Split of childcare whilst on mat leave

[Tiredftmzzz]

I’m a FTM to a 12 week old baby. DH is really good with him but I’m feeling very tired and interested in how others split childcare during maternity leave. Baby is EBF. I genuinely don’t know whether I’ve got things quite good here (as baby is generally very good at night) or if there’s a better way to do things.

Our current set up is as follows during the week:

Daytime: all me as I’m on maternity leave. Baby doesn’t nap during the day unless walking in the pram or held (or sometimes at all - a different problem!)

6.15pm: husband home. Either he cooks dinner, or he dishes it up if I’ve managed to put something in the oven.

7pm: DH usually has baby for c30 mins whilst I tidy up, sort washing, put pyjamas on, clear up kitchen.

7.30pm: I get baby ready for bed. He usually then breastfeeds until c8.30pm before falling asleep.

8.30pm: I pass him to DH and I get ready for bed. DH settles baby in crib. He’s also the “insurance” so if baby takes longer to settle it’s on him to sort.

9pm - 2am: I sleep in spare room and get a solid 4-5 hours sleep.

2am: I pump milk then go to our room.

2.30am - 5.30am: somewhere in this window baby wakes for first feed (second feed c2-3 hours after). Usually takes c1 hour to feed and resettle (albeit tonight is more like 1.5 hours as he’s feeding for ages). I try to get a bit more sleep in this window but usually take a while to fall asleep after I’ve pumped and I’m half on alert for baby waking for feed. Usually get another 30 mins - 1 hour sleep.

5am: I get up to have shower / breakfast / sort house stuff before baby wakes.

6.30am - 8am: husband wakes, gets ready for work and leaves. Sometimes will make me breakfast if I’m trapped in bed feeding baby.

Weekends are the same, except I’ll stay in bed until after second feed so until c6-7am. Usually gets me another 30mins - 1 hour sleep. Husband will sometimes take baby c7am to give me another 30-40 mins sleep. He’ll also have him for an hour here and there during the day if I need to pop out somewhere.

The above routine means I’m essentially generally awake from 2am most days and surviving on 4-5 hours sleep - but I think this might be good for having a young baby?

Husband sleeping 10pm - 6.30am in the week but I can’t really see how we could do things differently unless I stop breastfeeding?

How did others split things?

We had a chat about how long it takes my husband in the mornings! In this time he has breakfast, gets dressed and goes for a poo.

I think partly it’s because he watches some TV whilst eating his breakfast (not excessively - like 15-20 mins) and partly he’s just very slow in the mornings. He’s never really been a morning person.

But I do achieve a hell of a lot more in 90 minutes in the morning - even pre baby!

I think your baby sounds like a great sleeper! Do you need to pump at 2am? That seems to be disturbing your sleep more than the baby.

Echoing PP Id not get up at 5am to get up, you can grab a shower while baby is in the bouncer or having a lie on a mat. I get up at 5.30am one day a week to go to Pilates and I hate it. 😆 Probably the hangover from having a child who woke up at that time for 2 long years.

Naps will change over time, best thing you can do is watch out for those sleep cues and get settled down to help baby nap as best you can.

My DH was the same. In the end, I just forced the issue and left him with the baby for a chunk of the morning because it isn't ok for him to hog all of the morning time faffing around.

Mostly what he did was out the baby in a bouncer while he continued his very slow morning faff but I at least got to shower undisturbed

If he's watching TV for 15-20 he can have the baby on his lap/in a bouncer while he does it! The best thing we ever, ever spent money on was a stokke tripp trapp chair with the newborn attachment - it was quite literally my coparent.

In theory he could but in practice I think he’d find this difficult. I think my best bet is getting him to condense his morning routine into an hour and giving me 30 mins in the morning to organise myself. Once we’re both back at work there will be some mornings he’ll be getting baby ready and dropping to childcare so he’ll need to get more efficient then.

In fairness, if I asked him to help me in the morning I’m sure he would - I just wasn’t sure if it was a bit unreasonable when he needs to get ready for work.

I handed the babies to Dh pretty much when he walked in the door from work. I then usually cooked dinner and we ate. I would shower and get myself ready for bed.

Dh would do bathtime and get them ready for bed (when we had one and then still when we had 2, he was the parent from 5:30pm until bedtime).

I would feed and hand baby back to Dh and go to sleep in the early weeks. He would bring back to me for 10pm feed and then I’d sleep til the next feed and then Dh would go to bed and I’d take over. At 12 weeks though, we were not splitting nights anymore because baby slept well next to me.

No bloody way I’d be waking at f-ing 5am for a shower and breakfast though. 😂 That’s absolutely bonkers. I slept as long as baby slept and Dh would carefully creep out (or sleep separately) so he didn’t wake us and I got as much sleep as possible.

I showered at night while Dh had baby or after bedtime was finished. Coffee and breakfast eaten during morning feed or while baby was chilling in the wrap. Dh would have tidied the house before bed the night before (with baby in wrap or while I was feeding them), so nothing to tidy in the morning. 🤷🏻‍♀️

You’re making this way harder on yourself than it needs to be, but also your dh needs to hop into action.

Just on the amount of sleep. Our 7 week old has only ever managed 11-12 hours of sleep per day from day 1. Our older child was the total opposite and slept+++ for the first few months. Just sharing as the recommended amounts of sleep are just guidance and not all babies work to it. Like you, I can’t see our youngest ever sleeping that amount in 24 hours and interestingly the days when I have nailed more daytime sleep, he’s slept worse at night.

Definitely ditch the 2am pumping. It's completely unnecessary. If you want to be collecting milk for KIT days I would suggest using a silicone breast pump like the Haakaa and pop it on the breast that you don't feed off during that first morning feed when you are most full.

