Oh the games we play

My wife hasn't slept well the last couple of nights. For some reason, everyone we know has a baby that sleeps at least 4-5 hours straight each night (around the same age even), and ours is lucky to get in 3 hours of sleep after we put him down for the night the first time, and then each subsequent feeding at night lasts for maybe an hour and a half.

Currently, with her off work on maternity leave/vacation, and me working, we've been doing the following schedule:
- she puts him to bed (usually around 9-10 p.m.) and takes care of him till around 4 a.m.
- I get up around 4 a.m. and take care of him till I leave at 7 a.m. My only complaint about this is that I have to go to bed by 9 p.m. just to ensure that I'll get 7 hours sleep. Anytime after 9 p.m. and I'm just hurting myself the next day. As it happens our older son doesn't go to bed until 8:30-8:45 so I'm never in bed, much less asleep by 9 p.m.

Anyway, I offered to work from home so as to allow her to sleep in the next morning but she opted to go to bed first and get up a 4 a.m. (flip-flop our roles basically). Cool! Whatever.

So, I put the baby down around 9 p.m. and drift off to sleep by 9:30, not cause I wanted to but because I figured I'd need all the sleep I can get. The baby slept till almost 1 a.m. and then after I fed him, he went back down till around 3:30. So by the time my wife got up, I had already gotten about 5 hours of sleep, and then I went to bed and slept for another 3 hours for a total of at least 8 hours of sleep. Which kinda makes me feel bad for my wife, because it appears that she got the shaft last night with only 6 1/2 hours of sleep...or did she.

Let's do the math for a usual night:

Let's assume a few things:
- baby goes to bed by 9:30.
- He usually wakes up around 12:15 a.m.
- It takes at least 30 minutes to change, feed and put back to sleep.

So, based on that, my wife normally gets the following:
- almost 3 hours of sleep between 9:30-12:30
- if baby wakes up every 1.5 hours thereafter, by 4 a.m. she gets another 1.5 hours of sleep.
- uninterrupted sleep from 4 a.m. to 6:30 a.m.
This yields a grand total of 7 hours of sleep each night.

Now, let's do the math for me:
- go to bed at 9:30 and sleep till 4 a.m.
This yields a total of 6.5 hours of sleep each night.

Hmm, now who should feel bad for whom? It all comes out in the end though, but I find it interesting that neither of us really push the whole, "Well I get less sleep than you do" thing because I think we both fear having to swap schedules with the other.

But either way, in two weeks when my wife is back at work, we'll have to devise a whole new plan.
Let the games begin!