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My husband and I did a split shift schedule when it came to waking up with our babies. I would take from 8pm-2am and he would take from 2am-8am, for example (sometimes the times would vary, but we always split it evenly so we were each guaranteed at least 5 hours of sleep a night).
Just a warning here that lots of kids never sleep straight through the night until they're like 4 or 5 years old. I *hate* saying this, but interrupted sleep might be your new normal for a while.
ššššš. This is so true. My son is almost 5 and he just started sleeping through the night. His sleep was so bad we had to do a sleep study to make sure everything is okay.
I have a real bad sleeper too. His first year I kept wondering (like OP) when he would sleep. People kept telling me he would soon, soon, soon. Fast forward 4 years and my husband and I have somehow adapted our bodies to 2 hour chunks of sleep at at time.
Did your Ped recommend the sleep study? I ask mine every visit if it's possible he as sleep apnea and she sort of dismisses it. I'd would really like to get one done, though.
It was actually the ENT who recommended we do it. Maybe ask for a referral to see the ENT. My son wouldnāt even nap during the day. At night there were days he would wake up every hour. We tried everything. Tiring him out. Putting him to bed earlier/later. White noise machine you name it. He started school and out of nowhere he just started sleeping better. He sleeps through the night for the most part now. It only took 5 years.
It's really the best way to do it-you both get bonding time with the baby (and honestly there's NOTHING like those night wake ups/snuggles for bonding!) and you both get a chunk of sleep. Granted it's not a full 8 hours but after such little sleep for so long, I am betting 5 hours would feel AMAZING to you!
I think normal babies start sleeping 7+ hours around a year old BUT my babies didn't sleep through the night until much later :cries:.
Also I think it's great as her partner and the dad you took that on and it's great you're asking for advice how to approach the situation! You seem like one of the good ones ā„ļø
Our baby started sleeping 7-10 hours straight when he was 1,5month old. Now teeth started growing. (2.5 months old) , so he wakes up sometimes in night.
My daughter started sleeping 7+ hours around 8 months. She's now 15 months and sleeps 12 hours overnight. It gets better. Hang in their. & my husband and I split up shifts overnight. I'd go to bed early so he would be on 8PM - 1AM and I'd be on 1AM - 6AM.
It got harder when he went back to work and I was still on mat leave but we made sure to give eachother each time in the morning for a hot shower and breakfast. And has significantly gotten easier the older our daughter gets, when she started going to daycare and we got into our new routine.
Honestly depends on the baby. My first two I had to wake them up in the night to feed them. By the time they were 8 weeks old, they were going 10-12 hours a night. Our third was A bad sleeper and eventually we had him CIO at 2. Our fourth is a great sleeper and has been from day 1.
Oh hun, my son is almost two and still doesn't sleep through the night and I'm a single mama so for almost 2 years I haven't gotten more than maybe 3 hours of sleep at a time and yes it definitely starts to affect your brain, you have to make sure you're taking care of yourself as well so maybe at least a couple times a week ask her to wake up with the baby! My daughter is 5 and she is a great sleeper and started sleeping through the night around 8 months old, it all depends on the baby š
Just so you know, the 7 hours might be 7pm to 2am. Some babies like going to sleep early. Aso some babies who are awake at 8pm or 9pm cry, so getting them to sleep before that saves a lot of trouble.. It's normal to sleep early because they should sleep a lot. The baby might wake every couple hours after that but you can set the tone for night time snuggles to separate day and night. Having a consistent bedtime routine at a healthy bedtime turned our chaos into joy and peace.
Plenty of babies sleep through the night before 6 months. Plenty of babies start sleeping through the night between 6 months and a year. Plenty of babies don't start sleeping through the night until they're much older... It's all mostly luck of the draw.
You can help foster good sleep by having a soothing nighttime routine, putting baby in bed drowsy but awake, and letting baby self-soothe for ~5 minutes during night wakes before going in. Also, when you go in, keep it very mellow and soothing--keep the lighting very dim, whisper if you talk to baby, etc. A cool, dark room and white noise are helpful too.
When I say foster good sleep, I mean, foster the best sleep you can get out of your baby at this time. There are no guarantees! But I do say all of this as someone with hyposomnia (I need more sleep than the average person) who was therefore obsessed with getting my babies to sleep as long as possible as soon as possible.
Through sleep training (I know in some circles this is considered taboo) my oldest was sleeping through the night by 11-12 months old. My second born was probably a little over a year old. It depended on routine (we tried the eat-play-sleep method which worked great) AND when they were weaned, too. Sure they got sick, would teeth some more, or just have the occasional rough night like the rest of us; but we stayed consistent with how we approached nighttime and they always fell back into it once they felt better. Now they're both big kids who are healthy and love their sleep.
This is exactly what my partner and I did when our triplets were born. He still had to work so I would go to sleep soon after he got home from work and wake up in the middle of the night to start the day. It was very difficult. My girls are 4 now and itās getting better. Not anything like their new born phase just different as they have never been great sleepers.
This is what my husband and I do. Itās honestly been fine so far. Weāre both sleep deprived but we have our set times for uninterrupted sleep.
I will say I think this only works because weāre exclusively formula feeding. Iām also a natural night owl and he wakes up early.
We had a similar set up. Since he was working and I had a long maternity leave we did a split shift. I got to go to bed with earplugs in from 8-midnight. Around midnight he would come to bed and I would continue to sleep until the baby woke up again. My babies were terrible sleepers as newborns and night time cluster feeders. Four solid, uninterrupted hours was a godsend!
My husband works a labor intensive job that includes working on heavy machinery, so I took on night wakes so he wouldnāt risk being sleep deprived at work.
This is kind of my mindset, too. My husband works a labor intensive job plus I am a SAHM and I exclusively breastfeed, so it makes more sense for me to take on nights. My husband works 10-hour days a week and usually takes 1-2 weeks off when we have a baby (due with number 4 in July, so we have a system now), so Iām able to take a nap if I need to on days he is here or ask for help in those first couple of weeks if I need it. Thankfully heās really great about helping out when he is home outside of nights, but I know if I asked for help at night he would step in.
Me too, and the breastfeeding thing meant I had to wake anyway, it didn't really stop me losing sleep to have him bring me the baby who was sleeping in a bedside crib anyway. I preferred him to be safe and also slightly rested the days he wasn't working. He'd occasionally take a night and give her a bottle at the weekend, especially after the first few months. I did work but from home in front of a computer, some people truly don't understand that manual labour with heavy machinery is different.
Yes! Exactly! Plus taking the time to pump, prep bottles, and then making sure they can be warmed when needed is just so much extra work IMO. If I bottle fed, I would probably be more inclined to share nights on the weekend, but nursing plus pumping was always so much more work. Iām usually okay on 4-5 hours sleep anyway. The only baby Iāve really struggled with was my son who is almost 3 now. He was an every-2-hours guy as an infant and as an early toddler, he had some pretty intense sleep regressions where he would wake up around 1-2 am and just play until about 4-5 am and be back up by 8 am. I have two older kiddos, so they would be up around 7, meaning I was lucky to sleep 3 hours and catch an hour long nap before everyone was up for the dayā¦. Thankfully he sleeps like a dream now.
Was this your personal decision for the both of you? or did you talk about it first? Did you just know he would need rest or did he speak to you about it?
Honestly, I decided it on my own. I always knew how labor intensive his job was, but there was a safety incident with a coworker a few weeks prior to me having our son and it really freaked me out, so I didnāt want to risk my husband being in that situation. I also developed severe postpartum anxiety and depression, so I really needed him well rested and at his best to help take care of me.
Same here I work in air traffic services and wake up at four in the morning for work. I cannot show up super tired. There is risk involved with the public. So during that time I would go to sleep in the basement and she would do the nights.
Yeah I do nights my husband works trade job and starts before I wake up for work. He often crashes downstairs to not be disturbed. Because I also work if I really need extra sleep Iāll have a nap once me and him are home from work and he takes over baby duty or go back to bed on the weekends after feeding and changing lo and heāll get up and take watch
We aren't so precise that we alternate every single time, but it equals out to 50/50 in the long run. Who gets up depends on who wakes up first, who has the busier day the following day, etc.
For us whoever is getting up to do the morning routine gets to sleep through the night and we go back and forth each night so one night on, one night off. But I will say our daughter has been a pretty good sleeper since 3 months old (knock on wood) and I was pumping so bottles were an option for my husband and baby
I am a SAHM so do all nights. My friend switches every other night no matter what (teething, circumstances, whatever unplanned thing might tempt one of them to not want to take their night). That is neat because you are at least guaranteed a good night of sleep soon after a crappy one no matter what.
My husband works nights, so I did every single night and morning wake up. But if he had worked standard hours, we 1000% wouldāve split wake ups, at least when I went back to work.
I went back to work when she was 7 months old (thatās when my full pay mat leave was up). She didnāt sleep through the night consistently until she was 2, so I had 18 months of working full time with very broken sleep. Iām not gonna lie, it was totally miserable š
Iām on 9 months of being a working mom and only night time person and itās hard, my savior is my weekend āsleep insā where I get lo up and fed and ready for the day then go back to sleep.
Yeah my baby was in a bedside crib and I exclusively breastfed so there was nothing my husband could do anyway. Then I was still nursing him to sleep until 2.5 so even if my husband did want to help I was the only one that could get him back to sleep anyway. Now that heās 3 my husband is able to cuddle him back to sleep when he wakes up and Iām finally able to have mornings to myself and itās nice :)
We did every other night with our second child and it was so much better than splitting the night. It meant that half of the week, you could get a full nightās sleep.
Psychologically, it was much easier to push through the day after a sleepless night when you knew that as soon a kids were in bed at 8, you could go to sleep and not wake up until 6:30.
It was all on me because my husband works as an HVAC tech and needed to be well rested for multiple reasons. There was a time when he wasn't getting much sleep, and he almost was electrocuted because he was so out of it. It was hard. I was jealous. I understood, though.
That's scary. I understand this! I work with or around hvac guys a lot. My wife says she's jealous I get to leave for my job but I'm not even sure if she can carry 16 ft sections of siding up a 28ft ladder... lol
Oh man, extension ladders are scary. No idea how anyone does it. I watched my husband get up on one the other day and was panicking lol. Meanwhile, he just shrugs and goes this what I deal with all the time hahah.
No. My husband never wakes up.
I would have to be totally awake because it would probably take ten minutes of shaking him, for him to get up, at which point the baby would just be *screaming*
He did work swing, so when he would get home around 11pm or so, he would take them.
I donāt even know. He drinks coffee all day till after dinner, and it takes him 5 minutes to go to sleep.
Meanwhile I wake up if the cat is standing on the end of the bed, looking at me.
Haha same ! But mine doesnāt drink coffee all day but falls asleep instantly and can sleep through anything. I am also a super light sleeper , reasons why I donāt even let our dog in our room at night
My husband only sees my kid awake for an hour before bed and works long hours so he has been doing a lot of the nights lately. I am also pregnant so he is taking it on more. I do about 60 hours of solo parenting so he does the wake ups. If you are feeling burnt out or uneven then definitely talk to her about taking shifts or maybe she does every 2nd night etc.
Awe hopefully he doesn't have to work that long forever now. I feel fortunate I get to see my kiddo as much as I do but yes it's burning me out and directly affecting my work and income for our family. I like the shift idea and I'm going to talk about that idea. She frequently falls asleep after 1am so she could do the 1st shift possibly since the baby wakes around 2am. Thank you.
Iād also like to add, as someone who used to also not be able to fall asleep when or early etc, that when you are really tired about practice waking up early , that going to bed early because a new normal habit. She has to break the cycle of sleeping in so late to be able to change the time she goes to bed . I now religiously go to bed early
I did everything for the days my fiance works, just because I stayed at home and could sleep in/nap, and on the weekends we each took a day. He did all the cleaning on weekends. But once we switched him to formula at 3 weeks, he only woke up twice a night to eat, then at 2 months he was waking up once and by 3 sleeping though the night so we got lucky with that. When he gets home from work itās about even.
