I recently shared what a 24 hour period is like for us right now with 4 week old twins. What I didn’t get into is how Mr. H and I are choosing to divide up baby duties overnight.
The first few nights at home with the twins were rough. The babies were up non-stop, Mr. H and I were exhausted, and we alternated between stumbling around in exhaustion to bickering with one another in frustration. It wasn’t good! Finally, we hatched a plan that would help us each get a long stretch of sleep.
Around 6/6:30pm we start getting all of the kids ready for bed. We’ve found it’s easiest to divide and conquer: one of us will focus on getting Miss H ready for bed (potty, teeth, tub, pajamas, stories, bed) while the other will focus on the twins (pajamas, bottles, swaddles, and into rock-n-plays).
After prepping a pitcher of formula and filling some bottles for overnight, along with any other kitchen clean up that’s needed, I get ready for bed. My goal is to be in bed and asleep by 8pm. From that point, this is what we do (this is an example schedule if things are perfect):
8pm: I go to sleep
10/11pm: Mr. H manages the feeding when the babies wake up
12/1am: I wake up and manage the feeding and then pump
3am: I wake up and manage the feeding; I’m too tired to pump after this feeding
5/6am: Mr. H wakes up and manages the feeding
6:45am: I wake up and start getting Miss H up and ready for the day while Mr. H is with the babies (usually finishing up the feeding and getting them back to sleep)
7:30am: Mr. H takes Miss H to daycare and I take over with the babies!
So, basically, I get to sleep from 8pm-midnight/1am which is a good 4-5 hours of straight sleep and then I catch a little bit of sleep in between the middle of the night feedings. If Mr. H goes to sleep after the evening feeding around 11pm, he is likely to get 6-7 hours of straight sleep. It works out pretty well because neither one of us feels like we’re getting cheated out of some continuous sleep. The downside is that with an 8pm bedtime I don’t get any time to get things done in the evening, as the kids all go to bed around 7/7:30pm.
Is it a perfect plan for managing twins overnight? I have no clue. But it seems to be working for us. And we’re very lucky that for the most part the babies go back to sleep with relative ease after feedings. They really love sleeping in their Rock-n-Plays which is helpful right now!
How do you tackle sharing night duty between you and your significant other?
olive / 57 posts
Awesome schedule! Well, tough and crazy schedule, but does sound like the most manageable
Thank you for sharing! Hope all sleep well for Thanksgiving!
blogger / persimmon / 1398 posts
Wow! Big chunks of sleep are really important… so hooray for that happening in some form. Hoping it continues to improve for you!
guest
this is what we did with out newborn. I think it was key for survivial for the first few months. sleep is a necessity. getting things “done” is not
grapefruit / 4731 posts
We did not have twins or a toddler but when LO #1 was born and I was still on maternity leave and DH had to work for the first 3 months I would stay up to 4 to look after LO and DH would go to sleep at 10pm. Then he took over for anything after 4am which usually didn’t happen till 5 or later as LO got older and DH would get LO ready in the morning and my mom would come over till I woke up. So actually had a 3 person tag team system.
Not sure what we will do with this little one coming and a toddler yet!
apricot / 377 posts
I have two words: GO GIRL!
cantaloupe / 6730 posts
This is exactly what we did when our LO was born. It was kinda depressing going to bed so early, but you gotta do what you gotta do.
kiwi / 643 posts
Sounds like you guys have a great system! We went through so many MOTN scenarios, honestly I lost count. Are you guys thinking you’ll try dream feeds? Those were huuuuuge for us.
pomegranate / 3053 posts
I remember during the newborn stage, I would have my husband wake up whenever our baby woke up and change his diaper and hand him to me to nurse. This was with both boys almost 3 years apart. Then he would go back to sleep since there’s not much else to do. But that’s easy with one kid. With two, I can imagine how much more crazy it can be! Sounds like you two are doing a great job trying to get some rest between the two of you. Having you both up at the same time just doesn’t make sense since you’ll crash at the same time too. I remember just adjusting our schedule along the way to get to a good bed time/night time routine with only one wake up at 4AM as they got older.
guest
That sounds like a really effective schedule so neither of you is completely running on empty.
I have NO IDEA what it must be like to take care of twins – do they tend to wake up at around the same time?
In our case, it’s me who does all the night feedings and it can be tiring, especially if the baby decides to wake up every 2 hours. I do sometimes wish my darling husband had the ability to lactate… My husband does the bulk of the soothing and diaper changes though.