query re:night time feeds when fiance is back to work

[BabanOnTheWay]

Hi all, so i am just wondering what the general consesus is with sharing nighttime feeds once fiance goea back to work ? From talking to my friends it seems that there is a 50/50 split. Some feel daddy should still get up and share the feeds as u will have the baby all day, where others feel as they wouldnt want daddy being tired in work they were happy to do the feeds. What do you think ? Thanks

My DH drives for his job, often with 5am starts (early finishes) so he has to have had sleep. I plan to do the weeknight night feeds but he’ll take over where possible late afternoon/early eve so I can have a break.
Weekends he will do his bit if she will take a bottle - it partly depends on whether we BF or FF.

I do all the night feeds and changes, DS is 3 weeks and we also have an 18 month old, the baby is up hourly at the mo so I have been sleeping on the sofa so we don't wake the toddler up, DP sees to the toddler if he wakes though as I can't do both

My baby is breastfed so there is little his dad can do in the night to help but to make sure he gets a good night's sleep before going to work he sleeps in the spare bedroom and we find that because he gets a good sleep we have fewer arguments and he has more energy to do the otger jobs around the house that need to be done that I never find the time for.
As a baby I was bottle fed and my parents shared the feeding. My mam was on night duty during the week but my dad did all the night feeds on a Friday and Saturday night so my mam could catch up on sleep. Maybe that would be something you and your husband could try.

I breastfeed our 7mo so have always done all the night wakes. My partner would help if I wanted him to but I don’t see the point in both of us getting up as I am quite happy doing it by myself.

Occasionally if I have a bad night I wake him early and he’ll take our son for a few hours first thing in the morning so I can stay in bed and sleep.

I did all the feeds when DH was at work and then he would do the weekend feeds. We’d also take turns having a lie in then.

I did all the night feeds from the start. Dh only got a couple of days off work after our daughter was born so it made sense to get into the routine early on. There were a couple of nights when dd would not go back to sleep and I was exhausted so I had to wake dh up to sit up with her but I always set an alarm for forty minutes time so he could go back to sleep. On his days off he would do the early morning feeds so I could get some rest.

This is SUCH a controversial topic I've found!

We are well aware things could change once the baby arrives, especially as this is our first so it's hard to plan exactly, especially as I'm hoping up breastfeed but don't know 100% if I'll be able to, but we have talked about:

• both up with the baby for the first 4 weeks (2 weeks paternity then 2 weeks off as holiday for him as it's Christmas)
• in the new year I'll do the night feeds as he is back to work and he can sleep in the spare room
• at weekends in the new year he will come back in our room / do some night stuff depending on the breastfeeding situation

I do work with a guy who shares the night feeds with his wife (SAHM) and whilst he is more than happy to do it he honestly looks like shit and is not productive at all. It's really noticeable especially after a few months. Totally understand that looking after a baby all day is also hard work, but I think it's a different type of work and whilst we are reliant on my husbands wage I don't want anything to jeopardise that.

I did all the night feeds if DH had work. Only seemed fair to be honest. He helped out in a lot of other ways - often I would go to bed for a few hours from 7-10.30pm while he took over in the first few months with our very restless colicky baby.

If you are home on maternity and he is out working personally I think it's only fair he gets a nights sleep. You can nap during the day when baby naps. He cant. That being said my husband always did the night feed son Friday and Saturday to give me a break. It worked for us. I never understand women who bf and actually wake up their partner to change a nappy. It takes 2 seconds. Why have 2 people up?

Who Ever heads baby really it's not really something we discussed sometimes we both got up to make a cup of tea or some toast and put the telly on. He was really good though if I wanted to sleep all week and not do one feed he'd do it but this time I'd like to do majority of them.

Hears ffs not heads.

I don't really get the impact of tiredness from night feeds though it takes what half n hour max then another four hours sleep etc, then up again for half hour I don't think they are that bad maybe I was lucky I'm not sure

I've done all the night feeds the entire time. I think the working partner shouldn't have to get up but could perhaps do a 6am/7am feed to give you a bit of sleep in the morning

I do work with a guy who shares the night feeds with his wife (SAHM) and whilst he is more than happy to do it he honestly looks like shit and is not productive at all. It's really noticeable especially after a few months. Totally understand that looking after a baby all day is also hard work, but I think it's a different type of work and whilst we are reliant on my husbands wage I don't want anything to jeopardise that.