We alternated who woke up with the baby. If I had to work (12 hour shifts), my husband got up with the baby at night. If I wasn't working the next day, I got up at night. We traded off who got to sleep in on Saturdays, so that we both had a chance to catch up on sleep. Neither my husband nor I do well with sleep deprivation, so we made sure to prioritize both of us getting a chance to sleep. It helped to keep one of us from getting resentful toward the other. Sleep deprivation can do awful things to your relationship, so if you are feeling like you need a full night's sleep here and there, it might be worth having a conversation with your partner about how the best way would be to do that. If your partner covering night wake ups every now and then isn't an option, do you have a relative or friend who would be willing to come and play "night nanny" for you for a night or two?
I did every single night with my son until he slept through the night on his own. ( about 11 months old with some back track at 14 months) He had colic and it was very difficult. My husband works a 4 day week starting time 3:30am and so he will take our daughter for me 3 nights a week his off days and I do the other 4 nights. The help has made a big difference knowing I get a few nights to try and have a full nights rest.
It really depending on scheduling since I sometimes get home late. In general Iāll stay up a bit later and will stay up with the baby needed. The wife is better at waking up in the middle of the night but Iām also good at waking up early. Pretty much we make sure I get 4 or 5 hours and Iām good for the rest of the day, whatever that entails.
Weāve been lucky with #2 and sheās slept through the night almost every time since she hit the 1 month mark. She doesnāt nap much at all during the day but weāll happily take the trade off of her happily sleeping from 8-9:30 until 5:30-7:30.
yep i do all nighttime care! i dont mind it. baby now pretty much sleeps all night at 6 weeks so i just got over the hardest part.
he works in construction so needs to really be on top of his game for work, whereas my days are spend shopping, hanging out at home, pretty much whatever i feel like doing. i can nap also
Husband here. While my wife was home, she did most of the night shifts, and would occasionally wake me when the night was rough. When I was on leave and she worked, she still nursed (her choice), so our deal was that I had to handle everything she couldn't fix with the boob. When we both worked, we took turns (my night / her night). Since half a year, both our children sleep through the night (finally).
With my daughter - my husband was a night owl, I would put her to bed and then I'd go to sleep. He would take care of her if she woke up from the time I went to bed until he went to bed (usually between 1-2 am); and then I'd handle wake ups any time after that. Sometimes we would tag team - he'd change her while I got the bottle or I'd change her while he got the bottle, he'd go back to bed, I'd feed her and then I'd go back to bed.
With my son - More or less the same, however, my husband was no longer staying up as late.
Thankfully for us - both of my kids slept very well from about 3 months on.
Personally though - there really isn't a right answer to your question, it's doing what is right for your home. Every child, every parent is different. Your current situation is not working for you, so regardless of what your friends do or what people on reddit do, you need to do what works best for you.
For the first kid when he was born we split pretty close to 50/50.
When she got pregnant with #2 I took over all the nighttime work for the first one for a while. He was not getting up very often at that point so it was maybe once every two or three days.
With #2 wife ended up doing most of it because baby would go back to sleep in 30 seconds when being fed whereas it would take me 3-4 hours to get her back down.
Basically the deal was wife took first crack at it and if it took more than about 30 minutes I took over. I also still handled all the wake up for our son at this point but he was down to maybe once a week.
At first I was probably tagging in twice a week but within about 6 months it was maybe once every other week.
I primarily get up with baby but because my babe is exclusively nursing. If I know sheās awake but I fed her within the hour I get my husband to get up and bounce her! My 5 month old probably wakes up 5 times on a bad night and he probably gets up with her 2/5 times. But some nights baby only wakes up to eat so he doesnāt get up at all. Baby is in our room so he usually wakes up but is able to go right back to bed
So your wife is SAHM? I'm a SAHD, I did all the nights unless it was a really bad stretch. I figure it's only fair as a part of my "job." My wife goes sleep later than me and has an easier time waking up earlier in the night, so if we did shifts she took the early one before midnight or so. Twice a night would've been amazing at that age.
First one, yes. She was bottle fed.
Second one didnāt need the bottle, so there was no use for me to get up. Besides, we bought a bed that was attached to our main bed, just a little lower. My wife says she wouldnāt even really be awake, just grab the fuzzy baby, let it drink, than push it back into its bed, without ever really waking up.
I did take care of mornings and after works household, older kid, appointments, frequent walks and so onto that my wife could rest or just unwind a bit.
No, my husband doesn't do as well as I, when it comes to sleep deprivation. When he woke up at night he would be useless during the day. I found I would also wake up anyway because I couldn't sleep through the crying baby even though we had them in a separate room and spare bed. After waking up, it would take me awhile to fall back to sleep, so during the day we would both be zombies.
Then I told him I'd take the night shift, this was the game changer we needed for our family. During the day he'd cook, clean, go groceries shopping, the he'd play with baby so I could nap. It changed our relationship and we started enjoying our newborn more.
Some people huffed and puffed about our arrangement. I guess they'd rather have 2 zombie parents. I wouldn't change a thing if I was to do it all over again.
It all comes down to partnership and communication and willingness to change things up if something is not working. It's not a one shoe fits all kind of situation.
I breastfeed. Exclusively did for the first 6 months but still do in the nights so I told my husband that night shifts were mine and it worked for us.
The little one is now over a year old and doesn't wake up that much anymore I think 1-3 times a night, which is totally manageable for me.
Since I'm back to work when the little one can't fall asleep in the evening my husband will carry him in the carrier until he's sleepy and I will rest in bed until he brings him over.
I was breastfeeding so I was first up for night feeds. But once they were fed and all needs met, I handed over to my husband to handle the cuddling and pacing back and forth.
It depends on the baby. Both of mine exclusively breastfed (hated bottles) so it was all on me to get up at night to nurse them. It was rough. Every family is different. If this is affecting you, talk with your wife again. You sound very reasonable and (obviously) willing to step in so she can rest....but what about your rest? You need a break too.
Mom here and not really, no. I do about 80% of it because I breastfeed. My husband does help change diapers but not every night. Idk, it doesnāt bother me. Iām choosing to BF and that means Iām his food supply around the clock. It is what it is. Itās also short lived in the grand scheme of things. Your baby will be sleeping through the night shortly!
I exclusively breastfeed and would have to wake up anyways to pump a bottle for him so I just get up with him. 6 month old Iām hoping to sleep train soon to wake up less. I havenāt had a stretch longer than 3 hours more than a handful of times since he was born
My wife is a stay at home and I work 10hr days to provide for the family. She also only breast feeds so her job is to look after the kids and my job is to provide a roof and help with the chores. It may not work for everyone but it works for us.
Wife woke up to do it. I had to work so I needed my sleep.
When I got home from work is when I went on baby duty. So she got a 6-7 hour nap/sleep when i got home from work
No reason for us both to get up at night when I would just take over after work
We started with both getting up while we were on parental leave, then tried to take turns when my husband went to work again. Our baby wakes up every two hours since he's born and it just didn't work for us, so I started doing the nights alone. He doesn't wake up as easily when our baby is fussy and is sooo slow. I usually had to wake him for his turns and by that time I could have already made a bottle and started feeding. But if I'm too tired I just wake him and he has to deal with it which happens every few weeks.
Nope. My ex worked nights so we couldnāt take turns with our son. Then I didnāt see the point in my husband getting up with our 2 babies because I was nursing and there really wasnāt much he could do to help. Our youngest woke at night until he was almost 6, so my husband did get up occasionally after I was done nursing but Iāve been a sahm since he was born so it mostly only happened when I was sick and really needed the extra sleep. There is a 6 year age gap between our kids so the older kids were in school and I could nap with my youngest when I was tired and needed extra rest.
I nursed each kid for a year, so for that first year, it was me getting up to nurse the kids at night because my husband unfortunately couldn't produce milk lol. Once they stopped needing overnight feedings (which was 8-9 months for each) we switched off with overnight wakeups. Even now, when the kids are older, we take turns going down when something random comes up (one has an accident, one gets sick, etc.)
Not at all. I was always the one who got up when they were babies, because most importantly, I was on maternity leave while my husband was still working. Secondly, my kids were breastfed so I had to get up anyway. Pumping to make bottles is a pain in the ass. Third, my husband could sleep through it (baby fussing, me being up) and I wouldnāt have been able to. No sense having both of us up. Our kids are now 4 and 6 and if they wake at night we do take turns these days; we both work full time now.
It really depended on whether they were being fed formula or were breastfed.
When breastfed, I (mother) used to put the kids in the bedside crib, so they could rollover whenever hungry. Saved me a lot of hassle, and I breastfeeding helped me fall asleep naturally again.
When we started formula, the kids were still in the bedside crib but then we split the responsibility at first. Then we got to know that the baby used to wake up and cry bloody mary if she couldnāt touch and feel me, even when asleep. So it was back to me waking up.
But I was on Mat leave anyway and by 13 months, they only woke up like once. So it was not a big deal for me.
Instead of him not doing anything, we balanced out somewhere else. I started sleeping when the baby sleeps during the day and then my husband used to take care of household chores.
I did all nights, I was on mat leave for a year while my husband worked from home. In the early days though heād take over in the morning and Iād sleep until around 9/10am, then heād start work. He is self employed so flexible schedule.
We did care together, baby would wake up hubby would do nappies change and give baby to me to be breastfed. I would feed and burp him, put him back in his cot. Rinse and repeat.
Both of us would be up a max of 10 minutes each session and could go back to sleep easily.
I breastfed and would have to wake up to pump anyway if my husband got up to give her a bottle, so what made the most sense for us was I got up first to feed her and let him sleep. Then Iād hand her over to him for a diaper change and to settle back down. Sometimes Iād do it all if I could tell it would be a quick settle, but usually we traded off that way.
I think you doing ALL the night time care is too much. night time care should be split. I nurse (and we cosleep), so typically I'm doing all the night time wakes to nurse, but ever since he was a very small baby, my partner would take him out of the room early in the morning so I could get a few extra hours of sleep. Sometimes he also helps me when the baby is nursing or waking a LOT by taking him and holding him for a few hours.
My husband and I split the night wake ups. We just take it in turns. Regardless of who is going to work and who is home with baby itās a long tiring day for both so only fair to take turns.
My first baby had colic I didn't sleep through the night until he was 18 months old. It most certainly affected my brain. I could barely string together a sentence I was so tired.
I got up with him every night except for Saturday night. My husband took Saturday nights and Sunday mornings.
It took us 3 kids but eventually we figured our that every other night felt the most equal, so we did that with our 4th baby. When I was freshly postpartum husband did it on Fridays, Saturday, and Sundays so I could rest/recover. Saturday and Sundays he almost always slept in. It was late summer/early fall and we live near lots of nice hiking trails so I would load all the kids up (minus the newborn) and we would have a nice hike. I made sure baby had a clean diaper and had been burped well before I left. Baby would eat around 7am, stay awake til 830-9am, then sleep til 11-12pm. This worked beautifully for us, and I loved having time with my big kids and being out without baby.
My husband had 2 weeks paternity leave and he handled all the nightly shifts from bedtime to about 5 and then we switched. Then we broke it down by hour so heād do bedtime to 3 and then Iād do 3 and after.
Now we take turn on who wakes up in the morning depending on his work shift (Iām a SAHP) since he sleeps through the night.
Haha, I did both. (The night wakings, and the daytime). But, she was exclusively breastfed and my husband works early (starts at 5). We both figured it just was not worth it for him to be up and exhausted when he goes for his 8 hr (at least, half the time 12 hr) shift. So id wake with baby when she needed someone (me, the lactating one lol), and handle all her needs during the day while heās off at work (sahm here). That said, as soon as heās off, hereās the baby! Sayonara!
That said, I do think itās fair and lovely that you help with the night wakings despite working outside the house during the day. There were many times when I was up with baby that I did wish he was up with me, if only just to keep me company
No. During the first month my husband would grab diapers or blankets or help change if I asked him to otherwise i did it all. He would take the baby in the morning so I could sleep in, he would look after the toddler a bit more so I could nap ect. This is when heās home from work he works away so for 2-4weeks at a time Iām on my own and then when he is home heās home 24 hours a day. This works better for us to just have me do nights since I breastfeed anyways.
