Toward the end of my pregnancy, I was ticked off that I couldn’t sleep through the night. As if I hadn’t gone through enough already, now I couldn’t sleep?! Everyone told me it was my body’s way of preparing for the sleep deprivation that would come with my newborn baby, and that lit a fire of fury within me. “If that’s the case, then why isn’t my husband having trouble sleeping, too?” I’d ask. This was just one of many things that felt totally unfair about pregnancy.
Thankfully, I slept better as a brand new mom than I did as an expecting mom. Not in the first few weeks, of course, because my body was recovering from a C-Section. But after that, the hours I slept were good hours. No tossing and turning. No hip pain. No 17 trips to the bathroom.
And my husband shared the nighttime baby wake-ups with me, so I wasn’t alone, scrolling Reddit threads and Googling “WHY?!”
It didn’t take long for us to implement sleep shifts. We agreed that it made no sense for both of us to be awake every two hours to feed and change our son. And after those first few weeks of learning L’s rhythms and setting up systems to get us through the night (e.g., pre-mixing bottles and putting them in the mini fridge we ordered specifically to store bottles upstairs), we were confident we could handle things solo overnight.
Important note: We started feeding L formula on Day 5, so my husband and I are equally capable of offering milk during feedings. I’m not sure which sleep shifts are possible or work best for breast-feeding families.
One night on, one night off
Our first arrangement was to trade off nights. So, I’d handle all of L’s bottles and diapers on one night, and then my husband would take the next night, and so on. Sometimes I’d venture downstairs to our guest room during those early postpartum weeks. Our guest bed is lower and was easier for me to get in and out of once I was able to lay flat again. I’d position L next to me, away from any covers and far enough from the edge that he couldn’t accidentally roll off, and we’d both get some sleep in between bottles.
Pros of this method
- The off-night parent gets a full night of sleep (theoretically).
- We each got a break every other night.
Cons of this method
- L was still in a bassinet in our room, so I’d wake up when he cried, even on my off nights. Sometimes I’d have trouble falling back asleep.
- I dreaded the nights that I was on shift.
My husband started to take the bassinet into his game room with him until after L’s late-evening bottle (10-11ish). He would then position the bassinet by his side of the bed for the remainder of the night on his shifts. This helped me try to get some uninterrupted sleep on the front end of my off nights.
Midnight split
Eventually, alternating nights stopped working for us. It was better than both of us being awake all the time, but I wasn’t getting more than a few hours of sleep at a time simply because I’m sensitive to L’s movements and noises.
We decided to try a new arrangement: my husband would be on shift until midnight (he’s a night owl), and I’d be on shift after midnight (I’m a morning person). At this point, we weren’t waking L up to feed him every couple of hours, and he was sleeping for 3-5 hour stretches. He typically needed a 10-11pm bottle and a 2-3am bottle.
Here’s a note from my phone from Oct. 23, when L was just shy of 7 weeks old, about my sleep that night:
10pm-midnight – sleep; woke up when Madison brought him into the room
12:15-2:15am – sleep; woke up to L’s sounds and moved him to crib
2:20-3:10am – nap on air mattress
3:10-4am – woke up with L; diaper change + bottle, tummy discomfort
We transitioned L from a bassinet in our bedroom to a crib in his nursery when he was two months old. This helped me get better sleep pre-midnight so that my post-midnight shift wasn’t terrible.
Pros of this method
- It played to our natural preferences.
- Every night was the same, so we could establish better routines.
Cons of this method
- Initially, L’s bathtime was 7:30pm, which meant I wasn’t getting to bed until 9pm or later. By the time I fell asleep, I’d get four hours before having to wake up if I was lucky.
- It’s not always an “even” split – sometimes evenings were hard, sometimes early mornings were hard.
We still use this arrangement now that L sleeps through the night. I go to bed around 8pm because I wake up with little man between 5-6:30am. My husband will watch the monitor until he goes to bed, usually after 11:30pm, and then I’ll respond to L if he needs anything after that (he rarely does).
Try, try again
As new parents, we are figuring things out as we go. Sleep shifts feel effortless to us now, but that’s a new feeling. For the first 3.5-4 months, I felt like I was surviving each night, not thriving.
There were times I lay awake on an air bed in my son’s nursery at 2:30am writing a text to my husband about how unfair it was that he got to sleep through those rough morning hours. I’m not proud of those middle-of-the-night frustration texts, but that’s the truth. There were nights when I couldn’t get L back to sleep in his crib and had to hold him for hours while sitting in a recliner or on the chaise of our couch, silently sobbing.
I don’t think there’s a perfect system or solution, especially considering every baby’s temperament and personality is different. My friend’s baby slept, like, 12 hours through the night as soon as their pediatrician told them they no longer had to wake him up to feed him every two hours. Most babies don’t do that.
If you’re in the thick of finding a rhythm right now, you’re not alone, and it WILL get better. All we can do is try, and try again!
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