Co-sleeping/nursing at night and working night shift....

[i*wish]

has anyone btdt?
i may be returning to work ~1 night per week in about a month or so...7p-7a. i have NO idea how to do this since we cosleep and baby wakes ~4x/night to nurse (or as much as 8 times...last night!). it makes me sick to think of not being there.....
how can i make this transition easiest on everyone?
baby will be ~10 months old then...
any help appreciated...

[major_mama11]

:

I am curious about how to manage this too; I will probably be working a night shift every week or two when I am come back from maternity leave. Never had to be away from DD overnight for work until she was 18 mos old, and by then she did fine without nursing overnight...

[i*wish]

Do you think I should've posted in Nighttime Parenting? Is this a really freak and rare thing to be doing??? Now I'm even more worried .....

[Lucky Charm]

I worked nights for many years, 7p-7a.

With our last baby, he was "sleeping through the night", but was still in bed with us.

When he did wake up, he took a bottle of expressed breast milk without trouble suprisingly.

I dont really have advice as my kids were decent sleepers (except for baby number 1), and took bottles of my milk without much fuss.

[_betsy_]

I work a night shift, but more like 2nd shift, from 5-12:30 a.m. 5 days a week. I went back when DD1 was 7 weeks old, i'll be going back again next week when DD2 is 11 weeks old.

it's hard, but we have to do what we have to do.

I'll pump 3 times at work and once or twice at home to have enough bottles for the baby. DD1 is 29 months and no longer nursing. She sleeps in her own room and is used to Daddy giving her dinner and putting her to sleep and all that. The baby will take pumped milk in a bottle while I'm gone, and nurse when I'm home.

DD1 was EBF for over 6 months, so I'm pretty confident I can do it again. She also nursed until I quite pumping when I was 8 weeks PG with DD2, when DD1 was about 20 months old. I wish she would have nursed longer, but she was done, and I didn't push it.

So it wasn't quite the same hours, and we didn't cosleep with DD1 because she's not a cosleeping baby. She was/is a cruddy sleeper.

Any specific questions/concerns I might be able to help with?

[i*wish]

I guess I just am trying to figure out what to do before I go back to work...other than pump! Should I try to transition her to a crib for all night? (i've kinda tried this but halfheartedly...she woke a lot and so back into bed she came). DD1 was such a crapola sleeper that she was in her own crib *and* room by 9 months...she would wake each and every time one of us would roll over or move a sheet or get up to pee...you don't realize how much you do this stuff until your every motion is magnified x1000000. She did so much better sleeping alone in silence with a noise machine....

Anyhow, dd2 is so so different and i'm not even sure *i* know what to expect from her. She seems to like cosleeping... I think... I guess I'm just not really someone who is staunchly a 'cosleeper' (esp. after experience with dd1) so I'm sorta wishy-washy on the whole thing. It seems to be working so I'm doing it...anything for sleep is my motto (otro que CIO).

I'm pretty sure she'll take a bottle of ebm but should i have dh try to get her back without it first? Would that be considered nightweaning her? If I'm going to go this route should I try it, or start it, before going back??

I'm just confused, sad to be going back, and wanting it to be easiest on everyone. I'm going to be gone long hours when I do work...15hr/day-or night- two days a week or 12hrs/day three days a week.... Yuck.

Thanks for reading and trying to help me sort this out!

[lovemykeiki]

This is what *I* would do:

I would start transitioning her to a crib in her own room now.

I would start pumping and start having my DH feed her at night if she woke up.

I would let DH be the primary nighttime parenting starting now.

I would let DH work on getting her back to sleep without giving her a bottle Every. Single. Time. she woke up. This would be very important in my little plan.

DH could try different methods of getting her back to sleep - patting her on the bum while she stayed in the crib, maybe she would want to self-soothe with her thumb, rub her back, etc. But not jumping in there immediately every time she stirs and getting her out and giving her a bottle, etc.

I also feel that crying a bit while Daddy is there is NOT CIO.

I would do whatever I could to help her be sleeping mostly through the night when I started back to work, so that my DH would be able to get a good night's sleep, too.

Sleep = Happy People, Happy Family

Just my two cents...

[LilMomma83]

I've never worked overnight, but, used to work quite late and now I have school late one night/week. We do everything the same pretty much! I'm not there, but, DS sleeps snuggled with DH and if he wants it DH gives him a bottle...when I came home this past Monday night my little guy had both hands in daddy's shirt lol...I think he just wanted the skin to skin contact.

In our case our son is almost 2, but, he seems to do pretty good as long as he knows I am gone (we tell him I am at school)...it's if I have to work on something at home and they go to bed without me that he gets upset.

I think it might take some adjustment, but, it will probably be just fine.