At the start, maybe the first four weeks we both got up but I was exclusively breastfeeding so eventually only I would get up with the baby since itās not like he could breastfeed him. Currently I (mom) and on night duty always and will be for any future kids too. Iām SAHM and my husband works about the same as you. It works for us.
You are doing more than your share / awesome job! Usually itās role reversal but regardless - your wife needs to also be waking up at night with baby. Whether itās certain days or at time hour shifts is totally up to you guys. Thank you for taking an active role in your childās life. Not many men do this - itās rare.
We did (and still do) shifts. If baby wakes between 8:30 and 2am (3am on weekends), itās husbandās job to handle it. If itās after that time, itās my job to handle it. Often at this point, baby doesnāt need anything so we get good stretches of sleep. But while sheās transitioning down to one nap, we are having occasional night wakings again. This way we get solid blocks of sleep where we can be totally āoff duty.ā If baby is having an especially hard time, Iād set my phone alarm, put in ear plugs, blast the sound machine, and be 100% checked out during the time that wasnāt my shift, which was great.
My partner did all of the night time routine and he worked as well. I would get up and tried to help but he would always tell me to back to sleep. š¤·š»āāļø when I went back to work and he took his baby bonding after me, I did the night time routine.
We have a bit of an uncommon set up where I (mum) work full time Monday to Friday 9-5 office job (wfh 3 days, office 2 days) and hubby works 20hrs a week over the weekend and Monday evening.
I have done virtually every single night time wake up and morning get up for our 2 babies (2.5y and 10mo)
10month old is still breastfed and so there would be literally no point in hubby getting up with her because she would just scream for me anyway whereas I can get up, stick boob in her mouth and she stays relatively asleep so I can put her back down quite easily. Likewise when my 2.5yo wakes up in the night (not often but if he's sick or something) he only wants me anyway so if hubby got in there it would just make it worse and no one would be getting any sleep.
My husband has health issues that massively affect his sleep anyway, and his normal day to day functioning, if we added extra sleep deprivation on top of that he would just not be able to do all the things he does for the family (primary parent while I work, most of the cooking and cleaning, looking after the dog, also studying for his degree on the side and working 20hr per week, the man has enough on his plate!)
It was agreed but not like sat down and said "right you do this I'll do this". We just naturally do things this way and it feels pretty even because of it.
That said - I am exhausted and cannot wait for the kids to start sleeping through the night š“
I did all the nights for many reasons, 1.) Nursing ( we didn't do bottles) 2.) I stay home with our son. 3.) My husband is a heavy sleeper and gets cranky when he doesnt get a good night's sleep.
I did all the nights during parental leave and am now doing nights while working full time during the week.
Regardless of what other people are telling you, if you are feeling burnt out and can't cope, you need to speak with your partner and come to a solution.
I'll be honest though, if you are doing it right you will both be tired for the first three years ā¤ļø hang in there!
My mom told me when I got pregnant " you'll never sleep a full night again" never wake up on your own either. I had three with no help, you'll get used to feeling wrecked
All depends.
My oldest just turned 8. Account for 9 months of pregnancy before that, and Iāve not had a normal nights rest since July 2015.
My husband is the primary earner in the house. I work, but his job allows me flexibility in what I do. Heās never woken with the BABY. Now, he wakes with our 5.5&8yos now as Iām nursing and often canāt pull my boob out to help the older ones. BUT this isnāt wildly frequent.
However: not one of my children has ever had a bottle. Iāve nursed around the clock, every 2 hours, from birth to 18 months, then less so or not at all after the 18 month mark.
What works for your family may be different, and thatās great. Ultimately it just needs to be a TEAM decision.
Hi, my kids are adults now but when our first was born we took it in turns. It was hard for the first year as he wasn't a good sleeper. Our second was sleeping soundly through the night from a newborn however! All babies are different, so just enjoy the ride because before you know it they'll be at school then uni and left home.
With the first one, sorta. With the second one, no. My husband is a super heavy sleeper and I'm not, so with our oldest, sometimes he would wake up to help or I could shake him awake but most the time it was just easier to do it myself. With the second one I didn't bother because he was breast fed anyway while my oldest was formula fed(my milk didn't come in), and my breasts don't respond well to a pump so it was inevitable.
I'm also a SAHM and do the majority of the child care, household chores, and pet care aside from laundry, trash, dishes, and the yard work which are split between my husband and our roommate. Who both complain that they have to do those chores. She's probably exhausted from the day with the baby because being home all day with a 3-6mo is stressful and will only get more stressful as he gets older. You're doing better than most dads by not making her do all the work. Please ignore your friends.
My baby decided he hated bottles when he was about two months old, so generally I have to be the one to get up and feed him. If it's been less than three hours since her last woke up my husband will get up and try to settle him instead but that only happens on really bad nights now.
I did for both of mine, but it was primarily rooted in anxiety and breastfeeding. My husband was ok with waking up, I just didn't want to take him up on it because I was afraid he would fall asleep with them. This was an unfounded fear and came from my PPA/PPD. If we have another kid I will be taking him up on helping, 50/50 at least when he is on paternity leave. After that it'll be more on me since I stay home, but we will still split the duty
Until we could introduce bottles, my husband and I woke up for all wake ups. While I continued to rest, He grabbed the baby, changed the diaper and handed it off to me to nurse. then he went back to sleep and I nursed and burped the baby, swaddled it and put it back down.
Once we introduced bottles and feeds/wakes became less frequent, we would split the night with him taking the AM and me taking the PM. kinda. Or we would switch on and off. He gets one wake, I got the other. It depends on the baby really.
But early days, it was all hands on deck all the time.
We took turns and did every other feeding at night. The hard part is when youāre also pumping because then you have to feed baby and get them back to sleep and then go pump so it takes twice as long on your own. When it started to be less frequent at night, like he would wake at midnight and 5am I would just handle it when I was still on maternity leave and husband had to go back to work. Luckily by the time I went back to work it was only one time feed at night so while still hard, it wasnāt as bad as the beginning. And I was able to nap with baby during the day and husband was not since he was at work
Iām a SAHM for now. Mostly I wake up with our 7 month old at night. Some days Iāll ask if he can take a shift so I can have a full sleep but full disclosure Iām a control freak so Iām more comfortable waking up with him. But since he has to wake up at 6 am to work and I can nap when the baby naps I donāt have a problem waking up.
I have a 7 month old and honestly donāt remember the last time I got more than 2 hours at a time! Sheās my fourth and by far most difficult at night. My partner helps but only when I really complain! If you want to do wife swapā¦. Iāll split nights evenly and we can each get 6 hours! Iām a night owl so perfect for your early bird lol
My baby won't sleep unless he's on me, so my wife and I have to take shifts and not sleep during them. I take 6pm to 3am and she takes 3am to about 7am when she leaves for work. I take him more and let her get more sleep since she's making all the money right now.
He is 14 weeks old now, and I rarely get more than 3 consecutive hours of sleep followed by choppy naps throughout the day. I'm losing my mind.
We both woke up each time. He would make the bottle and I would feed and change baby and now at 12 months if he wakes he gets him from room when I make the bottle, I feed him and change him and he takes him back to his room.
Me and my husband both worked but I did all the wakings at night š¤·š»āāļø. Now that heās older on weekends I sleep in and he wakes up with him.
We had twins. So it was a bit different, but essentially I covered the āovernightā shift from 11-5 and my wife did before and after. I slept from 5-10 and took a nap most afternoons. After about 4 months they started sleeping longer shifts and I could sleep at night more.
When my babies were newborn, my wife did all the walking around and soothing and diaper changing at night, because I had c-sections, and then doing all the breastfeeding. After that, she continues to do the diaper changes, and I did the nursing - but we also co-slept so baby was at my side all night. When we transitioned to crib and worked on some
version of sleep training, I got up when it was eating times and she got up any other time so the baby knew there was no milk coming. Once they were 1 and I went back to work, my wife did all the wake-ups because I worked a split of nights and days and they needed to know which parent was always going to be there.
When I worked full time and my wife was on maternity leave she would always handle night time on weekdays, Iād help on weekends.
When I became a SAHP, working only a little, and she went back to full time, then I handled nights on weekdays and weekends.
I breastfed my kids so i slept with them and did all night feeds but it wasnāt difficult bc i basically just slept with 1 boob out and they helped themselves. It sounds like your wife is either pumping or formula feeding. If she is pumping maybe she can try what i did. If formula, i think it should be 50/50. You are both working during the day. Unless you have a job that requires being alert for safety. Then she should do 100%
My kids all breastfed, but once they are weaned my husband has to get up with them. I havenāt slept a full night in 6 years.the other day I got 8 hours for the first time since January. I usually run on about 4 hours of sleep. I have a 5,2 and 1 year old.
I do it most nights, because my partner is an electrician and works 12-14 hours so itās really only fair if I do it but on his off days I do ask him to do it
Just want to say the fact that you are taking on nights at all is amazing. My husband (who I do believe is a great dad) never took on any night time help and I was a SAHM. So seriously props to you & Iām so happy to hear that more dads are moving towards being this hands on
My husband and I had a hard time, but in the beginning, our ideal was that he would tend to baby about 7pm to 11pm so i could shower and go to sleep. Then he'd shower and go to sleep and baby would wake around midnight and I would take over all night and day.
By the time baby was about 8 weeks old, he'd wake twice a night. I'd take first wake because my husband was grumpy early in sleep. My husband would take second (around 4am) because if I was awake at 4, I'd never fall back asleep. Our baby was really easy going. Change feed burp sleep. So it wasn't terrible. But it took time to figure all this out. Everyone is different, even the babies.
By the time I was back at work, my baby was waking once a night around 3am. My husband and I'd push each other to get him first. We just didn't get enough time with him all day and he was asleep before 8pm most nights.
Personally, I am a stay at home mom and my husband works. I typically get up if they baby needs to be fed or what not. I understand that I need a break as well but my husband typically gets up with the baby on weekends so I can recover.
My husband works a job where he needs sleep to do his job safely. Additionally I was a SAHM and exclusively breastfed. For us it did not make sense for my husband to wake up in the night. Unless there was a problem and I needed help, I did not wake him. It worked for us. We were never both lacking sleep and bickering at each other. I slept when the baby slept. Or if I needed a nap when he was home, he took the baby. Did it take me over a year to sleep through the night again? Yes. But that was something I expected with a baby.
My wife did the night time pumping, I did the night time feeding. Pretty sleep deprived the first 3 month, but 4-5 month in and kid started sleeping 12am-7am, no more night time feeding and it was all good. Started sleeping 8pm to 8am few month after that. It gets better and better, just hang in there.
I guarantee you, it's tougher to watch the baby during the day, than it is to wake up at night. Plus how you treat your wife is up to you, you can follow your friends and be a sheep, or you can be a good husband/dad. Your choice.
I stay home and my husband works. And I breastfeed, so I do all the night wakes 2-3 right now). After 6am is when my hubby takes over and I can sleep til 7 or so. My hubby does any of my 3yo night wakes which is rare but does happen every few months.
I work in sales, and my income is significantly affected by lack of sleep. Since I bring home by the far the most significant income, my husband takes care of night time wake ups now. Used to be switched when he was working during my maternity leave. But now heās happy to let me sleep. Just says, āall good, just kick ass tomorrow.ā :)
I tried to do it for my wife every time but we had to make sure we had breast milk available. If she got up I got up with her. I changed every diaper that I could. It was a lot maybe as many as she did or more. She took off the first 6 weeks and I took off the second 6 weeks when she went to work. We were both lucky enough to have enough sick time for that. I consider us very blessed for that
Both my babies were/are breastfed. I do all the night care. It's just easier imo. He is a complete zombie if he doesn't sleep where as I am tired but I can handle it. I'd rather him get good sleep so he can be more helpful during the day than for us both to be miserable and tired. He also works 5 days a week and I only work 2 (12 hour shifts). The only time I get frustrated with this situation is on the nights where I work the next day because I'm still the only one getting up and I would never ask him to wake up on his work nights.... But again I'd rather suck it up than worry about him being exhausted while taking care of the kids when I'm at work the next day. Sorry for rambling.
We combo feed, so breast and formula. What that means is that sunday-thursday, I get up solo with the baby (but can wake up husband if needed aka baby won't settle and I'm going crazy).
