Newborn- Splitting the night?

[LondonGirl1992]

Hello all,

we have a 4 and a half week old baby and my partner has now gone back to work.

I wondered how everyone else is sharing the load? I obviously have the baby all day from 6am-7pm but then we are trying to figure out a routine for the rest of the time. I am expressing and we are therefore bottle feeding the baby breast milk which means he can help.

would be great to hear how others share the load!

We used to take it in turns - one of us would give the last bottle for the night, then the other would get up for the next feed and so on. It was hard but it didn't last forever.

I used to do a final feed and pump at 8.30pm then go to bed for 9. Ds would be tucked into a dark corner of the living room in a moses basket and dh would use headphones to watch tv keeping an ear open. He would do a bottle feed at 12-1am then bring him up to me in the basket that he would then tuck into the next to me cot. Wake ups after 1would be me again. DH slept in the spare room.

That would allow me a solid 3-4 hours of sleep , just enough to survive.

We do aternate nights now. When things were REALLY chronic (our 6 month old is a better sleeper now but would only sleep on us for 40 mins at a time when younger than 3 months) we used to split the night by one person sleeping 7pm to 12.30 and the other 12.30 to 6. But we slept in different places so we weren't disturbed.

We didn't really have a 'routine' in the evenings but in the early 3 months or so, I breastfed so I was mostly just on the sofa feeding whilst he did the housework. I did used to pass the baby to him to cook dinner though, that was my me time, I like cooking.

I usually breastfed to sleep, DC1 was mix fed earlier so sometimes DH would give them a bottle and put them to bed. DC1 didn't have night feeds after 8 weeks, before then I did them as breastfeeding. DC2 fed 2-3 times a night for many many months, I did all of them via the breast except for 3 a week that DH used to do with a bottle. Any nighttime nappy changes were DH's job though and if baby wouldn't settle for awhile after a feed then again that was DH's job.

We've always been a team and it's worked well. Expecting our 3rd in autumn.

My daughter never reliably took a bottle but I did the overnights and every weekend my partner took her Saturday and Sunday mornings and I slept until 10. When breastfeeding he brought her back of she needed a feed. She's almost 4 now and still doesn't reliably sleep through the night and my partner still takes her every Saturday and Sunday. They love those few hours just the two of them and I get to catch up on sleep.

I am a night owl and my partner is a lark so the nights are easier on me and the mornings are easier for my partner.

I would suggest you first work out what time of sleep is more important for you. Losing early morning sleep has a much bigger impact on me compared to losing sleep at midnight. So this was how we based our division. My partner couldn't do it during the week due to his work hours.