When I came home from the hospital with my daughter, I was absolutely exhausted. Sleeping in the postpartum unit at the hospital had been next to impossible since we were woken up multiple times a night — and not just by our newborn baby.
Nurses were in and out of our room every few hours, as well as the pediatrician, my OB-GYN, the audiologist, a photographer, a lactation consultant, researchers, dining staff, cleaning staff, and other hospital personnel. It seemed like every time I managed to finally doze off, someone else was knocking on the door.
By the time we left the hospital, I was drained. I knew I’d be tired — but I thought I’d be worn out from labor and delivery, not from the complete lack of sleep. Luckily, the adrenaline and joy of having a new baby was keeping me going.
When I was pregnant, I had seen all these dreamy pictures and videos on social media of parents sleeping in a luxurious bed while their newborn snoozed in a bedside bassinet. As lovely as it looked, I knew a bedroom setup like that was probably unrealistic. My husband and I had discussed taking shifts sleeping in our bed, but I didn’t know exactly how that would look when we had a newborn (almost a preemie) who needed near-constant breastfeeding.
More from Mom.com: Best Ways to ‘Play’ With a Newborn Baby
Our Setup
How to Create a Night Shift System
Creating a night shift system that works for your family depends on how you each sleep, how you’re feeding your baby, and how many bedrooms you have in your house. I’d recommend designating your own bedroom as the sleeping room, since it’s probably the environment where you feel the most comfortable and relaxed. For the person who is on a baby shift, use a guest room or the living room.
We have one bedroom in our house, so we designated the living room as the baby’s space. Whoever was “on duty” would be with our daughter in the living room, while the person “off duty” would sleep in the bedroom. We used a portable bassinet in the living room so our daughter could sleep comfortably. If she was asleep, the parent “on duty” could nap on the couch to get some extra rest.
The most important thing to do is set guidelines with your partner. What tasks is the person “on duty” responsible for? This can include things like changing diapers, washing/sterilizing bottles and pump parts, and feeding the baby. Depending on how you’re feeding your newborn, this will probably have the biggest impact on your shift schedule. If mom is exclusively breastfeeding, she’ll need to be woken every time baby is hungry — but if you’re using bottles (with formula or pumped breastmilk), the other parent can handle feeds.
Our typical nightly schedule involved me sleeping from 9 p.m.-3 a.m. while my husband took a shift with the baby, then I’d take over from 3 a.m.-9 p.m. I breastfed our daughter, but I started pumping after 10 days, so my husband was able to bottle-feed our daughter during his shifts. At 9 a.m., I would sometimes go back to sleep for a few hours, depending on whether I got any rest on the couch while my daughter slept.
When to Transition Out of Night Shifts
Many parents find that night shifts are essential for the first few weeks of baby’s life, or until they can sleep longer stretches. Of course, night shifts often end when one (or both) parents have to return to work. Unfortunately, that’s just days or weeks after birth for many parents in the U.S.
My husband and I were lucky to both have 12 weeks of parental leave, so we continued taking shifts until our daughter was about three months old. We started transitioning her to a bassinet in our bedroom for some of her sleep during the last month of leave, just so she could get used to sleeping in a different environment.
There’s no right or wrong time to transition out of night shifts, it really just depends on what works for your family!