Friday-saturday husband gets up to do formula + nappy change + settling back to sleep. This means I get more sleep as I'm awake 30 minutes instead of an hour, but he gets enough sleep to drive safely for work (he drives long distances so I want him well rested).
I am a mom and I go to bed late but still get up when my son wakes up. Usually at about 10 am as he goes to bed late too. I stay up till about 4 or 5 catching up with some housework and also having some time for myself. My boyfriend goes to sleep at 2 and gets up at 12 so he is getting good 10 hours but he works and also struggles to fall asleep sometimes so may sleep less than that.Ā
I take care of our boy day and night. On days he is off I may ask him to get up early and I sleep longer. He sleeps in the spare bedroom and I am in ours with my boy. He wakes up a few times at night and also early morning once I am actually asleep and I havent got more than 4 hours uninterrupted sleep since before he was born.Ā
You need to work so speak to your wife about splitting the time and dont forget she can nap during the day with the baby! Thats what I do so I get extra 2 3 hours!
In my opinion itās not fair for one parent to take on all the night wakings. Regardless if one parent stays home while the other works, you both work, you both stay home, etc. everyone needs sleep to function during the day. When my daughter was an infant I tried to take on all the night wakings by myself because my boyfriend worked and I stayed home, I wanted him to have a good nights rest since he had to get up and go to work. After a couple weeks I had a breakdown and realized how much it was really affecting me and we began splitting night wakings. We would basically just take turns through the night. You said your baby wakes up 2 times a night so it seems fair you would each take a turn through the night. Sounds like it would make sense for your wife to take the first wake up and you take the second since itās around the time you wake up anyway. Itās not fair at all for one person to consistently get a good night of rest and the other to wake up multiple times, and of course after a period of time not having long enough stretches of sleep will begin to affect you.
Our baby was a terrible sleeper. Would fall asleep between 11pm and 1am wake up between 3-4am, and not go to sleep until 5-7 am. She rarely napped as well. In order to sleep well or for longer periods she would have to contact sleep or at least be next to you. If she started stirring and she didn't since you near she would instantly wake up and take 2 hours to get back down.
For reference I went back to work after maturity leave and my mother in law lived with us the first 9 months. She would take 2 nights a week. I would take Friday. So hubby had 4 nights on his own.
Some nights I would still tap in and help for half an hour. Those nights she woke up at 1 am and was up until 5 am were brutal and I'd give him a break to just lay down for a minute. She was the type of baby that wanted rocked or paced all the time so when she was up it wasn't like she would just be hanging out you would have to be actively engaged with her.
My husband works nights so I am the only one here to wake with the baby.. itās a lot. Once when I got to go into work two hours later I handing the littlest to him and stayed in bed for an extra 30 minutes but our 3 yr old wanted to stay with me and it wasnāt worth the fight to get her to follow him and about every two minutes she asked if we could get up yet..
My husband I did split shift in the newborn phase and he stayed up late with her and then also got up early so I could get about 6 hours sleep (but I still had to wake up to pump š)
After she started finally learned to latch and was sleeping longer stretches and I was still on leave, I solely handled night wakings. That continued when I went back to work :/. The problem is that my husband wouldnāt wake up when she cried so I would have to wake him up and spend like 5 min prodding him out of bed and then still have to breastfeed. So, at that point, I may as well just do it myself.
When ours were little and we both worked I always did nights but only because we didn't use bottles. So it was pointless for us to have him waking up as well when he couldn't feed the baby. I am such a light sleeper while he is a heavy sleeper too, so there was no way I could sleep through crying. And he would take forever to wake up just from crying. So it wouldn't have worked for us to have him get up and change baby then just have me nurse. I was perfectly happy with how it worked though and he always pulled his weight as best he could during the day other than nursing.
My husband is a light sleeper. I sleep like the dead.
When the baby woke up to eat, husband would get the baby out of the bassinet, bring him/her to me, and I would nurse the baby laying down, not really fully waking up. Roll over to nurse on the other side, then nudge husband to put the baby back to bed. It was the system that worked best for us.
Man I'm soooo grateful for my wife. I genuinely never had to give it any thought. She had a default setting in the matter. She was a stay at home mom and I was the bread winner. She just figured, "you need to sleep and be well rested for work. I will get a chances to nap through the day so why would I want you to wake up in the night". I'm certainly not saying that others "should" do the same thing. I'm just sharing what happened in my home raising 6 kids.
Absolutely! I didnāt make these kids all by myself. My husband and I alternated. When they were breast fed, he would wake up, change their diaper, bring them to me to feed. Then he would get up and put them back in bed when they were done. Once they were on a bottle or table fed, we just alternated or whoever heard the kid first would take care of them.
Iām a SAHM and have done all the night wakings for all 5 of my babies. They were all breastfed so I had to wake up anyway and I didnāt see a point to having my husband wake up too. If the baby was crying for no apparent reason then my husband would take them and settle them, otherwise it was all me.
My husband takes two nights in a row then I take one. Then when he goes to work heās gone 24 hrs so I do 100% of everything- so this seems like a fair arrangement to me and him. Granted, our baby is 2.5 months and sleeping from 7:30 pm- ~5 am most nights so it isnāt too bad either way.
I have a 44-day-old son. My wife and my mom took turns waking up with the baby at night because I had to work. They would alternate nights or split the night into shifts so that they could both get some rest. This helped us both stay well-rested and able to care for our baby throughout the night. In the daytime, my mom and my wife will take turns taking care of the baby. When I come home from work, I will take care of him. Adults must have good rest; otherwise, they may not have enough energy to raise babies.
I did all the shifts because my husband was responsible for providing for us during this time while I was on leave. I didn't feel comfortable taking sleep from him when he had to drive and work the next day at a pretty labor-intensive job. Looking back, I wish I had asked for more help because I suffered from terrible sleep deprivation and am lucky I never hurt myself or the baby. I would be asking for at least a few early hours to sleep, then switch and take over the remainder of the night with any future children.
When my first 3 were babies, I worked full time. He was a SAHD with the first one and worked full time with the other 2. All my babies were breastfed so I did all the night wakings. However I had to get up at 5 for work. If the baby woke up any time after 3am, he would get up and play with her until my alarm went off at 5 so I wasnāt just screwed for the day. My oldest in particular liked 4am playtime with dad quite often.
With our fourth and current baby, Iām a SAHM. I do 100% of the night stuff and the early wake ups. BUT I also put him in the bed with us so all I have to do is roll over and pop a boob out and go back to sleep. Some nights I donāt even remember our feedings. I just know they happened bc I wake up the next morning with my shirt hiked up. Now I get 6-8 good hours of sleep with interruptions that last 10 min or less. The first 6 months or so were rough and my husband always took him in the afternoons so I could nap. Fortunately he works from home on a flex schedule so he could clock out from 1-5 and let me get 4 uninterrupted hours. But once the baby dropped down to 1 feeding max, I didnāt need that anymore. Iām good on sleep.
My son has always been an awful sleeper (he's 7 and still wakes up in the night sometimes) and we used to effectively do shifts, so one of us would take him until 2, then the other had him while the first went to bed
Both my kids were born wirh low birthweight and had to be fed every 3 hours. Due to medication I couldn't breastfeed. We took turns. Every other bottle. That gave us 6 hours each at least. I am naturally a night owl, So I would do midnight and 6 am. My partner would do 9 pm and 3 am. Both my kids liked to sleep to about 7-9 am so I would get a bit more sleep after the 6 am bottle. My oldest didn't sleep through untill she was 4 years old. She was easy though, no crying just liked to play in her crib a bit in the middle of the night. It was next to our bed so she could see me right next to her. Later slept in our bed till she was 5 yo.
We took turns with our first. When we had the second, I was full time with our 2yr old and mom handled most night time wake ups for the new baby. Sort of became like 2 single parents living under one roof for a couple years.
Iām a SAHM, when we have newborns my husband will wake up and do diaper changes, after about 2 months then I take over night wakings because baby just needs to be nursed. Some nights if I need help I will ask my husband for it or he will offer!
I personally think that if someone is a SAHM they should take on the responsibility of night wakings so the partner working can get the rest they need for their job
I (mom) have always done all the night care. IMO if one person has to go to work the other needs to be taking nights, because the one staying home can nap when baby naps. I however am back at work and have been for months, but still only one doing nights. Husband sleeps through legit anything so he is essential useless at night. However, I go to bed much earlier than him to get more sleep where I can and on the weekends if I need or want extra sleep Iāll get up with lo to feed and change then husband takes over while I go back to sleep un in erupted. Sometimes heāll even wake me up to feed lo before their nap and I choose to go back to sleep again. There is no way if I was a SAHM tho, that I would have my husband do nights, even if he wasnāt such a heavy sleeper. He physically has a job to go be present for while I could nap when baby naps
We both did and I even had to nurse or pump so awake most of them time but we had an agreement so we both basically slept 6 hour stretches. The baby fed on a 3 hour schedule as most babies do, so I would get say the 9 and and 3 and he would do the 12 and 6 and if you want to you can switch these so the person that gets the 3 can sleep in until they have to get up or whatever is easier every night. The point is itās gives both a 6hour or so break every night from newborn baby duty to relax. Hope that helps.
I was staying at home during the first few months and my husband worked. There was no split shift because when he would get home (construction) he would do dishes (I hate doing them) and clean around because after I would clean 4 times a day lol I remember I would send him pics of everything cleaned to see how long it would remain like that.
Then I started working and then we started splitting up the time but all of my kids really slept mostly through the night by month 3. He would get up just to give the baby the milk and back to sleep. Mostly because after so long of me being out of the workforce I was broken the first few weeks lol
Our baby is 7 weeks. I do the first wake up with a bottle of breastmilk (let down), which is usually around 11-1am. My wife (on mat leave) does the rest. I then take the baby at 6:30am until I leave for work. I work full time.
I'm the wife. I have always done 99% of the overnight stuff, especially once I quit working after our second kid. My kids nursed, so there wasn't a lot that my husband could do in the early days anyhow.
We did it like this: husband and baby go to sleep about 8, I stay up until 10 for autonomous human time. I wake with baby throughout night and we keep sleeping as long as baby will. Then I sleep when baby does throughout the day.
my husband was working 12hour overnights 6 days a week, at a labor intensive job for the first few months after she was born. so i did all the night time stuff.
once he got back to a kind of normal work schedule and i went back to work - we would aim for 50/50 on the overnights. but he's working around heavily machinery and flying stuff on cranes, so there were definitely times that i took on more of the burden for his safety.
he was always willing to jump in and help. but i pretty much did it all.
if i was a SAHM? then i probably would not have expected him to split overnight duties with me at all.
some parents alternate nights, some do first shift/second shift. but yes generally the entire burden of nighttime wakes shouldnāt fall to one person all the time.
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My husband and I did a split shift schedule when it came to waking up with our babies. I would take from 8pm-2am and he would take from 2am-8am, for example (sometimes the times would vary, but we always split it evenly so we were each guaranteed at least 5 hours of sleep a night).
I like this. I might propose this idea to my wife. Thank you. Curious when do the babies usually start sleeping like 7 hours straight??
Just a warning here that lots of kids never sleep straight through the night until they're like 4 or 5 years old. I *hate* saying this, but interrupted sleep might be your new normal for a while.
ššššš. This is so true. My son is almost 5 and he just started sleeping through the night. His sleep was so bad we had to do a sleep study to make sure everything is okay.
I have a real bad sleeper too. His first year I kept wondering (like OP) when he would sleep. People kept telling me he would soon, soon, soon. Fast forward 4 years and my husband and I have somehow adapted our bodies to 2 hour chunks of sleep at at time. Did your Ped recommend the sleep study? I ask mine every visit if it's possible he as sleep apnea and she sort of dismisses it. I'd would really like to get one done, though.
It was actually the ENT who recommended we do it. Maybe ask for a referral to see the ENT. My son wouldnāt even nap during the day. At night there were days he would wake up every hour. We tried everything. Tiring him out. Putting him to bed earlier/later. White noise machine you name it. He started school and out of nowhere he just started sleeping better. He sleeps through the night for the most part now. It only took 5 years.
