My husband and I are struggling to get our sleeping routine down with our 4 week old. Any tips or suggestions on what worked for your LO and family? For instance, how did you split feedings, changing, and burping responsibilities? Did you switch things up on the weekend vs weekday? I’m breastfeeding and on maternity leave. My husband is back to work 5 days / week.
Parent schedule w/ 4-week old
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@brian77 Theres really no set schedule for me and my SO. He kicks into dad mode and takes the baby from me when he sees that I'm frustrated. Just make sure your also vocal when u need help. Especially with a fussy baby. When ur SO is off from work switch the responsibilities back and forth between you. Remember, us moms, are with the baby 24/7 during leave. We take on a lot. Make sure to talk to ur SO about ur feelings and frustrations in a healthy way.
@brian77 Honestly, I think you kind of just have to go with the flow at that age… any attempt to set a firm daily schedule was a disaster (at least for us).
In the early days, my husband and I took shifts - both day and night - to ensure we were each getting at least 3-4 hour stretches of sleep (I’d pump before my break so he could give baby a bottle). Once he went back to work, that was less easily done… but he’d take a long shift when he got home from work until bedtime (letting me nap/shower/take a break), then he’d wake up a couple hours early to give me another chance to catch a nap before he went into work for the day. Note: the “off-duty parent” slept in the guest room to make sure he/she got quality sleep.
I still was “on the clock” way more than he was, but at least we both continued to get a decent amount of sleep and regular showers/breaks.
In the early days, my husband and I took shifts - both day and night - to ensure we were each getting at least 3-4 hour stretches of sleep (I’d pump before my break so he could give baby a bottle). Once he went back to work, that was less easily done… but he’d take a long shift when he got home from work until bedtime (letting me nap/shower/take a break), then he’d wake up a couple hours early to give me another chance to catch a nap before he went into work for the day. Note: the “off-duty parent” slept in the guest room to make sure he/she got quality sleep.
I still was “on the clock” way more than he was, but at least we both continued to get a decent amount of sleep and regular showers/breaks.
@brian77 Whoever was “on duty” basically just handled any/all of baby’s needs. We’d wake each other up if necessary (for example: baby had been screaming for two hours straight and we needed a mental health break) but generally we just expected “on duty” parent to handle things. We both have the Sprout app on our phones so we could always consult that to see how long since last feed/diaper/nap.
Obviously, with breast feeding this involved an element of pre-planning/discussion - as I either needed to pre-pump a bottle or breastfeed during my “off duty” time. Typically if I didn’t pump, he’d just bring me the baby for a quick snack then take him right back.
Obviously, with breast feeding this involved an element of pre-planning/discussion - as I either needed to pre-pump a bottle or breastfeed during my “off duty” time. Typically if I didn’t pump, he’d just bring me the baby for a quick snack then take him right back.
carolina8402
New member
@brian77 Is the baby on a regular feeding schedule?
We are following the moms on call feeding schedule so that we generally know when our five week old will be eating. This makes it easier to know when he will be tired, since babies generally follow the eat-wake-sleep cycle. I always breastfeed at 9 am and 9 pm, even on crazy days, and we are slowly getting decent sleep from him at night.
I will attempt to not get on my soapbox about paternity leave and the bs that all of this is put on the woman and how everyone is screwed because of it. I am beyond lucky my husband has leave and is taking it with me.
Right now we split the night with one person sleeping in a separate room from the baby and the other with the baby. It’s getting weirder to schedule now that he is taking longer-ish stretches between feeds, but here is our general plan
Bedtime routine/bath
9 pm last night feed (breastfeed)
Put him down with lights out, sound machine on. My husband takes over and I go to bed. He sleeps when baby sleeps/if baby sleeps
12 bottle feed - this time we do a bottle because it’s my only chance of sleeping more than two/two and a half hours. Husband does bottle, puts baby back down to sleep. This has consistently been when baby gets best and longest stretch
3 am breastfeed now becoming 4 am feed - husband brings baby to me, i breastfeed and take over for the morning. Try to put baby down to sleep in pack and play next to me
6 am we have to be up because we have a toddler who gets up around this time. It’s getting hard here because baby is starting to sleep longer so we hate to wake him up before he needs to during what we still consider “night” sleep
***if baby isn’t sleeping for husband during his shifts, he gets me up mid way at 1:30. We haven’t had to so far and he has been able to sleep while baby sleeps at night for most of the times between feeds. We have to settle him occasionally, but he generally is going to sleep at night now. We tap in and trade off if not.
