Dads balancing work life with parenting

Hi everyone. This is more aimed at the guys here than at girls, but I'll listen to advice anyone has really.

I have been fortunate enough to have been given 4 weeks parental leave on full pay. I am halfway through week 4, and having this time to bond with Daniel has been tremendously beneficial for DW and I.

Whilst on leave, I have seen my role as very much 'assisting her' to do the best job she can. Sometimes, it is contradictory too: For example, I know that she needs sleep in order to function properly, but also that there's little point in me getting up at 3am when he is screaming for food as it's her with the milk not me! The way we have tackled this is to use the formula that every 1 hour of sleep before midnight is equivalent to 2 after midnight. So I do the 'night shift'. She goes to bed somewhere between 8:30 and 10:00pm to get 'quality sleep' and I stay up for his benefit from the time my wife goes to bed right through until 12:30/1:00am. The baby monitor is usually turned off so she hopefully gets an undisturbed sleep. If he wakes up, I'll go in and see what's up. If he has a dirty nappy, needs winding, is hot or cold etc then I can sort it. If he's hungry, then we need to get his mother involved but I'll at least be able to try a few things before it comes to that. Over the last few nights, I've been doing his dreamfeed from a bottle and DW has been appreciating the extra sleep that gives her.

However, all good things must come to an end and next week I will be returning back to work. I have to admit that I am worried about this. I have already talked with DW about it, and we couldn't really come up with any solutions. Obviously the current regime can't last. I'm going to bed between 12:00 and 1am and getting up in the hour of 9am. It's 8 hours sleep, but it feels a lot less because it's interrupted throughout the night as she gets up two or three times to feed or just attend to him.


Which leaves me in what feels like a tricky situation. I want to be seen as supportive and don't want her to feel like she is alone. However, if she has a bad night's sleep she can sleep during the day when he does. I won't get that luxury when I'm back at work so will have no choice but to endure it. I can't even pull a sickie since I've only got 5 sick days a year which is nothing as it is.

Plus, the reality is, it's my work that brings the money in. I'm not being very 'supportive' to anyone if I end up so sleep deprived that I make an expensive mistake at work or worse, lose my job entirely. I know it would have to be a pretty hard-nosed employer to ignore the demands of parenting like that, but nonetheless it's still something to consider. I know that family comes first every time and all that, but I still need to show some loyalty to my employer by showing up in a useful state every day.

I usually need around 8 or 9 hours sleep a night. If it's interrupted, I imagine it would tend toward the higher end of that scale. I'm just not sure how I am going to be able to get that without completely tiring DW out in the process.

So how do guys here deal with this problem?

It's something I've been wondering about for a while but I guess I just pleaded blissful ignorance, hoping that by the time I went back to work (4 weeks after his birth) his sleeping would be settling down.

Thanks
Richard

Well, lets start off by saying you have done a fantastic job, taking a huge weight off Staceys plate. In the first few weeks, that is a huge help being able to get some decent blocks of sleep like that. Ok, Baby should settle into a better going back to sleep pattern by about 6 weeks, or so, which means, by then, he shold be able to "tell" the difference between night and day time, and sleep in stretches a little longer at night time, so those night wakings are going to get a little easier for her.
My advice would be don't beat yourself up to much, as I'm sure she is thankful for the help she has had (we are self employed so we haven't really had the luxury of that, plus I would have killed DH if he was home with me fo rthat long, lol!)
The big thing would be to let her know you DON'T expect tea on the table/house spotless/shirts ironed when you get in the door, so she may be able to put her feet up for a few hours in the afternoon without feeling guilty. Also, maybe go back to your dream feed thingy one weekend night or take turns at sleeping in on the weekends (one morning each) or you could get Daniel and bring him to her to feed in bed so she can doze back off.
The reality is, that you are both going to have interupted sleep for along time to come, and it does get easier and you will get used to it... And you will probably get so sued to it you won't hear him after a while.

Good luck, and you are both doing a great job!

Will be completely plain and simple here, yes you need your sleep and i can accept that, working shift work abolutely buggers me. interrupted sleep buggers me, i don't function well at all on minimal sleep. and neither does hubby.

He took time off too when i had Ayja, and that was ok, he didn't get up at all either in the night but slept right thru.

What you will find is that you learn to sleep, when your head hits the pillow, you sleep.

Helping with the dream feed is a wonderful idea, and if you still want to help there is probably nothing stopping you from going to bed at that early time too once baby settles and getting a couple of hours kip before the dream feed.

Yes, some may consider it a "luxury" to sleep during the day once baby is asleep, but think about it.. it's still interrupted, always interrupted. The whole way through the day, and if you are the only one getting up to baby all through the night, well then it's interrupted too.    That is the worst form of torture, i actually truely beleive it's used as torture in some SAS methods or something lol, waiting till you are just dozing off, then you get woken.