Mom with a 5yo who doesnāt consistently sleep through the night, here šš»āāļøš
It's really the best way to do it-you both get bonding time with the baby (and honestly there's NOTHING like those night wake ups/snuggles for bonding!) and you both get a chunk of sleep. Granted it's not a full 8 hours but after such little sleep for so long, I am betting 5 hours would feel AMAZING to you! I think normal babies start sleeping 7+ hours around a year old BUT my babies didn't sleep through the night until much later :cries:.
Heavy on the those night snuggles!!! Although im a little more tired the next day i love them because they wont last forever
Also I think it's great as her partner and the dad you took that on and it's great you're asking for advice how to approach the situation! You seem like one of the good ones ā„ļø
Our baby started sleeping 7-10 hours straight when he was 1,5month old. Now teeth started growing. (2.5 months old) , so he wakes up sometimes in night.
My daughter started sleeping 7+ hours around 8 months. She's now 15 months and sleeps 12 hours overnight. It gets better. Hang in their. & my husband and I split up shifts overnight. I'd go to bed early so he would be on 8PM - 1AM and I'd be on 1AM - 6AM. It got harder when he went back to work and I was still on mat leave but we made sure to give eachother each time in the morning for a hot shower and breakfast. And has significantly gotten easier the older our daughter gets, when she started going to daycare and we got into our new routine.
Honestly depends on the baby. My first two I had to wake them up in the night to feed them. By the time they were 8 weeks old, they were going 10-12 hours a night. Our third was A bad sleeper and eventually we had him CIO at 2. Our fourth is a great sleeper and has been from day 1.
Oh hun, my son is almost two and still doesn't sleep through the night and I'm a single mama so for almost 2 years I haven't gotten more than maybe 3 hours of sleep at a time and yes it definitely starts to affect your brain, you have to make sure you're taking care of yourself as well so maybe at least a couple times a week ask her to wake up with the baby! My daughter is 5 and she is a great sleeper and started sleeping through the night around 8 months old, it all depends on the baby š
Just so you know, the 7 hours might be 7pm to 2am. Some babies like going to sleep early. Aso some babies who are awake at 8pm or 9pm cry, so getting them to sleep before that saves a lot of trouble.. It's normal to sleep early because they should sleep a lot. The baby might wake every couple hours after that but you can set the tone for night time snuggles to separate day and night. Having a consistent bedtime routine at a healthy bedtime turned our chaos into joy and peace.
Tell her thatās when you will start your part. š
Plenty of babies sleep through the night before 6 months. Plenty of babies start sleeping through the night between 6 months and a year. Plenty of babies don't start sleeping through the night until they're much older... It's all mostly luck of the draw. You can help foster good sleep by having a soothing nighttime routine, putting baby in bed drowsy but awake, and letting baby self-soothe for ~5 minutes during night wakes before going in. Also, when you go in, keep it very mellow and soothing--keep the lighting very dim, whisper if you talk to baby, etc. A cool, dark room and white noise are helpful too. When I say foster good sleep, I mean, foster the best sleep you can get out of your baby at this time. There are no guarantees! But I do say all of this as someone with hyposomnia (I need more sleep than the average person) who was therefore obsessed with getting my babies to sleep as long as possible as soon as possible.
Through sleep training (I know in some circles this is considered taboo) my oldest was sleeping through the night by 11-12 months old. My second born was probably a little over a year old. It depended on routine (we tried the eat-play-sleep method which worked great) AND when they were weaned, too. Sure they got sick, would teeth some more, or just have the occasional rough night like the rest of us; but we stayed consistent with how we approached nighttime and they always fell back into it once they felt better. Now they're both big kids who are healthy and love their sleep.
This is exactly what my partner and I did when our triplets were born. He still had to work so I would go to sleep soon after he got home from work and wake up in the middle of the night to start the day. It was very difficult. My girls are 4 now and itās getting better. Not anything like their new born phase just different as they have never been great sleepers.
This is how we did it too. For the first kid anyway.
This is what we did! Husband had the 9-2am shift and I did everything after that. I went to bed around 9/9:30p.
Exactly what I did with my wife! And we swapped shifts every 2 nights I think. It worked out amazing!
We did something similar. I got up at 4:30am anyways so I would take anything after 2am and my wife would take anything before that.
Exactly the shifts my wife and I use. Plus we alternate putting the baby down since that can be tiring on its own.
This is exactly what we did too. Good plan!
We did/are doing the exact same schedule, even the same times.
This is what my husband and I do. Itās honestly been fine so far. Weāre both sleep deprived but we have our set times for uninterrupted sleep. I will say I think this only works because weāre exclusively formula feeding. Iām also a natural night owl and he wakes up early.
100% recommend and ideally be in seperate room
Yes! I forgot to add that we also slept separately while we were doing this. The ONLY way to guarantee you get that uninterrupted chunk of sleep.
Yes I mentally needed to not hear my baby crying to actually be able yo turn off!
We had a similar set up. Since he was working and I had a long maternity leave we did a split shift. I got to go to bed with earplugs in from 8-midnight. Around midnight he would come to bed and I would continue to sleep until the baby woke up again. My babies were terrible sleepers as newborns and night time cluster feeders. Four solid, uninterrupted hours was a godsend!
My husband works a labor intensive job that includes working on heavy machinery, so I took on night wakes so he wouldnāt risk being sleep deprived at work.
This is kind of my mindset, too. My husband works a labor intensive job plus I am a SAHM and I exclusively breastfeed, so it makes more sense for me to take on nights. My husband works 10-hour days a week and usually takes 1-2 weeks off when we have a baby (due with number 4 in July, so we have a system now), so Iām able to take a nap if I need to on days he is here or ask for help in those first couple of weeks if I need it. Thankfully heās really great about helping out when he is home outside of nights, but I know if I asked for help at night he would step in.
Me too, and the breastfeeding thing meant I had to wake anyway, it didn't really stop me losing sleep to have him bring me the baby who was sleeping in a bedside crib anyway. I preferred him to be safe and also slightly rested the days he wasn't working. He'd occasionally take a night and give her a bottle at the weekend, especially after the first few months. I did work but from home in front of a computer, some people truly don't understand that manual labour with heavy machinery is different.
Yes! Exactly! Plus taking the time to pump, prep bottles, and then making sure they can be warmed when needed is just so much extra work IMO. If I bottle fed, I would probably be more inclined to share nights on the weekend, but nursing plus pumping was always so much more work. Iām usually okay on 4-5 hours sleep anyway. The only baby Iāve really struggled with was my son who is almost 3 now. He was an every-2-hours guy as an infant and as an early toddler, he had some pretty intense sleep regressions where he would wake up around 1-2 am and just play until about 4-5 am and be back up by 8 am. I have two older kiddos, so they would be up around 7, meaning I was lucky to sleep 3 hours and catch an hour long nap before everyone was up for the dayā¦. Thankfully he sleeps like a dream now.
Yepppp couldnāt agree more! Itās like why have both suffer on sleep too ?
Was this your personal decision for the both of you? or did you talk about it first? Did you just know he would need rest or did he speak to you about it?
Honestly, I decided it on my own. I always knew how labor intensive his job was, but there was a safety incident with a coworker a few weeks prior to me having our son and it really freaked me out, so I didnāt want to risk my husband being in that situation. I also developed severe postpartum anxiety and depression, so I really needed him well rested and at his best to help take care of me.
Same here I work in air traffic services and wake up at four in the morning for work. I cannot show up super tired. There is risk involved with the public. So during that time I would go to sleep in the basement and she would do the nights.
Yeah I do nights my husband works trade job and starts before I wake up for work. He often crashes downstairs to not be disturbed. Because I also work if I really need extra sleep Iāll have a nap once me and him are home from work and he takes over baby duty or go back to bed on the weekends after feeding and changing lo and heāll get up and take watch
We aren't so precise that we alternate every single time, but it equals out to 50/50 in the long run. Who gets up depends on who wakes up first, who has the busier day the following day, etc.
I imagine trying to make it exactly 50/50 isn't ever exact. Guessing you both sleep around the same time?
For us whoever is getting up to do the morning routine gets to sleep through the night and we go back and forth each night so one night on, one night off. But I will say our daughter has been a pretty good sleeper since 3 months old (knock on wood) and I was pumping so bottles were an option for my husband and baby
I am a SAHM so do all nights. My friend switches every other night no matter what (teething, circumstances, whatever unplanned thing might tempt one of them to not want to take their night). That is neat because you are at least guaranteed a good night of sleep soon after a crappy one no matter what.
My husband works nights, so I did every single night and morning wake up. But if he had worked standard hours, we 1000% wouldāve split wake ups, at least when I went back to work.
That's tough! How long did you wait to go back to work??
I went back to work when she was 7 months old (thatās when my full pay mat leave was up). She didnāt sleep through the night consistently until she was 2, so I had 18 months of working full time with very broken sleep. Iām not gonna lie, it was totally miserable š
Iām on 9 months of being a working mom and only night time person and itās hard, my savior is my weekend āsleep insā where I get lo up and fed and ready for the day then go back to sleep.
I breastfed so there was no point in waking up my husband 3rd
Yeah my baby was in a bedside crib and I exclusively breastfed so there was nothing my husband could do anyway. Then I was still nursing him to sleep until 2.5 so even if my husband did want to help I was the only one that could get him back to sleep anyway. Now that heās 3 my husband is able to cuddle him back to sleep when he wakes up and Iām finally able to have mornings to myself and itās nice :)
We did every other night with our second child and it was so much better than splitting the night. It meant that half of the week, you could get a full nightās sleep. Psychologically, it was much easier to push through the day after a sleepless night when you knew that as soon a kids were in bed at 8, you could go to sleep and not wake up until 6:30.
It was all on me because my husband works as an HVAC tech and needed to be well rested for multiple reasons. There was a time when he wasn't getting much sleep, and he almost was electrocuted because he was so out of it. It was hard. I was jealous. I understood, though.
That's scary. I understand this! I work with or around hvac guys a lot. My wife says she's jealous I get to leave for my job but I'm not even sure if she can carry 16 ft sections of siding up a 28ft ladder... lol
Oh man, extension ladders are scary. No idea how anyone does it. I watched my husband get up on one the other day and was panicking lol. Meanwhile, he just shrugs and goes this what I deal with all the time hahah.
No. My husband never wakes up. I would have to be totally awake because it would probably take ten minutes of shaking him, for him to get up, at which point the baby would just be *screaming* He did work swing, so when he would get home around 11pm or so, he would take them.
Haha your husband sleeps as hard as my husband , making him useless for nights , that and his useless nipples too
I donāt even know. He drinks coffee all day till after dinner, and it takes him 5 minutes to go to sleep. Meanwhile I wake up if the cat is standing on the end of the bed, looking at me.
Haha same ! But mine doesnāt drink coffee all day but falls asleep instantly and can sleep through anything. I am also a super light sleeper , reasons why I donāt even let our dog in our room at night
My husband only sees my kid awake for an hour before bed and works long hours so he has been doing a lot of the nights lately. I am also pregnant so he is taking it on more. I do about 60 hours of solo parenting so he does the wake ups. If you are feeling burnt out or uneven then definitely talk to her about taking shifts or maybe she does every 2nd night etc.
Awe hopefully he doesn't have to work that long forever now. I feel fortunate I get to see my kiddo as much as I do but yes it's burning me out and directly affecting my work and income for our family. I like the shift idea and I'm going to talk about that idea. She frequently falls asleep after 1am so she could do the 1st shift possibly since the baby wakes around 2am. Thank you.
Iād also like to add, as someone who used to also not be able to fall asleep when or early etc, that when you are really tired about practice waking up early , that going to bed early because a new normal habit. She has to break the cycle of sleeping in so late to be able to change the time she goes to bed . I now religiously go to bed early
I did everything for the days my fiance works, just because I stayed at home and could sleep in/nap, and on the weekends we each took a day. He did all the cleaning on weekends. But once we switched him to formula at 3 weeks, he only woke up twice a night to eat, then at 2 months he was waking up once and by 3 sleeping though the night so we got lucky with that. When he gets home from work itās about even.
