Does your partner help with night feeds?

[mum19821985]

Just curious, how much does your partner help with the night feeds? I have a 5 month old and I'm doing almost all the night feeds. I formula feed. Hubby sleeps in our 5 year olds room so he can be well rested for work and I'm in the main bedroom with our baby. Hubby has the sort of job where lack of sleep could end in disaster so he needs his sleep. Occasionally he will have our baby overnight if he is off the next day. Curious as to how much your partners do? Our baby is a terrible sleeper, frequently wakes and is beginning to wake up screaming and refuses to go back to sleep. I'm finding it so hard right now!

DH helped every night. I breastfed, so did all feeds. But then he took them after feed to burp, nappy, resettle. After 3 months I only fed every 4 hours overnight, so if they woke every in between he would be the one to resettle without a feed

My baby is 4 months. I do the night feeds and my bf does the 6am feed and then gets ready for work then wakes me up about 7:30 before he leaves for work.
My bf is a terrible sleeper so if he does the night feed he can't get back to sleep and he's shattered for work the next morning.

Is he sleeping alot during the day op?

I did all the night feeds in the week as dh works long hours and needs to be alert. He'd get up at weekends about 5/6 and then let me sleep for as long as I needed. I hope your baby starts to settle at night soon.

DH slept in the spare room Mon-Thur. He did 11pm feed. I went to bed at 9ish. I would do middle of the night feed and and wakings / grumblings with DTS. We would do the morning feed together and I would go back to bed with the babies while he went to work.

Worked for us as we both managed to get a relativley decent amount of sleep.

He's a PE teacher and often drives mini busses full of kids around so really needed to not be falling asleep!

I bf DS 1 and did all night feeds on my own, I wouldn't have woken DP just to burp the baby, and I never changed DS1 's nappy during the night.
It's the same with DS 2 now, he needed nappy changes during the first ten nights or so but I still wouldn't have woken DP just for that. I'm awake, so I might as well do it all. Besides, DP deals with the DS 1's wake-ups, which are much worse imo. He'll be doing DS 2's wake-ups as soon as they're no longer related to feeding.

I used to go to bed about 8 is. Dh would stay up and do the midnight feed and I would do the 3am and 6am feed (ds1 was fed on demand but was almost exactly every 3hours to the minute) . This meant that I had a solid 7 hours before being disturbed. We then alternate lie ins (still do).

I breastfeed but DP always wakes up with me, changes the nappy if it seems like it needs changing, hands me the baby, fluffs up pillows, does any little things like get me a drink of water or put the heating on, then goes back to sleep while I feed the baby and read Instagram on my phone for however long. Works for us - not too onerous for him but it feels as equal as it can be.

Ex DH did zero night feeds, and never woke when our son was crying but then took naps during the day because he was tired due to broken sleep!

My DH was useless when DD was a baby. Only got up with her a couple of nights across the first 18/19 months (she slept horribly until nearly 2) but then expected me to be so fucking grateful for it- plus he was then 'so tired' despite the fact that I got up the vast majority of the time with her.

It caused major resentment in our relationship and the fact that I am not incredibly reluctant to have another child because I cant imagine being that sleep deprived with little to no help again but this time with a toddler. Nope.

*now

Bf here, ds is 10.5 months and a rubbish sleeper, I do everything at night but that's not through lack of DH trying! He just screams for DH and won't settle unless he has a boob in his mouth. Ho hum.

Yes, pretty much shared the feeding. I used to stay up late to do the last feed and if baby woke in the night he would go downstairs and prepare a bottle. I did the feeding and he crawled back into bed as he had work in the morning. Our DB's slept through the night from a few months old so it worked well for us.

I think that sounds reasonable OP. With DS1 DH insisted on getting up and 'helping' for each feed but looking back there was no need as I bf. So we were both knackered. But we also didn't really have a spare room then so kind of had to make do.
I'm 7m pregnant with DD1 and we've decided DH will sleep in spare room and get a full night sleep but he'll sort toddler in morning too. I'll be knackered but best just one of us than both.

Breastfed both of mine (2 and 1) so I did all night feeds. I now work full time, DH is a SAHD. I still deal with any night waking admittedly rare unless I'm on nights. They settle quicker for me so we are happy with the arrangement.

DH did every night feed with me - formula fed DT's. We fed one each so that we both could get back to sleep as soon as possible.

I have twins and my husband is up as often as me - we feed them at the same time so we each take one. If he has an important day at work we get one of the grandparents to stay over and help.

I breastfed at night so did all the night feeds.

now that my youngest is 1.5 the deal is that my DH does the majority of the nightwaking for the baby. I get up for the older two from time to time (if they are sick or wet the bed or whatever).

We are basically resigned to never having a decent night's sleep. Neither one of us has rolled over in the morning and said, "oh that was a GREAT night's sleep, I feel amazing!" since our youngest was born. We are both equally tired.

My whole life's ambition (and Christmas wish, please Santa) is to have two nights of uninterrupted sleep. Going to bed at 10pm. Waking after 7am. Not getting up once.

That is it. That is ALL I wish for.

11mo here and i do absolutely everything. Constantly. X

Surely the point of bottle feeding is so you can share the night feeds! (I'm joking, but really, it's a perk!)

I breastfed and did all of them, but I also co-slept. I couldn't have coped with doing bottles at night all on my own. Would have to share it unless partner had very good reason not to.

Could your DH take the baby downstairs if it's his night to settle him? Seems useless if you're waiting up and listening. I'm sure he'll manage, just like you manage when he needs to sleep.

My DH did every night feed when he was on PL. He doesn't sleep much and is a night owl so he stayed up until the 3am feed then he'd lie in until about 10 and I'd do the early morning feed. When he went back to work he did Friday and Saturday nights. He loved this time alone with the baby to bond.

We were going to do a rota, but DH turned out to be shit at breastfeeding .

No, I fed and he did the inevitable nappy change/ settle back to sleep. We did both work though, not sure what's fair with a SAHP.

We bottle fed both our children with a mixture of expressed breast milk and formula. In the early days when waking was frequent, DH would do a 'shift' from 7ish until around 12.30/1am. He would do all necessary feeds/settling in this time while I slept, then I would do all feeds and settling from 1am till 7 while he had a solid chunk of sleep before working the next day. At weekends we might swap around.
Worked for us, everyone got a few hours of sleep in a row.

These days DC are 4 and 17 months so wake infrequently. If toddler DC wakes up for any reason we both pretend we're asleep and then start nudging each other and negotiating on who will go and sort him out!