You could maybe do a flipped version of that where husband takes baby at late late night/early morning feeding so he gets a long stretch before working and gets up earlier, and you somehow get a stretch of sleep before the day? So you have baby at 9pm feed, 12pm feed, then maybe trade with husband at 3 or 4 for a bottle so you can go to bed immediately. Then you get baby when husband has to get ready for work.
During the day since I am feeding all the time husband does a lot of the diaper changes. We are also very lucky to have my parents near-ish so they come and help out most weekends.
I know that not everyone likes this, but I got the taking cara babies when I had my first and it honestly helped me a lot mentally. It wasn’t perfect but it taught me a bit about how to calm a baby down, how they fuss in their sleep and you should pause to make sure they are actually awake, and about sleepy cues. With my first I kept trying to feed her whenever she cried and I realized from tcb that she was crying because she was tired, not that she was hungry. The moms on call book was a gift from a friend and i liked their schedule for us, but some of their stuff is a bit too intense for me. I also wrote out my whole day by hour to make our current plan because I am a super visual person and my brain is barely working. We decided on a schedule and then wrote it out on a big piece of paper that is in our living room.
I say this all about eating because once we established an eating schedule the sleeping schedule became a lot more predictable. My son still fusses at night, we have to calm him down, it is not like we sleep fully between each feed, but we have a scheduled plan and that is what we both needed to not lose our minds.
I hope this helps! I did not start out meaning to write this much. Oops. But Im also going to add - Last time with our first we did not have leaves at the same time and we also split the night. Just having that clear time of having responsibility or having a break helped us a lot. I really suggest sitting down together and making a plan with compromises for each other. We are a team and this shit is so hard, and if we don’t make a plan and decide on clear responsibilities I think we would be so resentful of each other.
We are following the moms on call feeding schedule so that we generally know when our five week old will be eating. This makes it easier to know when he will be tired, since babies generally follow the eat-wake-sleep cycle. I always breastfeed at 9 am and 9 pm, even on crazy days, and we are slowly getting decent sleep from him at night.
I will attempt to not get on my soapbox about paternity leave and the bs that all of this is put on the woman and how everyone is screwed because of it. I am beyond lucky my husband has leave and is taking it with me.
Right now we split the night with one person sleeping in a separate room from the baby and the other with the baby. It’s getting weirder to schedule now that he is taking longer-ish stretches between feeds, but here is our general plan
Bedtime routine/bath
9 pm last night feed (breastfeed)
Put him down with lights out, sound machine on. My husband takes over and I go to bed. He sleeps when baby sleeps/if baby sleeps
12 bottle feed - this time we do a bottle because it’s my only chance of sleeping more than two/two and a half hours. Husband does bottle, puts baby back down to sleep. This has consistently been when baby gets best and longest stretch
3 am breastfeed now becoming 4 am feed - husband brings baby to me, i breastfeed and take over for the morning. Try to put baby down to sleep in pack and play next to me
6 am we have to be up because we have a toddler who gets up around this time. It’s getting hard here because baby is starting to sleep longer so we hate to wake him up before he needs to during what we still consider “night” sleep
***if baby isn’t sleeping for husband during his shifts, he gets me up mid way at 1:30. We haven’t had to so far and he has been able to sleep while baby sleeps at night for most of the times between feeds. We have to settle him occasionally, but he generally is going to sleep at night now. We tap in and trade off if not.