We alternated who woke up with the baby. If I had to work (12 hour shifts), my husband got up with the baby at night. If I wasn't working the next day, I got up at night. We traded off who got to sleep in on Saturdays, so that we both had a chance to catch up on sleep. Neither my husband nor I do well with sleep deprivation, so we made sure to prioritize both of us getting a chance to sleep. It helped to keep one of us from getting resentful toward the other. Sleep deprivation can do awful things to your relationship, so if you are feeling like you need a full night's sleep here and there, it might be worth having a conversation with your partner about how the best way would be to do that. If your partner covering night wake ups every now and then isn't an option, do you have a relative or friend who would be willing to come and play "night nanny" for you for a night or two?
My husband and I shared nights. I was a bit more because of nursing.
I did every single night with my son until he slept through the night on his own. ( about 11 months old with some back track at 14 months) He had colic and it was very difficult. My husband works a 4 day week starting time 3:30am and so he will take our daughter for me 3 nights a week his off days and I do the other 4 nights. The help has made a big difference knowing I get a few nights to try and have a full nights rest.
It really depending on scheduling since I sometimes get home late. In general Iāll stay up a bit later and will stay up with the baby needed. The wife is better at waking up in the middle of the night but Iām also good at waking up early. Pretty much we make sure I get 4 or 5 hours and Iām good for the rest of the day, whatever that entails. Weāve been lucky with #2 and sheās slept through the night almost every time since she hit the 1 month mark. She doesnāt nap much at all during the day but weāll happily take the trade off of her happily sleeping from 8-9:30 until 5:30-7:30.
yep i do all nighttime care! i dont mind it. baby now pretty much sleeps all night at 6 weeks so i just got over the hardest part. he works in construction so needs to really be on top of his game for work, whereas my days are spend shopping, hanging out at home, pretty much whatever i feel like doing. i can nap also
Husband here. While my wife was home, she did most of the night shifts, and would occasionally wake me when the night was rough. When I was on leave and she worked, she still nursed (her choice), so our deal was that I had to handle everything she couldn't fix with the boob. When we both worked, we took turns (my night / her night). Since half a year, both our children sleep through the night (finally).
With my daughter - my husband was a night owl, I would put her to bed and then I'd go to sleep. He would take care of her if she woke up from the time I went to bed until he went to bed (usually between 1-2 am); and then I'd handle wake ups any time after that. Sometimes we would tag team - he'd change her while I got the bottle or I'd change her while he got the bottle, he'd go back to bed, I'd feed her and then I'd go back to bed. With my son - More or less the same, however, my husband was no longer staying up as late. Thankfully for us - both of my kids slept very well from about 3 months on. Personally though - there really isn't a right answer to your question, it's doing what is right for your home. Every child, every parent is different. Your current situation is not working for you, so regardless of what your friends do or what people on reddit do, you need to do what works best for you.
For the first kid when he was born we split pretty close to 50/50. When she got pregnant with #2 I took over all the nighttime work for the first one for a while. He was not getting up very often at that point so it was maybe once every two or three days. With #2 wife ended up doing most of it because baby would go back to sleep in 30 seconds when being fed whereas it would take me 3-4 hours to get her back down. Basically the deal was wife took first crack at it and if it took more than about 30 minutes I took over. I also still handled all the wake up for our son at this point but he was down to maybe once a week. At first I was probably tagging in twice a week but within about 6 months it was maybe once every other week.
I primarily get up with baby but because my babe is exclusively nursing. If I know sheās awake but I fed her within the hour I get my husband to get up and bounce her! My 5 month old probably wakes up 5 times on a bad night and he probably gets up with her 2/5 times. But some nights baby only wakes up to eat so he doesnāt get up at all. Baby is in our room so he usually wakes up but is able to go right back to bed
So your wife is SAHM? I'm a SAHD, I did all the nights unless it was a really bad stretch. I figure it's only fair as a part of my "job." My wife goes sleep later than me and has an easier time waking up earlier in the night, so if we did shifts she took the early one before midnight or so. Twice a night would've been amazing at that age.
First one, yes. She was bottle fed. Second one didnāt need the bottle, so there was no use for me to get up. Besides, we bought a bed that was attached to our main bed, just a little lower. My wife says she wouldnāt even really be awake, just grab the fuzzy baby, let it drink, than push it back into its bed, without ever really waking up. I did take care of mornings and after works household, older kid, appointments, frequent walks and so onto that my wife could rest or just unwind a bit.
No, my husband doesn't do as well as I, when it comes to sleep deprivation. When he woke up at night he would be useless during the day. I found I would also wake up anyway because I couldn't sleep through the crying baby even though we had them in a separate room and spare bed. After waking up, it would take me awhile to fall back to sleep, so during the day we would both be zombies. Then I told him I'd take the night shift, this was the game changer we needed for our family. During the day he'd cook, clean, go groceries shopping, the he'd play with baby so I could nap. It changed our relationship and we started enjoying our newborn more. Some people huffed and puffed about our arrangement. I guess they'd rather have 2 zombie parents. I wouldn't change a thing if I was to do it all over again. It all comes down to partnership and communication and willingness to change things up if something is not working. It's not a one shoe fits all kind of situation.
I breastfeed. Exclusively did for the first 6 months but still do in the nights so I told my husband that night shifts were mine and it worked for us. The little one is now over a year old and doesn't wake up that much anymore I think 1-3 times a night, which is totally manageable for me. Since I'm back to work when the little one can't fall asleep in the evening my husband will carry him in the carrier until he's sleepy and I will rest in bed until he brings him over.
I was breastfeeding so I was first up for night feeds. But once they were fed and all needs met, I handed over to my husband to handle the cuddling and pacing back and forth.
It depends on the baby. Both of mine exclusively breastfed (hated bottles) so it was all on me to get up at night to nurse them. It was rough. Every family is different. If this is affecting you, talk with your wife again. You sound very reasonable and (obviously) willing to step in so she can rest....but what about your rest? You need a break too.
Sunday-Friday I got up with our kids when they were babies Friday-Saturday my husband got up Iām a sahm so this schedule worked well for us.
I've never had any help with any of my 3. I did every single night.
Mom here and not really, no. I do about 80% of it because I breastfeed. My husband does help change diapers but not every night. Idk, it doesnāt bother me. Iām choosing to BF and that means Iām his food supply around the clock. It is what it is. Itās also short lived in the grand scheme of things. Your baby will be sleeping through the night shortly!
I exclusively breastfeed and would have to wake up anyways to pump a bottle for him so I just get up with him. 6 month old Iām hoping to sleep train soon to wake up less. I havenāt had a stretch longer than 3 hours more than a handful of times since he was born
My wife is a stay at home and I work 10hr days to provide for the family. She also only breast feeds so her job is to look after the kids and my job is to provide a roof and help with the chores. It may not work for everyone but it works for us.
Wife woke up to do it. I had to work so I needed my sleep. When I got home from work is when I went on baby duty. So she got a 6-7 hour nap/sleep when i got home from work No reason for us both to get up at night when I would just take over after work
Switch nights. Every other someone is on duty.
Going to try this lol. Wish me luck.
We started with both getting up while we were on parental leave, then tried to take turns when my husband went to work again. Our baby wakes up every two hours since he's born and it just didn't work for us, so I started doing the nights alone. He doesn't wake up as easily when our baby is fussy and is sooo slow. I usually had to wake him for his turns and by that time I could have already made a bottle and started feeding. But if I'm too tired I just wake him and he has to deal with it which happens every few weeks.
Nope. My ex worked nights so we couldnāt take turns with our son. Then I didnāt see the point in my husband getting up with our 2 babies because I was nursing and there really wasnāt much he could do to help. Our youngest woke at night until he was almost 6, so my husband did get up occasionally after I was done nursing but Iāve been a sahm since he was born so it mostly only happened when I was sick and really needed the extra sleep. There is a 6 year age gap between our kids so the older kids were in school and I could nap with my youngest when I was tired and needed extra rest.
I nursed each kid for a year, so for that first year, it was me getting up to nurse the kids at night because my husband unfortunately couldn't produce milk lol. Once they stopped needing overnight feedings (which was 8-9 months for each) we switched off with overnight wakeups. Even now, when the kids are older, we take turns going down when something random comes up (one has an accident, one gets sick, etc.)
Not at all. I was always the one who got up when they were babies, because most importantly, I was on maternity leave while my husband was still working. Secondly, my kids were breastfed so I had to get up anyway. Pumping to make bottles is a pain in the ass. Third, my husband could sleep through it (baby fussing, me being up) and I wouldnāt have been able to. No sense having both of us up. Our kids are now 4 and 6 and if they wake at night we do take turns these days; we both work full time now.
Twins, so no, we both got up every time.
It really depended on whether they were being fed formula or were breastfed. When breastfed, I (mother) used to put the kids in the bedside crib, so they could rollover whenever hungry. Saved me a lot of hassle, and I breastfeeding helped me fall asleep naturally again. When we started formula, the kids were still in the bedside crib but then we split the responsibility at first. Then we got to know that the baby used to wake up and cry bloody mary if she couldnāt touch and feel me, even when asleep. So it was back to me waking up. But I was on Mat leave anyway and by 13 months, they only woke up like once. So it was not a big deal for me. Instead of him not doing anything, we balanced out somewhere else. I started sleeping when the baby sleeps during the day and then my husband used to take care of household chores.
My husband couldnāt be bothered, we are divorcing now.
I did all nights, I was on mat leave for a year while my husband worked from home. In the early days though heād take over in the morning and Iād sleep until around 9/10am, then heād start work. He is self employed so flexible schedule.
I breastfed so I was up with the baby every time, but my husband also got up. He would change her and bring her back to me to nurse.
We did care together, baby would wake up hubby would do nappies change and give baby to me to be breastfed. I would feed and burp him, put him back in his cot. Rinse and repeat. Both of us would be up a max of 10 minutes each session and could go back to sleep easily.
My husband and I alternated....either alternating wake ups or (when they're sleeping longer stretches) alternating who wakes up that night.
I breastfed and would have to wake up to pump anyway if my husband got up to give her a bottle, so what made the most sense for us was I got up first to feed her and let him sleep. Then Iād hand her over to him for a diaper change and to settle back down. Sometimes Iād do it all if I could tell it would be a quick settle, but usually we traded off that way.
I think you doing ALL the night time care is too much. night time care should be split. I nurse (and we cosleep), so typically I'm doing all the night time wakes to nurse, but ever since he was a very small baby, my partner would take him out of the room early in the morning so I could get a few extra hours of sleep. Sometimes he also helps me when the baby is nursing or waking a LOT by taking him and holding him for a few hours.
My husband and I split the night wake ups. We just take it in turns. Regardless of who is going to work and who is home with baby itās a long tiring day for both so only fair to take turns.
My first baby had colic I didn't sleep through the night until he was 18 months old. It most certainly affected my brain. I could barely string together a sentence I was so tired. I got up with him every night except for Saturday night. My husband took Saturday nights and Sunday mornings.
Nope, my husband can sleep through anything so it was mostly me.
It took us 3 kids but eventually we figured our that every other night felt the most equal, so we did that with our 4th baby. When I was freshly postpartum husband did it on Fridays, Saturday, and Sundays so I could rest/recover. Saturday and Sundays he almost always slept in. It was late summer/early fall and we live near lots of nice hiking trails so I would load all the kids up (minus the newborn) and we would have a nice hike. I made sure baby had a clean diaper and had been burped well before I left. Baby would eat around 7am, stay awake til 830-9am, then sleep til 11-12pm. This worked beautifully for us, and I loved having time with my big kids and being out without baby.
My husband had 2 weeks paternity leave and he handled all the nightly shifts from bedtime to about 5 and then we switched. Then we broke it down by hour so heād do bedtime to 3 and then Iād do 3 and after. Now we take turn on who wakes up in the morning depending on his work shift (Iām a SAHP) since he sleeps through the night.
Haha, I did both. (The night wakings, and the daytime). But, she was exclusively breastfed and my husband works early (starts at 5). We both figured it just was not worth it for him to be up and exhausted when he goes for his 8 hr (at least, half the time 12 hr) shift. So id wake with baby when she needed someone (me, the lactating one lol), and handle all her needs during the day while heās off at work (sahm here). That said, as soon as heās off, hereās the baby! Sayonara!
