We're expecting our first child in November. We were discussing how we would split the night duties - my wife thinks we should take alternate nights, I suggested she takes weeknights and I do the weekends.
The reason I suggested that split is that I'm a developer and I know, from having done a part time degree for the last five years whilst working full-time, that sleep deprivation can have a really nasty effect on my ability to do my job. Having a newborn will be much worse, but I want to do as much for my wife and the baby as I can without becoming incapable of doing my job - although some impairment is going to be inevitable.
My wife thinks it would be unfair for her to do more nights than me. I'd be grateful for any thoughts at all on this.
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Newborn sleep deprivation - sharing the load
martin42 · 17/04/2014 05:07
With all mine as I have EBF we didn't split it 50/50 we did what worked for us. This meant I would go to bed around 9pm with DH staying up with lo until around 11, giving them an expressed bottle and settling them down. He would then go to sleep whilst using earplugs and I would get up whenever I was needed until 6am. DH would then take over at 6am and leave me to have a decent block of sleep whilst he got up and ready for work. He would then wake me up just as he was leaving for work and I would take over. This meant although we were both tired, neither of us were sleep deprived and he would have a clear head for a day at work, and if I was tired I would try and nap throughout the day. Of course if I needed him throughout the night to help settle, give medicine, deal with a poo explosion he would get up, but we worked as a team and I understood his need for a decent night sleep 
.
One on one off doesn't sound like it'll work, because there will always be one over-tired grumpy parent and with the best will in the world it's bloody hard not to get resentful when you're that knackered.
DP would take over our (ebf) baby from 3/4ish in the early days when he would only sleep on someone's chest. He also took full responsibility for all housework and cooking so that I could concentrate on ds, which took pressure off me and I felt I achieved something if I managed to cook dinner, or load the dishwasher. At weekends he'd take ds our for as long as possible (starting with 20 minutes to the park and back as that was the window between feeds in the very early days!) so I could have a long soak in the bath.
I found that my instincts kicked in. While the theory of someone else taking ds for a while was great, in reality I found the idea of even dp taking him for more than an hour really hard. So, I would suggest that rather than "tit for tat" sharing you divide all the jobs into two and have your own areas of responsibility.
DP's are bath time, breakfast (he'd bring me mine in bed while I did the morning feed, then once ds weaned would take him down so I could have an hour or two extra before he went to work), housework and evening meal. Any housework I manage with ds around is seen as a bonus, although tbh I was getting a fair bit of the day to day stuff done by the time he was a couple of months old. However, it helped us stay civil to each other to know that the other partner would uncomplainingly pick up the slack iyswim.
Congratulations. My ds will be 2 this coming November, it's a good month to be born in 
My dd is 18 months and dp has never done a night feed. She was ebf every 2-3 hours for the first 14 months and recently has started sleeping most of the night provided she can sense boob is close. He doesn't wake up and never has and if he did he would be bloody useless. He does give me the occasional lie in but still takes one weekend day for himself too!
Regardless of your plans acknowledge your wife is going to be tired. More tired than she ever knew was possible and be kind to her because sometimes the biggest help for me was him not moaning HE was tired and acknowledging that I probably was the most tiredest person ever, giving me a cuppa and patting me on the head. 
Disclaimer: he isn't horrid he just can not function on no sleep and is also a developer 
with dc1 I did all the night feeds and all the day feeds as he was a bottle refuser. I went a bit doolally on sleep deprivation, particularly as dc1 could do nights of sleeps lasting less than hour 
. I was up 9x in the night.
With dc2 we learned our lesson and introduced a bottle from 4 weeks. We both go to bed at 9. I do all the feeds until 6am (about every 90 minutes) And then dh gets an elbow in the ribs. He takes the baby and offers expressed bm in the morning. The toddler wakes and is breakfasted some hours later and both are brought to me around 9.
That does give me only 3 hours uninterrupted sleep each night but so far that is working.
I don't think 50-50 is realistic and one night on one night off would actually make you more tired. It's better to get into a predictable night pattern that you can sustain long term. I find I got MORE tired once dc1 slept better because at least when you know you only get 50 minutes sleep blocks you seem to plummet into a deep sleep much more quickly (and probably hormones help you cope, too).
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