Ending Shifts

[KeepingMyCoffee]

Hi mums doing shifts - when did you stop? Currently my OH has baby in the living room from 9:30pm-1:30pm ish (9:30pm is when LO has his last feed from me and realises it’s night - if I go earlier he screams for more food) and gives them a EBM bottle in that time as needed. He does have the telly on but LO sleeps and the lights are dimmed. I go to our bedroom to sleep. When I get up I pump for the next night and BF on demand from then on. LO is 11 weeks and only sleeps for about 2-3 hours at a time - he comes off the boob asleep I give it 15 minutes then put him in a Moses basket by the sofa where I can lay down and put a hand on him to limit those wavy arms when needed. I sleep as much as possible when he’s down. I really want this to end soon and be back in my own bed with my OH. Please tell me it will and share any strategies for tapering off these shifts? One that doesn’t cost me the four hours of sleep that are saving my sanity…

Should add he screams for more food and my heart breaks - I feel guilty leaving my LO even for just four hours of sleep in another room and find it impossible unless he’s happily snuggled asleep with daddy. Despite knowing this rest makes me a much better mummy

About 3m / 12 weeks I think which was when we decided to start trying to implement a routine and consistent bedtime routine, putting baby 'to bed' at 7pm. This consisted of me going to bed with baby, feeding, transferring to crib and sleeping on and off through the night. We wanted to teach baby that 7pm was bedtime. At first we alternated these nights with shift nights, then as the 7pm bedtime nights got better, we switched to that full time, reserving the odd shift for when I'd had a particularly bad night only.

Eventually, about 5m, I started sneaking away and could have a bit of an evening after baby had gone to bed. Then at 6m we switched to formula, moved baby to her own room and everything got 100x better! She now goes to bed at 7pm, wakes once or twice in the night, and wakes for the day around 7am.

Why do you need to sleep on the sofa?

My DH used to do something similar but he carried DC in their Moses basket upstairs to our bedroom when he came up to bed. They didn’t wake up.

DC just stayed in the sitting room in the evenings with us too.

DH used to do last feed at 11.30/12ish then they'd both come to bed and I'd get up anytime DC woke from then. I use to aim to be in bed by 9.30pm so I knew I'd have from roughly then till about 2/3am to sleep, then do quick feed and back into bed asap. DH would get from 12-7/8am depending on what time he needed to be up for work.

Why are you sleeping on the sofa?

Thanks all. Unfortunately DH snores so I end up being kept awake by him when I could be sleeping. We don’t have a spare room at the moment or I’d be using that for the person being asleep.

I do want to be back in bed with him and can sleep through the snoring if I’m not wired from lack of sleep!

So we stopped doing shifts for a while around 4 months but then had a bad leap so re-started and still doing shifts now at 9 months. It works so well having a spare room and now whoever is on shift goes in the baby's room and whoever isn't is in our bed. We usually have about two hours overlap where all three of us are sleeping at some point. I express some nights too.

Honestly your husband's snoring probably does need to be addressed because you're going to have years of being wired (potentially!)...those nights with leaps and teething etc where you'll be glad of a two hour stretch asleep together in your own bed..only he'll be asleep and you'll be kept awake!

The main issue with being wired for me is I started with the whole thing of well there's no point going to sleep now baby will be awake for more boob in an hour mind games!

@KeepingMyCoffee

I do want to be back in bed with him and can sleep through the snoring if I’m not wired from lack of sleep!

This could take months —years— so maybe address the snoring

Where will baby sleep after growing out of the Moses basket? Can you feed lying down ? This was a game changer for me we had a cot side carred to the bed (like a next to me type thing)

it's really quite likely in the first year that sleep will be really up and down and it's not usually a linear progression - I found the "shifts" really quite lonely to be honest and we safely co slept in the end it was the best thing I ever did but I know that's not for everyone

Yea that's really tough with your partner snoring - is there anything he could look into to help with his snoring