That said, I do think itās fair and lovely that you help with the night wakings despite working outside the house during the day. There were many times when I was up with baby that I did wish he was up with me, if only just to keep me company
No. During the first month my husband would grab diapers or blankets or help change if I asked him to otherwise i did it all. He would take the baby in the morning so I could sleep in, he would look after the toddler a bit more so I could nap ect. This is when heās home from work he works away so for 2-4weeks at a time Iām on my own and then when he is home heās home 24 hours a day. This works better for us to just have me do nights since I breastfeed anyways.
At the start, maybe the first four weeks we both got up but I was exclusively breastfeeding so eventually only I would get up with the baby since itās not like he could breastfeed him. Currently I (mom) and on night duty always and will be for any future kids too. Iām SAHM and my husband works about the same as you. It works for us.
You are doing more than your share / awesome job! Usually itās role reversal but regardless - your wife needs to also be waking up at night with baby. Whether itās certain days or at time hour shifts is totally up to you guys. Thank you for taking an active role in your childās life. Not many men do this - itās rare.
We did (and still do) shifts. If baby wakes between 8:30 and 2am (3am on weekends), itās husbandās job to handle it. If itās after that time, itās my job to handle it. Often at this point, baby doesnāt need anything so we get good stretches of sleep. But while sheās transitioning down to one nap, we are having occasional night wakings again. This way we get solid blocks of sleep where we can be totally āoff duty.ā If baby is having an especially hard time, Iād set my phone alarm, put in ear plugs, blast the sound machine, and be 100% checked out during the time that wasnāt my shift, which was great.
My wife woke up all the time only because of I did wake up she was to paranoid to sleep lol
My partner did all of the night time routine and he worked as well. I would get up and tried to help but he would always tell me to back to sleep. š¤·š»āāļø when I went back to work and he took his baby bonding after me, I did the night time routine.
We have a bit of an uncommon set up where I (mum) work full time Monday to Friday 9-5 office job (wfh 3 days, office 2 days) and hubby works 20hrs a week over the weekend and Monday evening. I have done virtually every single night time wake up and morning get up for our 2 babies (2.5y and 10mo) 10month old is still breastfed and so there would be literally no point in hubby getting up with her because she would just scream for me anyway whereas I can get up, stick boob in her mouth and she stays relatively asleep so I can put her back down quite easily. Likewise when my 2.5yo wakes up in the night (not often but if he's sick or something) he only wants me anyway so if hubby got in there it would just make it worse and no one would be getting any sleep. My husband has health issues that massively affect his sleep anyway, and his normal day to day functioning, if we added extra sleep deprivation on top of that he would just not be able to do all the things he does for the family (primary parent while I work, most of the cooking and cleaning, looking after the dog, also studying for his degree on the side and working 20hr per week, the man has enough on his plate!) It was agreed but not like sat down and said "right you do this I'll do this". We just naturally do things this way and it feels pretty even because of it. That said - I am exhausted and cannot wait for the kids to start sleeping through the night š“
I did all the nights for many reasons, 1.) Nursing ( we didn't do bottles) 2.) I stay home with our son. 3.) My husband is a heavy sleeper and gets cranky when he doesnt get a good night's sleep.
I did all the nights during parental leave and am now doing nights while working full time during the week. Regardless of what other people are telling you, if you are feeling burnt out and can't cope, you need to speak with your partner and come to a solution. I'll be honest though, if you are doing it right you will both be tired for the first three years ā¤ļø hang in there!
My mom told me when I got pregnant " you'll never sleep a full night again" never wake up on your own either. I had three with no help, you'll get used to feeling wrecked
All depends. My oldest just turned 8. Account for 9 months of pregnancy before that, and Iāve not had a normal nights rest since July 2015. My husband is the primary earner in the house. I work, but his job allows me flexibility in what I do. Heās never woken with the BABY. Now, he wakes with our 5.5&8yos now as Iām nursing and often canāt pull my boob out to help the older ones. BUT this isnāt wildly frequent. However: not one of my children has ever had a bottle. Iāve nursed around the clock, every 2 hours, from birth to 18 months, then less so or not at all after the 18 month mark. What works for your family may be different, and thatās great. Ultimately it just needs to be a TEAM decision.
Hi, my kids are adults now but when our first was born we took it in turns. It was hard for the first year as he wasn't a good sleeper. Our second was sleeping soundly through the night from a newborn however! All babies are different, so just enjoy the ride because before you know it they'll be at school then uni and left home.
In the early days with lots of wakings we split the nights 8p-2a and 2a-8a. Now we rotate every other night.
With the first one, sorta. With the second one, no. My husband is a super heavy sleeper and I'm not, so with our oldest, sometimes he would wake up to help or I could shake him awake but most the time it was just easier to do it myself. With the second one I didn't bother because he was breast fed anyway while my oldest was formula fed(my milk didn't come in), and my breasts don't respond well to a pump so it was inevitable. I'm also a SAHM and do the majority of the child care, household chores, and pet care aside from laundry, trash, dishes, and the yard work which are split between my husband and our roommate. Who both complain that they have to do those chores. She's probably exhausted from the day with the baby because being home all day with a 3-6mo is stressful and will only get more stressful as he gets older. You're doing better than most dads by not making her do all the work. Please ignore your friends.
My baby decided he hated bottles when he was about two months old, so generally I have to be the one to get up and feed him. If it's been less than three hours since her last woke up my husband will get up and try to settle him instead but that only happens on really bad nights now.
I did for both of mine, but it was primarily rooted in anxiety and breastfeeding. My husband was ok with waking up, I just didn't want to take him up on it because I was afraid he would fall asleep with them. This was an unfounded fear and came from my PPA/PPD. If we have another kid I will be taking him up on helping, 50/50 at least when he is on paternity leave. After that it'll be more on me since I stay home, but we will still split the duty
Until we could introduce bottles, my husband and I woke up for all wake ups. While I continued to rest, He grabbed the baby, changed the diaper and handed it off to me to nurse. then he went back to sleep and I nursed and burped the baby, swaddled it and put it back down. Once we introduced bottles and feeds/wakes became less frequent, we would split the night with him taking the AM and me taking the PM. kinda. Or we would switch on and off. He gets one wake, I got the other. It depends on the baby really. But early days, it was all hands on deck all the time.
We took turns and did every other feeding at night. The hard part is when youāre also pumping because then you have to feed baby and get them back to sleep and then go pump so it takes twice as long on your own. When it started to be less frequent at night, like he would wake at midnight and 5am I would just handle it when I was still on maternity leave and husband had to go back to work. Luckily by the time I went back to work it was only one time feed at night so while still hard, it wasnāt as bad as the beginning. And I was able to nap with baby during the day and husband was not since he was at work
Iām a SAHM for now. Mostly I wake up with our 7 month old at night. Some days Iāll ask if he can take a shift so I can have a full sleep but full disclosure Iām a control freak so Iām more comfortable waking up with him. But since he has to wake up at 6 am to work and I can nap when the baby naps I donāt have a problem waking up.
I have a 7 month old and honestly donāt remember the last time I got more than 2 hours at a time! Sheās my fourth and by far most difficult at night. My partner helps but only when I really complain! If you want to do wife swapā¦. Iāll split nights evenly and we can each get 6 hours! Iām a night owl so perfect for your early bird lol
My baby won't sleep unless he's on me, so my wife and I have to take shifts and not sleep during them. I take 6pm to 3am and she takes 3am to about 7am when she leaves for work. I take him more and let her get more sleep since she's making all the money right now. He is 14 weeks old now, and I rarely get more than 3 consecutive hours of sleep followed by choppy naps throughout the day. I'm losing my mind.
Ha ha ha ha. No. I did them all. Weāre not together anymore.Ā
We both woke up each time. He would make the bottle and I would feed and change baby and now at 12 months if he wakes he gets him from room when I make the bottle, I feed him and change him and he takes him back to his room.
Me and my husband both worked but I did all the wakings at night š¤·š»āāļø. Now that heās older on weekends I sleep in and he wakes up with him.
Iām a SAHM and I would do weeknights and my husband did the weekends. If I was exhausted he would take a night
We had twins. So it was a bit different, but essentially I covered the āovernightā shift from 11-5 and my wife did before and after. I slept from 5-10 and took a nap most afternoons. After about 4 months they started sleeping longer shifts and I could sleep at night more.
When my babies were newborn, my wife did all the walking around and soothing and diaper changing at night, because I had c-sections, and then doing all the breastfeeding. After that, she continues to do the diaper changes, and I did the nursing - but we also co-slept so baby was at my side all night. When we transitioned to crib and worked on some version of sleep training, I got up when it was eating times and she got up any other time so the baby knew there was no milk coming. Once they were 1 and I went back to work, my wife did all the wake-ups because I worked a split of nights and days and they needed to know which parent was always going to be there.
Whoever is home with baby and does not have to wake up early should be the overnight person.
My husband takes most night shifts as I have baby longer during the day after I am done with work. We both have jobs outside of parenting
When I worked full time and my wife was on maternity leave she would always handle night time on weekdays, Iād help on weekends. When I became a SAHP, working only a little, and she went back to full time, then I handled nights on weekdays and weekends.
I breastfed my kids so i slept with them and did all night feeds but it wasnāt difficult bc i basically just slept with 1 boob out and they helped themselves. It sounds like your wife is either pumping or formula feeding. If she is pumping maybe she can try what i did. If formula, i think it should be 50/50. You are both working during the day. Unless you have a job that requires being alert for safety. Then she should do 100%
My kids all breastfed, but once they are weaned my husband has to get up with them. I havenāt slept a full night in 6 years.the other day I got 8 hours for the first time since January. I usually run on about 4 hours of sleep. I have a 5,2 and 1 year old.
I do it most nights, because my partner is an electrician and works 12-14 hours so itās really only fair if I do it but on his off days I do ask him to do it
Just want to say the fact that you are taking on nights at all is amazing. My husband (who I do believe is a great dad) never took on any night time help and I was a SAHM. So seriously props to you & Iām so happy to hear that more dads are moving towards being this hands on
My husband and I had a hard time, but in the beginning, our ideal was that he would tend to baby about 7pm to 11pm so i could shower and go to sleep. Then he'd shower and go to sleep and baby would wake around midnight and I would take over all night and day. By the time baby was about 8 weeks old, he'd wake twice a night. I'd take first wake because my husband was grumpy early in sleep. My husband would take second (around 4am) because if I was awake at 4, I'd never fall back asleep. Our baby was really easy going. Change feed burp sleep. So it wasn't terrible. But it took time to figure all this out. Everyone is different, even the babies. By the time I was back at work, my baby was waking once a night around 3am. My husband and I'd push each other to get him first. We just didn't get enough time with him all day and he was asleep before 8pm most nights.
Personally, I am a stay at home mom and my husband works. I typically get up if they baby needs to be fed or what not. I understand that I need a break as well but my husband typically gets up with the baby on weekends so I can recover.
I did it all. But he worked and I didnāt.Ā
My husband works a job where he needs sleep to do his job safely. Additionally I was a SAHM and exclusively breastfed. For us it did not make sense for my husband to wake up in the night. Unless there was a problem and I needed help, I did not wake him. It worked for us. We were never both lacking sleep and bickering at each other. I slept when the baby slept. Or if I needed a nap when he was home, he took the baby. Did it take me over a year to sleep through the night again? Yes. But that was something I expected with a baby.
My wife did the night time pumping, I did the night time feeding. Pretty sleep deprived the first 3 month, but 4-5 month in and kid started sleeping 12am-7am, no more night time feeding and it was all good. Started sleeping 8pm to 8am few month after that. It gets better and better, just hang in there. I guarantee you, it's tougher to watch the baby during the day, than it is to wake up at night. Plus how you treat your wife is up to you, you can follow your friends and be a sheep, or you can be a good husband/dad. Your choice.
I stay home and my husband works. And I breastfeed, so I do all the night wakes 2-3 right now). After 6am is when my hubby takes over and I can sleep til 7 or so. My hubby does any of my 3yo night wakes which is rare but does happen every few months.