Imagine how shit his wife would be looking and feeling if he didn't take a share.

If it's one bad night or the father needs to be alert the next day, sure it makes sense for the mother on maternity to do the heavy lifting. But once it's longer term than that, both parents need to do their share because born adults need to be able to function.

If any man (or woman) told me their baby was a poor sleeper but their partner did all the overnight parenting (because as per my previous post, it's not just about feeding) my judgy pants would be giving me an atomic wedgy.

DD is a good sleeper now, but the first seven months were awful and the four month sleep regression nearly broke me. Sure maternity and BFing meant I did more than DH, but he did his fair share. If he'd trotted off to the spare room to get a full night's sleep I genuinely would've been rethinking my marriage.

Oh and I have sooo much more energy now I'm back at work full-time. Being home with a baby is hard.

Like others here as I EBF I did all the night feeds once he went back to work. Although my DH is a light sleeper so would often wake anyway. We had a bedside crib so as soon as I heard baby stirring I’d have her on the breast before she had a chance to fully wake which meant getting her back down much easier. I would mostly be asleep when my hubby got up to go to work but he would bring up a tray with some breakfast and a flask of tea and leave it for me on the bedside table. It meant I still managed to eat even if I was stuck feeding for a while before making it downstairs.

I think it depends on your partner & his job. And your baby too.

We did continue to split the night feed feeds when my other half went back to work. We tried various methods but what worked for us was utilising our spare bed! We did a night on & night off. I did three nights in the week, he did two! It meant we both got a decent catch up sleep every other night! I wouldn’t want to do that long term but for the first 6 months, it worked really well. We were lucky our daughter dropped night feeds at 6 months (although this didn’t equate to sleeping through by any means, she just refused her bottle quite crossly!).

My partner doesn’t have a huge commute, about 30 mins & a desk job, so not physically tiring nor very stressful. So he could manage.. might not work for everyone!

I sadly didn’t have the option to nap when the baby naps. My baby did.not.nap.. for 5 months, she would do 2x20 min naps in the daytime. It was insane. Next time, I’m ordering one that sleeps like everyone tells you newborns do

I don't really get the impact of tiredness from night feeds though it takes what half n hour max then another four hours sleep etc, then up again for half hour I don't think they are that bad maybe I was lucky I'm not sure

Hahahaha. Our experiences were different.

Oh, and I couldn't catch up during the day when the baby was asleep, because she'd only sleep on me.

@anitagreen I think you were lucky! Was nothing like that with either of my two. Once they woke I was up for hours until they settled. I'd get back to sleep and then about an hour later it would start all over again

I can't imagine getting a full night's sleep every night because I was working and seeing my husband horribly tired. He feels similarly vice versa.

Our first was bottle fed expressed milk and we split the nights into shifts with a night off each. Our second is only 2 weeks old and EBF so I am doing it all for now but plan to introduce bottles of expressed milk in the next couple of weeks so that my DH can do some night feeds.

I did the same as @amyhammond!

I did all the night feeds; I breastfed so was necessary and DH drives a lot for work and I slept when DD did. It meant that he was able to look after DD until say 11pm while I went to bed to get a couple of hours in and at weekends he’d get up with her so I could catch up a bit.

If one of you has to get up early the next day to do something in particular (like working, studying, going somewhere important etc) the other does baby caring at night. If both or neither do then you share in whatever arrangement works best.

@tisonlymeagain sorry to hear that mine have always been good sleepers they slept through from 10 weeks which was horrible at first as I thought they wasn't breathing so in turn I stayed up watching them just to make sure they was just only sleeping so in a way I was still up in the nights. My mum used to swear I was like that as a baby though not the same but I'd only drink 1oz every hour on the hour until I was 3 months

@MindyStClaire that's a tough one sorry to hear that I'm not gloating I just assumed all babies had a bottle and went back to sleep never known any different

My baby is EBF and therefore only makes sense for me to get up during night, at weekend he takes baby in the morning so I can have lies in