You could maybe do a flipped version of that where husband takes baby at late late night/early morning feeding so he gets a long stretch before working and gets up earlier, and you somehow get a stretch of sleep before the day? So you have baby at 9pm feed, 12pm feed, then maybe trade with husband at 3 or 4 for a bottle so you can go to bed immediately. Then you get baby when husband has to get ready for work.
During the day since I am feeding all the time husband does a lot of the diaper changes. We are also very lucky to have my parents near-ish so they come and help out most weekends.
I know that not everyone likes this, but I got the taking cara babies when I had my first and it honestly helped me a lot mentally. It wasn’t perfect but it taught me a bit about how to calm a baby down, how they fuss in their sleep and you should pause to make sure they are actually awake, and about sleepy cues. With my first I kept trying to feed her whenever she cried and I realized from tcb that she was crying because she was tired, not that she was hungry. The moms on call book was a gift from a friend and i liked their schedule for us, but some of their stuff is a bit too intense for me. I also wrote out my whole day by hour to make our current plan because I am a super visual person and my brain is barely working. We decided on a schedule and then wrote it out on a big piece of paper that is in our living room.
I say this all about eating because once we established an eating schedule the sleeping schedule became a lot more predictable. My son still fusses at night, we have to calm him down, it is not like we sleep fully between each feed, but we have a scheduled plan and that is what we both needed to not lose our minds.
I hope this helps! I did not start out meaning to write this much. Oops. But Im also going to add - Last time with our first we did not have leaves at the same time and we also split the night. Just having that clear time of having responsibility or having a break helped us a lot. I really suggest sitting down together and making a plan with compromises for each other. We are a team and this shit is so hard, and if we don’t make a plan and decide on clear responsibilities I think we would be so resentful of each other.
@carolina8402 few follow up questions if you don’t mind!
What’s the value of doing a hard stop feeding @ 9 and 9?
Does you sleeping thru a feeding / your hubby taking it not impact your milk supply?
Have you noticed a downside from doing a semi regular feeding schedule?
Thank you!
What’s the value of doing a hard stop feeding @ 9 and 9?
Does you sleeping thru a feeding / your hubby taking it not impact your milk supply?
Have you noticed a downside from doing a semi regular feeding schedule?
Thank you!
carolina8402
New member
@brian77 Of course!
The idea is that no matter how wild/messed up the schedule gets during the day you can reset at the consistent morning and night time. In the moms on call book they use 9 am and pm and that works for us, but I think you can adjust to your schedule. So even if one day he just needs to cluster feed or our timing is off somehow, we start the next night and day at the same time to hopefully get back to our rhythm.
It hasn’t impacted my supply but I’ll be honest, my boobs and milk supply are a mystery to me. With my first I had so much trouble feeding and it was miserable. She did have a tongue tie and a very hard time latching. This time I hemorrhaged really badly a week after having the baby and was told to expect my milk to drop, and it didn’t at all. We started skipping that night feed early but I also missed several days of feeding because I was in the hospital and it never went away. I do think I must have an over supply problem which is why I get mastitis so easily. I would love to say that every one can skip a feed and it not affect them but I have zero idea how/why it worked this time, I just know it came down to my sanity and needing sleep.
I haven’t noticed any real downsides to a schedule. Sometimes I feel like I am on a constant timer, but it’s so much better to me because I have a much, much easier time knowing why my baby is fussy at certain times. Babies are generally (from what I have read and my experience) on a three hour cycle - so I feed him for about 40 min, then we try awake time for about 20 to 40 more min, then we know he will get tired until the next feed. If I feed him at 12 and he is crying at 1:30, I now am almost certain it’s because he needs to be swaddled and sleep instead of trying to feed him again. This has allowed me to try to avoid an overstimulated and over tired baby
I want to be clear that we still have bad nights, he is super fussy in the evenings, and I literally day dream about sleeping for as long as I want to one day. But this schedule has at least set up expectations and a routine, and that has helped me and my husband a whole lot!! Happy to answer any other questions, you are welcome to dm me. I am right there with you figuring this out and am glad to help
The idea is that no matter how wild/messed up the schedule gets during the day you can reset at the consistent morning and night time. In the moms on call book they use 9 am and pm and that works for us, but I think you can adjust to your schedule. So even if one day he just needs to cluster feed or our timing is off somehow, we start the next night and day at the same time to hopefully get back to our rhythm.
