Shiftwork and a newborn? 🤷‍♀️

Question

Hello everyone! I’m 20 weeks pregnant with our first baby and my husband and I are starting to mentally prepare for life with a newborn. We were wondering if anyone has experience of shiftwork with a new baby? He’s an air steward and he gets to choose early or late shifts for each month and was wondering if anyone has advice as to what works in terms of sharing/not the night feeds, or if taking early or late shifts is easier. I’ll be on maternity leave for at least 6-9 months while he will be back to work after his two weeks’ paternity leave. How do you guys manage with shift work? :)

Answer

Honestly there is not day and night in the beginning... it's just feed, change diaper, sooth, sleep, repeat... Once you start to develop a pattern I think it will become apparent which shift works better for you.

Answer

My husband is a nurse and works 12 hr shifts days and nights. I nursed so it was never really an issue but when we gave my daughter a bottle for 2 months (she refused it after that), he would wake up with her once a night to feed her when he didn’t have work the next day.
I did most of the work at night though. I used to bring the baby into the other room to change/nurse her so I could let him sleep until I realize how tiring that was on me lol and after a few weeks said “f this” and just started doing it in our room.

Answer

My husbands a paramedic so does a mixture of day and night shifts. I’m on currently on maternity leave and be until my little girls 9 months old in May. When my little girl was newborn and my husband was off we both got up with her alternating so we both got sleep. He would also feed her at night while I expressed so we would both get back to sleep at the same time. When she got a bit older and he started doing day shifts I did most of them and he would do maybe the first wake up so he still got a decent night sleep. When he did night shifts I did all feeds. My little girl sleeps through the night now but if she gets up I usually sort her because my husbands working so I don’t want his sleep disturbed. When he’s off though he’s quite happy seeing to her if she gets up in the night. 
Just see what works for you both, he will need more sleep if he’s working and you can always nap in the day if you can, but you also need breaks sometimes so he should help it’s his baby as well. You’ll soon find a routine that works for you though xx 
Good luck ❤️👶 xxx

Answer

I personally would choose the early shifts so he could be there at night. Newborns usually sleep a lot. You’ll be able to figure out the feeding schedule once they’re born. But I wouldn’t worry about night time feedings. You’re also on maternity leave, so even if you’re up all night you can sleep during the day

Shiftwork and a newborn? 🤷‍♀️

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