We have three daughters -- just four months old -- and there doesn't seem to be any way of making my wife happy any more. I work full time and she's home with the nanny and the kids all day long.

We rotate nights for sleeping, have "baby free days" on the weekends and I come home every day from work on my lunch hour to help out.

Suggestions on how to combat burn out, fatigue and on how to maintain the healthy relationship we used to have ----

Sleep is good,

Papa Johnny

Sleep is good,
Papa Johnny

Schedule, schedule schedule.

My boy's are now 4 YO and you can trust me when I say this to will pass.

We did the whole 1st year by ourselves (no outside help), we did it on a 4 hour schedule 1-5-9-1 ....

This allowed it so that we could get some sleep during the night.

I would start with the 5AM feed, and head off to work from there. DW would sleep till around 8:30 then get up to do the 9am feed on through to the 1pm and I would again take over at 5pm and 9pm so that she could get some more sleep. I would go to bed around 10:00 and she would be up around 7:00 so that she could help with the 9PM and to do the 1AM.

I think that this gives you an idea of how we did it.


Check_this_out

Gargoyle plus 3
Dad to BBB 05/03/00

Dude, your "check this out" link takes me to a netscape search engine
and not to father2father? Using netscape 7.02.
Looks like it has "http://" two times before father2father????

Not important, just thought you might want to know.

Yea I alway's forget that they automatically add it in on this site.

Try this one instead...

Father_to_Father

Gargoyle plus 3
Dad to BBB 05/03/00

Congratulations! We have 3 girls also, 15 months.
After a couple weeks we ran off our parents and didn't want anyone
around. Michelle would sleep from 8pm till 2am and I would sleep
from 2am till 8am then off to work. She took care of them all day,
cleaned, laundry and cooked. Weekends I would stay up as long as I
could so she could get more sleep then when I went to sleep she would
let me catch up some. Now the girls mostly sleep from 8pm till 8am,
it's great! Every so often we give each other some time to do what
ever we want. Gotta admit the first time she left me alone with them
I was worried but it really wasn't a big deal.
Anyway just hang in there and it WILL get better.

Every day maybe more let her know how
great a job she is doing taking care of your girls. Every few
weeks or so FLOWERS (costco 24 roses for about $14) ... reminds me
I need to go to costo! Very hard but try to read when she has had
more then she can take and step in and send her off.
Most important is she does need her time off every now and then to
go do something away from home. Michelle lets me go to the lake
with my friends every few weeks and that is greatness!
Oh, every so often on a weekend, just before she has to be up, you
get up, close the door and let her lay in bed as long as you can.

Papa Johnny,

Congratulations! We also have 3 girls, and two are identical.

Sleep deprivation! Get used to it for a while. DW and I did shifts during the night - I would sleep until about 3 or 4 am, while she attended the babies, then she would sleep while I took over. There were times when both of us were required, during those times when you have a 3-way meltdown. Overall, we can't remember much of the first year because of sleep deprivation. They should start sleeping through the night by 5 months, but it may not be consistent. Our girls are 22 months now, and for the past 10 months or so, they have been sleeping almost 12 hours per night consistently. What a difference......

Make it as easy as you can on yourself during the night - make bottles ahead of time, get a small refrigerator to keep near the babies room with pre-mixed bottles, keep a microwave or a crock pot with warm water next to it for heating bottles, and color code the bottles to each baby - it is too hard to try and figure out who ate and who didn't in the middle of the night, and if you can see empty bottles of a particular color, you can assume that baby was fed and how many times, etc.

Also, I agree with Sam above - let you wife sleep in on weekends if you can, it will make a big difference.......

The most important thing for us was having someone that could watch the babies a couple of nights per week, so we could go out to dinner or whatever. This helps you both to feel like people again. If you have someone you trust with them that could watch them for a couple of hours, do it!

Finally, check out the link Gargoyle provided above - but leave out the extra "http://". Lots of good info there for fathers....

Good luck!

Steve
Proud dad to Dana, Valerie & Madeline 10/2/2002
And Carly! 2/22/07

My wife thinks that the post-partum thing is more intense and lasts longer with HOM mothers than with singleton moms.

Also - maybe you should try getting the babies out of the house for a few hours now and then. Give her some time to relax or get organized without the immediacy of the babies. This helped in our case.

Chuck
gbg 1997
b 2008