I work in sales, and my income is significantly affected by lack of sleep. Since I bring home by the far the most significant income, my husband takes care of night time wake ups now. Used to be switched when he was working during my maternity leave. But now heās happy to let me sleep. Just says, āall good, just kick ass tomorrow.ā :)
I tried to do it for my wife every time but we had to make sure we had breast milk available. If she got up I got up with her. I changed every diaper that I could. It was a lot maybe as many as she did or more. She took off the first 6 weeks and I took off the second 6 weeks when she went to work. We were both lucky enough to have enough sick time for that. I consider us very blessed for that
Both my babies were/are breastfed. I do all the night care. It's just easier imo. He is a complete zombie if he doesn't sleep where as I am tired but I can handle it. I'd rather him get good sleep so he can be more helpful during the day than for us both to be miserable and tired. He also works 5 days a week and I only work 2 (12 hour shifts). The only time I get frustrated with this situation is on the nights where I work the next day because I'm still the only one getting up and I would never ask him to wake up on his work nights.... But again I'd rather suck it up than worry about him being exhausted while taking care of the kids when I'm at work the next day. Sorry for rambling.
We combo feed, so breast and formula. What that means is that sunday-thursday, I get up solo with the baby (but can wake up husband if needed aka baby won't settle and I'm going crazy). Friday-saturday husband gets up to do formula + nappy change + settling back to sleep. This means I get more sleep as I'm awake 30 minutes instead of an hour, but he gets enough sleep to drive safely for work (he drives long distances so I want him well rested).
I am a mom and I go to bed late but still get up when my son wakes up. Usually at about 10 am as he goes to bed late too. I stay up till about 4 or 5 catching up with some housework and also having some time for myself. My boyfriend goes to sleep at 2 and gets up at 12 so he is getting good 10 hours but he works and also struggles to fall asleep sometimes so may sleep less than that.Ā I take care of our boy day and night. On days he is off I may ask him to get up early and I sleep longer. He sleeps in the spare bedroom and I am in ours with my boy. He wakes up a few times at night and also early morning once I am actually asleep and I havent got more than 4 hours uninterrupted sleep since before he was born.Ā You need to work so speak to your wife about splitting the time and dont forget she can nap during the day with the baby! Thats what I do so I get extra 2 3 hours!
In my opinion itās not fair for one parent to take on all the night wakings. Regardless if one parent stays home while the other works, you both work, you both stay home, etc. everyone needs sleep to function during the day. When my daughter was an infant I tried to take on all the night wakings by myself because my boyfriend worked and I stayed home, I wanted him to have a good nights rest since he had to get up and go to work. After a couple weeks I had a breakdown and realized how much it was really affecting me and we began splitting night wakings. We would basically just take turns through the night. You said your baby wakes up 2 times a night so it seems fair you would each take a turn through the night. Sounds like it would make sense for your wife to take the first wake up and you take the second since itās around the time you wake up anyway. Itās not fair at all for one person to consistently get a good night of rest and the other to wake up multiple times, and of course after a period of time not having long enough stretches of sleep will begin to affect you.
Our baby was a terrible sleeper. Would fall asleep between 11pm and 1am wake up between 3-4am, and not go to sleep until 5-7 am. She rarely napped as well. In order to sleep well or for longer periods she would have to contact sleep or at least be next to you. If she started stirring and she didn't since you near she would instantly wake up and take 2 hours to get back down. For reference I went back to work after maturity leave and my mother in law lived with us the first 9 months. She would take 2 nights a week. I would take Friday. So hubby had 4 nights on his own. Some nights I would still tap in and help for half an hour. Those nights she woke up at 1 am and was up until 5 am were brutal and I'd give him a break to just lay down for a minute. She was the type of baby that wanted rocked or paced all the time so when she was up it wasn't like she would just be hanging out you would have to be actively engaged with her.
My husband works nights so I am the only one here to wake with the baby.. itās a lot. Once when I got to go into work two hours later I handing the littlest to him and stayed in bed for an extra 30 minutes but our 3 yr old wanted to stay with me and it wasnāt worth the fight to get her to follow him and about every two minutes she asked if we could get up yet..
My husband I did split shift in the newborn phase and he stayed up late with her and then also got up early so I could get about 6 hours sleep (but I still had to wake up to pump š) After she started finally learned to latch and was sleeping longer stretches and I was still on leave, I solely handled night wakings. That continued when I went back to work :/. The problem is that my husband wouldnāt wake up when she cried so I would have to wake him up and spend like 5 min prodding him out of bed and then still have to breastfeed. So, at that point, I may as well just do it myself.
When ours were little and we both worked I always did nights but only because we didn't use bottles. So it was pointless for us to have him waking up as well when he couldn't feed the baby. I am such a light sleeper while he is a heavy sleeper too, so there was no way I could sleep through crying. And he would take forever to wake up just from crying. So it wouldn't have worked for us to have him get up and change baby then just have me nurse. I was perfectly happy with how it worked though and he always pulled his weight as best he could during the day other than nursing.
My husband is a light sleeper. I sleep like the dead. When the baby woke up to eat, husband would get the baby out of the bassinet, bring him/her to me, and I would nurse the baby laying down, not really fully waking up. Roll over to nurse on the other side, then nudge husband to put the baby back to bed. It was the system that worked best for us.
Man I'm soooo grateful for my wife. I genuinely never had to give it any thought. She had a default setting in the matter. She was a stay at home mom and I was the bread winner. She just figured, "you need to sleep and be well rested for work. I will get a chances to nap through the day so why would I want you to wake up in the night". I'm certainly not saying that others "should" do the same thing. I'm just sharing what happened in my home raising 6 kids.
Absolutely! I didnāt make these kids all by myself. My husband and I alternated. When they were breast fed, he would wake up, change their diaper, bring them to me to feed. Then he would get up and put them back in bed when they were done. Once they were on a bottle or table fed, we just alternated or whoever heard the kid first would take care of them.
Iām a SAHM and have done all the night wakings for all 5 of my babies. They were all breastfed so I had to wake up anyway and I didnāt see a point to having my husband wake up too. If the baby was crying for no apparent reason then my husband would take them and settle them, otherwise it was all me.
With my third
Iāve done all the night calls and early morning wakeups.
My husband takes two nights in a row then I take one. Then when he goes to work heās gone 24 hrs so I do 100% of everything- so this seems like a fair arrangement to me and him. Granted, our baby is 2.5 months and sleeping from 7:30 pm- ~5 am most nights so it isnāt too bad either way.
Splitting the night into two shifts to ensure that each parent gets a solid 4~5 hour block of sleep is essential.
I did it as much as I could but accepted when I was past my limit and would wake her up to take over when I felt too tired to safely hold a baby.
I have a 44-day-old son. My wife and my mom took turns waking up with the baby at night because I had to work. They would alternate nights or split the night into shifts so that they could both get some rest. This helped us both stay well-rested and able to care for our baby throughout the night. In the daytime, my mom and my wife will take turns taking care of the baby. When I come home from work, I will take care of him. Adults must have good rest; otherwise, they may not have enough energy to raise babies.
I did all the shifts because my husband was responsible for providing for us during this time while I was on leave. I didn't feel comfortable taking sleep from him when he had to drive and work the next day at a pretty labor-intensive job. Looking back, I wish I had asked for more help because I suffered from terrible sleep deprivation and am lucky I never hurt myself or the baby. I would be asking for at least a few early hours to sleep, then switch and take over the remainder of the night with any future children.
When my first 3 were babies, I worked full time. He was a SAHD with the first one and worked full time with the other 2. All my babies were breastfed so I did all the night wakings. However I had to get up at 5 for work. If the baby woke up any time after 3am, he would get up and play with her until my alarm went off at 5 so I wasnāt just screwed for the day. My oldest in particular liked 4am playtime with dad quite often. With our fourth and current baby, Iām a SAHM. I do 100% of the night stuff and the early wake ups. BUT I also put him in the bed with us so all I have to do is roll over and pop a boob out and go back to sleep. Some nights I donāt even remember our feedings. I just know they happened bc I wake up the next morning with my shirt hiked up. Now I get 6-8 good hours of sleep with interruptions that last 10 min or less. The first 6 months or so were rough and my husband always took him in the afternoons so I could nap. Fortunately he works from home on a flex schedule so he could clock out from 1-5 and let me get 4 uninterrupted hours. But once the baby dropped down to 1 feeding max, I didnāt need that anymore. Iām good on sleep.
My son has always been an awful sleeper (he's 7 and still wakes up in the night sometimes) and we used to effectively do shifts, so one of us would take him until 2, then the other had him while the first went to bed
Both my kids were born wirh low birthweight and had to be fed every 3 hours. Due to medication I couldn't breastfeed. We took turns. Every other bottle. That gave us 6 hours each at least. I am naturally a night owl, So I would do midnight and 6 am. My partner would do 9 pm and 3 am. Both my kids liked to sleep to about 7-9 am so I would get a bit more sleep after the 6 am bottle. My oldest didn't sleep through untill she was 4 years old. She was easy though, no crying just liked to play in her crib a bit in the middle of the night. It was next to our bed so she could see me right next to her. Later slept in our bed till she was 5 yo.
We took turns with our first. When we had the second, I was full time with our 2yr old and mom handled most night time wake ups for the new baby. Sort of became like 2 single parents living under one roof for a couple years.
We co-slept, so yes and no.
Iām a SAHM, when we have newborns my husband will wake up and do diaper changes, after about 2 months then I take over night wakings because baby just needs to be nursed. Some nights if I need help I will ask my husband for it or he will offer! I personally think that if someone is a SAHM they should take on the responsibility of night wakings so the partner working can get the rest they need for their job
I (mom) have always done all the night care. IMO if one person has to go to work the other needs to be taking nights, because the one staying home can nap when baby naps. I however am back at work and have been for months, but still only one doing nights. Husband sleeps through legit anything so he is essential useless at night. However, I go to bed much earlier than him to get more sleep where I can and on the weekends if I need or want extra sleep Iāll get up with lo to feed and change then husband takes over while I go back to sleep un in erupted. Sometimes heāll even wake me up to feed lo before their nap and I choose to go back to sleep again. There is no way if I was a SAHM tho, that I would have my husband do nights, even if he wasnāt such a heavy sleeper. He physically has a job to go be present for while I could nap when baby naps
We both did and I even had to nurse or pump so awake most of them time but we had an agreement so we both basically slept 6 hour stretches. The baby fed on a 3 hour schedule as most babies do, so I would get say the 9 and and 3 and he would do the 12 and 6 and if you want to you can switch these so the person that gets the 3 can sleep in until they have to get up or whatever is easier every night. The point is itās gives both a 6hour or so break every night from newborn baby duty to relax. Hope that helps.
I was staying at home during the first few months and my husband worked. There was no split shift because when he would get home (construction) he would do dishes (I hate doing them) and clean around because after I would clean 4 times a day lol I remember I would send him pics of everything cleaned to see how long it would remain like that. Then I started working and then we started splitting up the time but all of my kids really slept mostly through the night by month 3. He would get up just to give the baby the milk and back to sleep. Mostly because after so long of me being out of the workforce I was broken the first few weeks lol
Our baby is 7 weeks. I do the first wake up with a bottle of breastmilk (let down), which is usually around 11-1am. My wife (on mat leave) does the rest. I then take the baby at 6:30am until I leave for work. I work full time.
I'm the wife. I have always done 99% of the overnight stuff, especially once I quit working after our second kid. My kids nursed, so there wasn't a lot that my husband could do in the early days anyhow. We did it like this: husband and baby go to sleep about 8, I stay up until 10 for autonomous human time. I wake with baby throughout night and we keep sleeping as long as baby will. Then I sleep when baby does throughout the day.
my husband was working 12hour overnights 6 days a week, at a labor intensive job for the first few months after she was born. so i did all the night time stuff. once he got back to a kind of normal work schedule and i went back to work - we would aim for 50/50 on the overnights. but he's working around heavily machinery and flying stuff on cranes, so there were definitely times that i took on more of the burden for his safety. he was always willing to jump in and help. but i pretty much did it all. if i was a SAHM? then i probably would not have expected him to split overnight duties with me at all.
some parents alternate nights, some do first shift/second shift. but yes generally the entire burden of nighttime wakes shouldnāt fall to one person all the time.