /errands that is probably misguided. I couldn't really get anything done except go for a walk once a day, a bit of washing, nap.

Are you trying to do too much at this early stage?

DH worked 5 days a week. I was on mat leave so it was only fair I did it all.

When husband was off at the weekend, he would take baby for a few hours in the early morning (from 5am onwards) leaving me to get a longer period of uninterrupted sleep. It was only at the weekends but meant I finally got a bit more sleep and made all the difference

I expected DH to do all the meal times for us, washing up etc, and bedtimes for toddler and deal with toddler waking in the night. I suppose the main thing is your newborns sleep patterns will even out particularily if you feed a lot at night because that will boost supply and this stage will pass.

Pffff that's so hard. Tbh the lack of sleep in those newborn days was traumatic. I don't have the courage to conceive a second child because of it.

There isn't much he can do. One of you needs to be rested and calm and rational.

Husband did 11 ish feed and I would have been in bed by 8/9 at this point

I did the 2/3 am

Husband then did 6 am until he went to work

He needs less sleep than me so I did pretty well tbh

but formula fed and was very much 3/4 hours a night right from the off

My 6 month old hasn't gone more than 2 hours for a feed since he was born!

I do all night waking and nappies etc.
DH does all drop offs and getting ready for eldest.
He does all the laundry and dish washing.
I do all the cooking.
I sleep when baby sleeps in day when eldest at nursery.

DH keeps DD downstairs when I go to bed at 8pm, then he gives her a bottle and brings her up at 10.30pm. I take over until 6.30/7am when DH takes her and DS downstairs and - work depending - keeps them downstairs and feeds them, does the school run until 9am while I sleep. Then I get big lie in’s on the weekend.

I can’t nap in the day really as Dd wants to sleep on me during the day. This works for us for now, but I’m dreading the 4 month sleep regression…

DH works a complex job so needs a block of sleep. He still shares our room though and in an emergency/she throws up or I’m really wrecked he can take over.

I bf, and with my second, my husband would stay up to midnight/1am with the baby, sometimes later if he could. I would give her a feed, and I would go to sleep at 8pm ish and he would take her downstairs and deal with any settles/nappy changes up until then. If she needed a feed, he would wake me and take her down again. He would then come up to bed. Usually I would have had a few good hours and then could deal with the rest of the night. When our toddler woke in the morning, he would get up with them.

It’s hard OP - all these suggestions of 5-6 hour blocks of uninterrupted sleep just aren’t practical or realistic when you’ve got a breast milk supply that needs protecting and the risk of mastitis to avoid too in these early months.

I EBF my children too so I understand the pressures of doing all these night feeds and how exhausting it is, and it’s definitely worse when it’s the second baby and there’s a toddler to attend to as well so it’s not a case of just being able to lie-in in the morning.

Me and DH shared a room when it was the first baby and although I was up doing the feeds, he would so all the nappy changes and re-settling. Just having him there for the emotional support and the company really helped when I felt like I was on the brink of collapse.

When it came to Baby number 2, we did have separate rooms but that’s because I would then take on all the care of the baby overnight, whilst he’d sleep and then get up with the toddler overnight if needed (without us disturbing each other), and in the morning he’d get up in the morning with the toddler at about 6am and get him dressed and fed etc and entertain him for a couple of hours before going to work, so at least I had those few hours of respite, or a few hours of being able to get some extra sleep.

This phase of new parenting is exhausting and sadly for babies who are exclusively or primarily breastfed, the onus does lie on the mother to either be up feeding, or needing to get up and pump, and it’s hard work but also just the way it is.

What used to really help me was that when DH came home from work at about 5pm, I would BF the baby abd then I would go for a 2 hour nap whilst he tended to the baby and toddler. Just having that Power Nap and time away from the children and the noise gave me such a boost in my energy levels.

Also, before he welt to work he would always make up a packed lunch in the fridge for me and the toddler so I never had to worry about finding time to make lunch. Just having that one job already done lightened the mental load a little, which made the tiredness during the day just that little easier to bear.

It’s easy for resentment to start setting in, so it’s just about identifying little things that your husband can do to help lighten the load of the rest of your day.

I disagree, I was one mentioning blocks and I breastfed both of our babies. When DH got up with them to do a night feed he'd half wake me so I could sit up in bed, then I'd doze while he held on to the baby and they fed, then he'd do the changing and resettling. Yes it's not technically sleeping through but it's a hell of a lot more restful than having to be awake and alert and hold and change and resettle the baby.

I did all nights with the baby. My DH was working 5 days a week, I was not. I had plenty of time to catch up on sleep. Sometimes I would go and grab a few hours early evening, he'd do the 10pm feed etc before he went to bed but I preferred to just stick to my routine of doing it all at night, worked better for me too.

In your position I used to go to bed at 7 when the toddler did. DH would do the dream feed at 11, then I'd take over any night waking as he was at work during the week. We kept the same routine at weekends but I'd also get a lay in from about 6-10 to catch up.
It doesn't last forever.

I did pretty much every single night as I breastfed. My husband did a very full on job that required a lot of international travel. When he was home I wanted him to be spending quality time with the kids so reading bed time stories and playing with them while I tended to do the more routine boring stuff. His job paid well so it meant we had a cleaner and I could afford a baby sitter etc. I know a lot of Mumsnetters would hate this and disapprove but it worked well for us and I’ve no regrets. If I was ill or needed help he would do so without a second thought. There was no resentment between us and we both respected each others role in the family. I think being able to afford a regular cleaner was a huge deal.

Like many others here I went to bed really early, by 7pm. DH did last feed of evening (we had bottles from fairly early) brought baby to bed 10.30/11 ish and covered until midnight. I did everything from midnight until 630ish when DH would take over so I could get an extra hour or so sleep (obviously not on mornings commuting to office).