I would also be giving your OH the baby once he gets up on the morning so you can get in some extra sleep until he goes to work.

Thank you all - some useful perspectives.

I’m going to try dropping the 2am pump and see if I can sleep in our room until baby wakes up (previously this didn’t work well as baby makes lots of noise in sleep so sleeping in the spare room until 2am worked better but it does mean I then struggle to fall back to sleep after switching rooms).

I’ll try and embrace getting ready with baby in tow in the morning. I did do this this morning as baby was asleep on me from 5.30am until 8.30am and I do miss a bit of time to myself in the morning before having baby with me but I think I just need to become more relaxed about this.

Best of luck trying new things, I hope it goes really well. If baby on you 530-830, do try and practice transferring. I can get mine in his bouncer chair if I put the vibrate on straight away and “shush” him lots. The radio on and the sound of the shower sends him back off too. Good luck!

Pretty soon your baby should start to feed more efficiently (less than 7 minutes a side when my baby was 12+ weeks) and that helps a LOT.

As soon as my DP came through the door, if the baby hadn't slept, I would send him out with baby in the carrier or pram to get an extra nap in before bed time.

If your baby will take lying flat, put them on a play mat next to you while you do laundry, wash up, make lunch. Then you can actually rest when they sleep, even if only watching TV/reading rather than actually sleeping.

First nap of the day is a good one to practice as an independent nap.

Sounds like you have some great ideas to get started on!
I might cop some flack for this suggestion, but I’d be more seriously looking at why he is taking so long to feed, and if there are any underlying issues such as tongue tie that might need addressing. Alternatively, is he actually feeding all that time, or is he just comfort sucking. I have breastfed four children for 2 years each, and unless they were sick or in witching hours, feeding was a 10 minute job, particularly at 2am. At 12 weeks, baby would stir, I’d feed them for 10 mins, then just pop them back in the co-sleeper and go back to bed. Obviously not all babies are the same, but by 12 weeks, taking an hour to feed would make me suspect he is just comfort sucking.

Thanks all.

On breastfeeding - he did have a tongue tie and we got it cut at 5 days old. As a newborn, each feed was taking 1-2 hours and I got lots of help from NHS breastfeeding people who all told me it was normal and would get quicker. It has got quicker - I’d say most feeds are now 45 mins on average. Occasionally I get a 20 minute one - but then I’m probably guilty of worrying he’s not had enough and offering him more. If each feed took 10 minutes or less it would be a dream! Did yours start off slower than this?

Feeds took 45 minutes when newborn until six week cluster feeds were done, but by 12 weeks were down to sub 15 minutes; apart from the long 2am feed which took 20-30 minutes. My baby was definitely not feeding efficiently at first; I did formula top ups of feeds from over 45 minutes (nights for the first month?) until baby got more experienced.

When I was on mat leave with EBF baby I looked after baby day and night but DH cooked IIRC.

At 12 weeks, feeds shouldn't be taking 45 minutes. Can you see lactation consultant?

If you're breastfeeding on demand, you don't need to also pump.

I don't know what appointments you could have every day, that sounds exhausting. At 12 weeks, you should be still at a much slower pace.

Not necessarily appointments as such (although the first month or so felt like a constant stream of midwives, health visitors and breastfeeding people), but things planned. Eg, this week Monday family came round, Tuesday jabs for baby, Weds no plans, Thursday a baby class, Friday a friend visiting in the morning and I had an appointment in the afternoon.

I felt quite lonely at the start of my mat leave so liked to plan 1 reason a day to get out the house or see someone but I think this is making it hard to establish a good nap routine so probably need to pull this back a bit.

Agree, the 5am getting up unnecessarily is the issue here. Nor do you need to pump if baby isn't taking the bottle. Your supply will regulate itself.

My baby didn't sleep longer than 20 min at a time unless held at this stage (CMPA diagnosed soon after!). DH would take baby when he got up for work and take baby on his morning routine - in rocker outside shower while he showered and changed, put baby in sling and make both of us breakfast and lunch. Meant I got a couple extra hours sleep in!

My baby only contact napped until about 8 months. I used a sling a lot so I could still go do things if needed. It is hard with wake windows so short but they only last a couple of months and lengthen all the time so just try to commit to it. It does feel like a cycle of wake, feed, nappy, nap, but that's OK.

I think it sounds fair enough expect for your husband faffing around for ages before work and so making you feel like you need to wake up at 5 to shower etc. That being said I mostly shower before bed with young babies , or wait for them to have a nap where I can put them down and then go. My DC3 is 6 months old at the moment and sleeps much worse than your 12 week old so very jealous on that score! My husband helps out with the kids in the mornings before he goes to work, there's no long faffing or leisurely brekkies, it's tough shit frankly. Baby often goes in their bouncy chair for a bit in the mornings whilst one of us makes breakfast for ourselves and the older two. Or in the travel cot in the living room with some toys.

Yeah I agree with most things said here - definitely stop pumping. You don’t want your body making milk at times your baby doesn’t need it. Remember you are trying to work towards having no overnight feeds. Get someone to check the feeding again too. 45 mins is insanely long!

but I also think your baby is dreadfully overtired and that’s why you have nap issues. You need a good few days to get this right. I wouldn’t try and do it in the cot straight away. Decide how your baby naps best: contact, car, pram and do that for 3 or 4 days consistently until you have got up to a decent amount of sleep. As a previous poster says, this is napping 90 mins from the time they wake. Once you have that sorted then work on that napping being in a crib/cot.

Agree with pp about dropping the pumping and not getting up at 5am! Your DH is getting a lot of sleep compared to you (in fact 8 1/2 hours is far more than most adults get, let alone a parent of a young baby). If you're getting up early partly to get things done around the house can he not do those things before he goes to bed/ get up earlier in the morning?