How would you manage the night shifts?

[TiredMum12344]

Myself & husband both work similarly demanding jobs with a mix of days in office & working from home.

Toddler usually wakes twice during the night, at approx 1am & 4am. She is up for the day at 6/6.30am & dropped to nursery a short walk away at 8am.
(We're working on trying to eliminating the night wakings but that's a separate discussion)

Interested to hear opinions on what you think the fairest way to split the night wakings & mornings would be?

Current situation for context - Husband finds it hard to fall back to sleep after being woken at night so I usually cover the night wakings & he takes over from 7am and covers nursery drop off.

I'm pretty exhausted all the time though so will need to either split the night into 2 shifts or else alternate nights between us. Not sure which would be better for optimising sleep & would love to get some input!

We did one person on all night wakes and the other gets up early with them and swapped each night. But either way you're tired.

No no no. We alternate nights every few days.

You can cope with some sleep deprivation if you have 2 good nights of sleep behind you.

Your DH is getting a fabulous deal here.

I used to go to bed at 8pm and DH would be in charge until about 2am at which point I would take over. He woke up at 8am so we each got six hours sleep. There’s loads of ways to do it but the important thing is that it’s 50/50.

“Takes over at 7am”? That’s not “taking over” it’s just getting up for the day. Did you mean 6am? Although my point still stands.

It’s not fair that you do both wakings. He should do the 1am one and you do 4am or vice versa. Whoever has done the 1am wake gets up at 6. OR you can alternate doing all night wakings and take turns each night. But this is not any form of “sharing” at all currently.

Currently up with the 4 week old baby. Husband covered 8pm-midnight then we swapped and I’m doing midnight-5am. He works full time too but we switch shifts depending on who’s the most knackered to start with.
If your child is reliably waking at 1 and 4 daily and husband struggles to go back to sleep, logically you do the first and he should do the second x

If he struggles to fall back to sleep then he does the 4am wake and you do the 1am or you do alternate nights. If he goes to bed early enough he'll still get a decent sleep by waking at 4. You must be bloody exhausted!!

Appreciate the advice, and yes I'm exhausted!!

In fairness to him he will agree to whatever arrangement I decide on with the night shifts.
But he does have a tendency to wallow in his tiredness so Ive just found it easier to take it all on rather than put up with the wallowing!

My work is starting to suffer though so it will need to be 50/50 from now on.

We tried both approaches and found that alternating nights worked better. But DS didn't reliably wake up at the same time, every night was different.

I think it completely depends on how sleep works for you both. If he struggles to fall back to sleep I’d say he takes the 1am and then he gets a long stretch of sleep before having to get up. You do 4am if you’ll fall back to sleep before morning.

But I’d also be prioritising sleep above all else. Whoever isn’t doing bedtime, goes to bed at like 7/8pm. Don’t just get up when she does in the morning, Bring her into your room to quietly play or have a cup of milk while one of you snoozes for an extra hour. Sleep separately (do you have a spare room?) on nights when one of you really needs sleep. It won’t be forever, but sleep above everything else.