What's your nighttime routine?

[LunarSpoon]

How do you ladies tackle nighttime? DH and I have a bizarre schedule currently in place and I really want something different, wondering what others do!

My hubby was diagnosed with Multiple Sclerosis the month before our son was born, and sleep deprivation and stress can aggravate the progression of the disease. We decided he needs at least 6 hours of continuous sleep each night in order to minimize further neurological damage. Right now I pick him up from work at 5pm, get home and make dinner/feed baby, and we try to relax/watch TV together for 30 minutes or so or play with LO if he isn't sleeping. Around 9pm, I head to bed and sleep until 1am while DH stays up with LO in the family room (he'll nap on the couch if LO is sleeping.) At 1am, we switch and DH goes to bed while I stay out with baby. I don't sleep well on the couch due to a bad back, so I'm usually more or less up the rest of the day. DH gets up at 7:30am and we drive him into work at 8.

Basically, we spend a maximum of 3 hours together each day and zero time in the same bed. I'd like that to change!

 

[Night Flower]

Soon your baby will br able to tell that its nighttime and sleep longer.

By 9pm our baby wants quiet bed time. And thats her last diaper change too, usually. She sleeps until midnight and cooes to get a feed. And then goes to sleep. And then cooes to be fed again at 3-4am. And sleeps again. Wakes at 6am for a feed and then sometimes stays up or not.

 

[TCK_Runner]

Don't worry, it'll get better when the baby starts sleeping more. For us, the first 5-6 weeks we had to do the shifts as you describe, but by 8 weeks things started to get easier each day. By 3 months Emma started sleeping most of the night, and since 4 months things have gotten to the point where she sleeps about 10-12 hours, albeit with some milk once or twice in that times. She goes to bed between 8-9 almost every night, gets a dream feed from me around 11:30 or midnight before we go to bed, and most nights sleeps until at least 5-6AM sometime. I usually then feed her again quickly and she goes back to sleep until between 7:30-8:30AM. (I say most and not every night because growth spurts mean she is usually up an additional time around like 2:30 or 3AM, ugh.) When the baby gets older they eat quicker too, which makes it possible for me to do it without disturbing my husband, although he likes getting up earlier than me, so sometimes I do the night dreamfeed and he takes the first morning feed, puts her back in the crib, and goes out for his run. In any case, we usually get time together between roughly 8-9PM until the next morning around that time.

 

[wish4baby]

How do you ladies tackle nighttime? DH and I have a bizarre schedule currently in place and I really want something different, wondering what others do!

My hubby was diagnosed with Multiple Sclerosis the month before our son was born, and sleep deprivation and stress can aggravate the progression of the disease. We decided he needs at least 6 hours of continuous sleep each night in order to minimize further neurological damage. Right now I pick him up from work at 5pm, get home and make dinner/feed baby, and we try to relax/watch TV together for 30 minutes or so or play with LO if he isn't sleeping. Around 9pm, I head to bed and sleep until 1am while DH stays up with LO in the family room (he'll nap on the couch if LO is sleeping.) At 1am, we switch and DH goes to bed while I stay out with baby. I don't sleep well on the couch due to a bad back, so I'm usually more or less up the rest of the day. DH gets up at 7:30am and we drive him into work at 8.

Basically, we spend a maximum of 3 hours together each day and zero time in the same bed. I'd like that to change!

Our schedule: We eat dinner together as soon as DH gets home, around 5 (it's already ready when he walks in). Then we head out for our older kids sports from about 6/7 - 8/9pm - sometimes he stays home and naps or relaxes, but mostly we go together.
When we get back home, we all have a snack then tuck in our older ones (9:30). My DH & I watch about 30 min of tv together in the living room while I rock & feed our littlest one to sleep.
I then carefully move her to her swing - which used to be in our room, but I recently moved it near our door - at about 10pm and DH and I go to bed where we can spend time together or I just get ready for bed & then get LO out of her swing to bring her to my bed where we co sleep through the night. She snacks throughout the night, but we don't get up. DH gets up at 6 for work and we sleep until about 7:30.