How do you cope with being woken at 3-4am?

[Gearedtoyou]

DS1 works shifts. He's very good, barely makes a sound and turn no lights on as he's coming and going, but at certain times of the night all it takes is the click of the front door and I'm awake.

I've got used to most of his shifts and I don't hear him when he's in or out at 1am, but when he's going out at 3:30am or coming in just after 4am, I always wake and by that point of the night I seem to have had "enough" sleep or my mind gets busy so I can't get back to sleep. Then I'm up myself by 6:30.

He's had 4am starts the last 2 days and I'm a wreck!

No idea how that ended up in this section. Sleep deprivation?

I'm the same but in my case it's baby waking me so I have to get up and can't get back to sleep, I'm permanently exhausted!
My DH works late too and used to wake me coming in around 2am but I often have white noise on for the baby now and I don't hear a thing over the top of it, so give that a go?

Same here when my husband is on a late/night shift.
Sometimes I am so tired I can fall straight back to sleep, other times I just can't and end up reading my kindle. It's rubbish

I get up and read for 20 mins. I can usually drop off and doze for a couple of hours after that. But it's not proper sleep.

I'm heavily pregnant and wake often. I find doing the whole bedtime routine again works. I don't go as far as washing/brushing teeth again, but I go and have a wee, get myself some water, say goodnight to the dog, read in bed for ten minutes, arrange the pillows, lights out, etc. Just tossing and turning never works for me.

I don't think I've ever seen this section 😂

I'm no help either, I can't go back to sleep if I'm disturbed.

Podcasts or meditation apps

Have two sleeps. I do it and it’s natural. Google second sleep.