It hasn’t impacted my supply but I’ll be honest, my boobs and milk supply are a mystery to me. With my first I had so much trouble feeding and it was miserable. She did have a tongue tie and a very hard time latching. This time I hemorrhaged really badly a week after having the baby and was told to expect my milk to drop, and it didn’t at all. We started skipping that night feed early but I also missed several days of feeding because I was in the hospital and it never went away. I do think I must have an over supply problem which is why I get mastitis so easily. I would love to say that every one can skip a feed and it not affect them but I have zero idea how/why it worked this time, I just know it came down to my sanity and needing sleep.
I haven’t noticed any real downsides to a schedule. Sometimes I feel like I am on a constant timer, but it’s so much better to me because I have a much, much easier time knowing why my baby is fussy at certain times. Babies are generally (from what I have read and my experience) on a three hour cycle - so I feed him for about 40 min, then we try awake time for about 20 to 40 more min, then we know he will get tired until the next feed. If I feed him at 12 and he is crying at 1:30, I now am almost certain it’s because he needs to be swaddled and sleep instead of trying to feed him again. This has allowed me to try to avoid an overstimulated and over tired baby
I want to be clear that we still have bad nights, he is super fussy in the evenings, and I literally day dream about sleeping for as long as I want to one day. But this schedule has at least set up expectations and a routine, and that has helped me and my husband a whole lot!! Happy to answer any other questions, you are welcome to dm me. I am right there with you figuring this out and am glad to help
@brian77 My son acted like I was trying to poison him anytime we tried a bottle so I was responsible for all the feeding and it was impossible to get him onto a schedule. He wanted to eat when he wanted to eat and that was that. I would usually wake up and breastfeed, then I’d wake up my husband to take him for a diaper change (if it was poopy) and he would swaddle and rock him back to sleep. That was for the first 2 or so months, then when he stopped pooping all the time at night he’d fall asleep while feeding and I’d just trader hill to the bassinet/crib. I did 90% of the work when it came to night feeds which was hard at the start but my son was a good napper so I’d usually get a few hours of sleep in during the day. On the weekends I’d get a little more time to myself but I still always had to be available to breastfeed.
baylorfan1999
New member
@brian77 My husband went back to his overnight work trips when our baby was 2 weeks.
When he has to work the next day, I’m the one that gets up. When he comes home from work I get a break. I tried not to wake him bc there’s no reason for both of us to be exhausted. Now that we are
Both working, when I have to work the next day, if our son wakes me up & I can’t get him settled right away, I wake my husband up. I sleep so light now that no matter what, I wake up.
Idk if you pump at all but one thing I loved that we did when our baby was little-is that I would go to bed at 6p and wake up at midnight- my husband would care for baby at that time. He then went to bed. It gave us both an opportunity to have uninterrupted sleep. That might be a great way for you to recharge! ESP if your baby will take a bottle.
When he has to work the next day, I’m the one that gets up. When he comes home from work I get a break. I tried not to wake him bc there’s no reason for both of us to be exhausted. Now that we are
Both working, when I have to work the next day, if our son wakes me up & I can’t get him settled right away, I wake my husband up. I sleep so light now that no matter what, I wake up.
Idk if you pump at all but one thing I loved that we did when our baby was little-is that I would go to bed at 6p and wake up at midnight- my husband would care for baby at that time. He then went to bed. It gave us both an opportunity to have uninterrupted sleep. That might be a great way for you to recharge! ESP if your baby will take a bottle.