How to share nights with husband and newborn?

[TiredMummy889]

Expecting my second soon and feel like I’ve forgotten everything. Also not sure how it will work with having a toddler as well.

With my first we tried to tag team nights/took shifts a bit so that one person could sleep/one could hold our velcro baby for first couple of weeks, but it never really worked due to cluster feeding and my DS was a little and often feeder (BF) so I never got long before being woken to feed so I ended up cosleeping. Cosleeping wasn’t for me though and in an ideal world, this baby will go in bedside crib. Fully aware that may not happen though and I may change my mind when the time comes. But if you didn’t cosleep and had a toddler that still wakes at night, how did you share night duties with your partner to ensure you both got some sleep?

I don’t know if we should try tag teaming initially again or whether I should suggest my DH sleeps in spare room so that he can take the brunt of toddler care and I just suck it up with not sleeping with the newborn?

What were your approaches and any top tips for juggling two kids in those first couple of weeks?

Hmmm. I didn’t. My DH worked long hours and I breastfed so it wasn’t practical for him to get up with the baby. My children slept through from six months if not before though, so there wasn’t really the problem of both kids being awake during the night. I had a routine from first day home and that paid off well (as did the majority of my friends at the time, so it wasn’t that I was just lucky).
I’d be concentrating on getting your toddler to sleep through.

@mondaytosunday Toddler goes through phases. One month he’ll wake 5 out of 7 nights per week but normally only one wake and then the next month he’ll sleep through. So it’s guaranteed that we’ll need to handle two lots of night wakes but obviously parenting a demanding toddler is tiring too and requires resilience.

I had PND after my first so I’m just trying to think of how to get the most rest I can to help with recovery this time.

DH looked after DC1 while I had the baby with me. If he'd had a quiet night, he'd take the baby in the morning so I could get an extra hour to two. We'd tag team our naps in the day while he was on paternity leave. We were both very tired for the couple of months! Luckily DC2 is a much better sleeper than his sister ever was so that was a blessing.

I breastfed too. DH took the early shift, so I slept in a different bedroom 9pm - 1am and DH would bring him in to breastfeed as needed. He did all cuddling and nappy changes until that time. Around 1am I took the baby so DH could sleep solidly 1am - 7am and be good for work.