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 combi-fed both our DC - this allowed DH to feed them whilst I was asleep. But even then we did shifts of 4-5hrs. Usually I’d sleep 10pm-3am having fed them before I went & DH would sleep 3-8am.
it was hell & is the only time I’ve even fallen asleep doing stuff, but it does pass eventually.

That’s why I mentioned people who were talking specifically about uninterrupted blocks of sleep (which isn’t what was happening in your case, so not relevant to the point I was making).

I done the nights except a Friday night. On a Friday night I would do the 6pm feed and then he would take over until the next morning. He had a lie-in on Sunday mornings. I don't know if that would work for you with your feeding set-up but I needed it every time it rolled round.

He worked full time, I was on maternity leave and I treated that as my job. I did it all so he could be fresh for work. It worked for us and thankfully baby settled into only waking at 4am for a feed from about 4 weeks old so we were really lucky on that front. If things were different and I felt more tired, I would have gone to bed early in the evenings I think and let him put the baby to bed after last feed when he was ready to turn in for the night.

We did it like this;
6 nights a week I was on duty between midnight and 6am. I'd go to bed around 9pm, DH would wash the bottles and leave everything set for me. She usually woke twice in the night and was easy to settle.

Even if it was 6.01 I was off duty. I'd shake him and he'd get up for her. I'd go back to sleep, he'd sort the bottles and hand baby back to me with a bottle and leave for work at 7am.

Baby and I would do a bottle in bed and snooze for a bit, then we would get up and dressed and go out for the day.

She was a very easy baby and they are happy memories. I know I was lucky!

Sorry if you're finding it hard. It didn't last long in my mind but maybe that's because I didn't want it to end.

DH was always a night owl whereas I was an early riser (funnily enough this has changed over in our forties) but at the newborn time, I would go to bed super early leaving DH downstairs with DD and get a few unbroken hours in. DH would then bring DD to bed and I would deal with night time wakes (mostly being DH couldn't be trusted to stay awake whilst feeding her). We would take turns on having a lie in at the weekends.

This is not sustainable for you and he needs to be getting up much earlier.

My DH got up at 5am every day so I could sleep from 5-7am when he had to leave for work. That two-hour stretch at the end of the night was what got me through each broken night. He would sometimes give me longer if he could. And at the weekend I always got a couple of 5-hour stretches. I wouldn’t have coped otherwise.

I did. I breastfed. My DH worked long hours. I had two kids and no difference with the second. Neither took a bottle. When older was at nursery nothing changed. I took him and collected because my DH left at 7am and returned at 8pm.
But I had my babies on a routine from the first day home. This meant I had every evening with my DH. Babies slept in their own rooms. Kids down before 8pm, I fed baby just before I went to bed and he woke once around 3ish. Then up for the day around 6-7am. There might have been one more feed during the night when tiny but by three months it was twice and by six months sleeping through.
Was I lucky? May be. But funny how every friend who did similar had good sleepers and those that let their babies go to sleep on them and had a ‘baby led’ schedule had no schedule at all and complained of sleepless nights.

I fed my daughter on demand and she more or less put herself on a schedule. So yes, it's luck.

Safe bed sharing and feeding through the night in the side lying position whilst snoozing means baby doesn’t need to be held and everyone can sleep.

Actually protective against SIDS etc due to co regulation. Great research on this by James McKenna sleep lab

What does your husband suggest when you tell him how tired you are?

I breastfed so didn’t expect my husband to do anything at night. I co-slept though, so my nights weren’t really disturbed other than to change sides now and then as I fed while I was asleep. He slept in the same bed, but didn’t wake, nor did I want him to as he had to go to work.

I'm approaching 60 now, so it's a very distant memory.

I BF all 3 kids. Hubs did one bottle before bed (God, back in the day we'd thicken it with half a rusk because we didn't know any better). I did all night feeds, but baby stayed in room with us and hubs just had to deal with any disturbance. I needed the cuddles from him to support enormous emotional labour. We were both knackered. To be fair, he'd take the kids so I could get naps during the day sometimes.

Cuddles were important to me. I traded his 'on it for work' for my 'but I need you'. I think that might've been more normal back then.

I would not of survived had i not done this! It was the midwife in hospital the 1st night DD was born who actually told me to do this

I have a 4 year old and a 9 week old.
4 year old is generally a good sleeper but may have the occasional wake up once in the night for no good reason at all.

Baby is bottle fed due to having prescriptuon formula for milk allergy.
Husband and I take it in turns to settle baby for bed. One will take him upstairs at our bedtime, change, feed and settle then put into crib. Other finishes washing up and tidying downstairs then heads up to bed.
Whoever didnt settle baby for bed will deal with the first wake up, feed change and resettle. This is somewhere between 2-3am.
Baby will then normally wake again somewhere between 5-7am depending on how much husband is snoring or if 4 year old wakes early.

If one of us is super tired (normally me because husband snores like a train), the other will do an extra settle in the night if needed.
We basically take it in turns which I think is fair.
Husband works 4 days/week split between office and home.
We no longer have a spare room due to the children having a room each so on the nights baby really wont settle, one of us will take him downstairs to settle in a moses basket then we will just sleep on the sofa.
It seems to work for us.

We did the same. DH slept in another room so had uninterrupted sleep from 11-6 and I went to bed at 9, even earlier sometimes. Not very interesting but meant we both got enough to function.

I did all feeds, but we slept in same room. So if baby needed nappy changed overnight dh would take him and do that.

Then Ds usually woke around 5-6am for the day and I would feed and then dh took him and changed nappy and clothes, but nappy wash on ( washable) and took him downstairs until next feed due so I could get 1-2hrs extra rest ( Ds woke hourly to feed at one point)

With new born we both got up in the night as baby was bottle fed so DH could get the milk ready whilst I changed her nappy, then we took it in turns to feed her until DH went back to work. At that point I did the feeds and he went back to sleep.
From about 1 month, DH did the evening feed and put her to bed - I went to bed around 8pm. I got up in the night from Sunday to Thursday and he got up Friday and Saturday. We each had a lie in on either Saturday or Sunday but had to be up by 10am. The other one would take baby downstairs so as not to disturb the lie in.
Once I went back to work, we took turns to get up in the night if she woke but stuck with the lie ins at weekend.

Never slept in separate rooms. I also EBF so DH was a bit useless but I would nudge him awake sometimes to change a nappy or something, just so I didn’t feel alone. Distinctly remember him taking DS out for drives occasionally at 3am when he just hadn’t slept all night and wouldn’t settle.

I would do the 8pm feed and go to bed for 9pm , then dh would do the midnight feed and put baby to bed after and I would do the 4 am feed then dh would get up for work at 7am. T meant that we both got between 6 and 7 hours sleep and we shared the feeds.

we slept in the same room.dh has a job where he works at heights so he needs to be fully concentrating everyday as it’s dangerous which is why I did all the 4am feeds.

at the weekend dh would have one long lie and I would have the other, It worked really well with us and we did the same for our next baby too.

we worked as a team.

My DH didn’t do a single night feed, I was breastfeeding and my milk dried up after about 8 weeks. I was burnt out trying to care for DC and keep up with household chores.
Even one night once a week would have made a difference. I was sleeping downstairs on the sofa with DC in a Moses basket.
The health visitor was not happy about this and said “get back in the marital bed!”
Luckily DC began sleeping longer at night so I could get 2-3 hours sleep and then he went on to be a champion sleeper.