I completely agree where you are coming from with needing that sleep, seriously. And also with being the breadwinner. But i also think having been on the other side at home with baby(s) and having constant broken sleep, for months... why not share the load. maybe work on the idea of making sure during the weekends that mum gets sleep ins.. that what my hubby did, i would feed the girls when they woke early morning, then hubby would take em, dress em, give em brekkie once they were older and keep them entertained until they next needed a feed, which gave me time to sleep. that and maybe one night in the middle of the week (wednesday maybe.. lol) where you still do the dream feed. It gives a small break and gives stacey something to look forward to ("only 2 more days till i get a sleeppp in!!")

good luck, it's hard to balance, and yep works inportant, but family is too and sometimes eitherway you loose. thats what having a newborn is about, they're cute and cuddly but well they don't sleep a heck of alot. whoever coined the phrase sleeping like a baby obviously had never had one!!

you're either both in it or not - sometimes you just gotta stick with each other in your half-dazed states for the first couple of months.

What a great question and i just want to congrat you on wanting to be so involved and so loving to your family.

Kent had 2wks off when Rhiannon was born, and when he went back to work, it only took a couple of days for things to fall into a routine. Kent use too and still does get up to rhiannon in the middle of night if need be.

Although if i hear her i will get up, cos its easier for me to get a nap in the day than it is for her.

We also make sure we are in bed by 10.30pm at the lastest and we take turns on the weekend to do duty for that morning...so i get up on a saturday morning and kent sleeps till whenever and vice versa for me on a sunday.

he also helps by doing dishes, and any washing that needs to be folded and put away etc etc, and we spend at least 3 hours of each saturay and sunday just doing family time, whether it be going to the mall for a coffee or daddy watching bubs while mummy goes out for 60mins of me time.

i think you are doing a great job and you are a wonderful daddy

Hi Richard, my DH likes to make the most of his evening (AKA just got home from work) time to help me out with the children. He will often help me change them for bed and sometimes he'll see me looking particularly tired and will ask if he can help out some way or hold the baby for a while. I find these days I don't need so much practical help as time out to myself, and sometimes when he gets home it's really nice if I can just jump in the shower for 15 minutes while he looks after the children, cause it's often the only break I've had all day.

One important thing IMO is to budget together and do all you can in your power (both of you) to keep your expenses under your (the DH's) income (plus whatever family support etc). That eases the pressure off Stacey so that if she does want to return to work, it can be when she's ready not just when she feels she needs to. (By the way Stacey and I haven't spoken about that so I don't know her personal back to work opinions).

As far as nights go, I have bf all our kids so I've always seen to the nights. DH now sleeps through all that. I usually can sleep through the day (but not always) and producing milk for bf actually makes you a bit tireder as well. For me, hugs, words of encouragement, are some of the best ways my DH can help. As your baby gets older he'll interact with you more but in the meantime it really is about supporting your wife - which you seem to really have at heart so well done.

lizzle wrote: Just to put in my two cents. to be supportive - avoid these phrases at ALL cost "I'm just knackered - hard day at work" "but you've just been at home all day!?" "I wish i could stay at home like you" "You're so lucky spending all the time with the baby" they may be technically true, but after spending all day at home with a crying child, they may result in serious injury.

Fo' shizzle my Lizzle! (hehe, I always think that when I see your nickname)

lol that and

"having the luxury of sleeping during the day"

he he.

I get from mike still.. he fails to remember that i have actually been WORKING till 11.30pm hello, i need to sleep later, i still get up at 6.30 to get the kids ready for daycare. he he

anyway.. sleeping during the day is NOT a luxury.. it's a necessity. lol

It sounds like you have made an awesome start with supporting your wife and you are right it will get harder to do that once you are back at work.
My husband has been really great and a huge support and it has made such a difference.
He does the bath every night and between us we get dinner organised - sometimes I have something sorted, other times he helps out with that once Oliver has gone to bed (at six thirty-ish)
He also always did a dream feed of express milk at about ten or ten thirty before going to bed and then I did anything else during the night.
In the weekends he gets up on a Saturday and I sleep in and on Sundays I get up and he sleeps in.
All the best with getting sorted into some sort of routine and pattern once you are back at work.

The thing I can't get over is that you need at least 8-9 hours sleep a night! Eek! You do realise there's no way in hell you're going to be back to that for a while ay?

Good on you for planning ahead, instead of taking the wait-and-see approach. I'm not much help otherwise as this is the first, and my DH won't be showing his face for the first five months anyway! But just wanted to say good on you. K I'm leaving now

Maybe we can get you (Richard) to speak at the 'suck it up - you're a Daddy now' bootcamp that I've been pondering for quite some time?!?  I'll let you knock a bit of sense into my DH, no worries!