Struggling with schedule for a 8 week old
Me and my co parent split when my son was 3 weeks old. We have been co parenting him ever since we moved out shortly after. I found a house down the same street, .5 miles away literally you don’t even have to make a single turn to get from one house to the other. (My older daughter wanted to stay in the same school that’s located in this neighborhood)
I’m sorry if this is a long post but:
Baby is now 8 weeks old and has had 6 visits with dad and it’s been about 3 almost 4 weeks. I’m having a hard time with our schedule. Since baby is nursing on demand and I wfh he usually just will text whenever he has time and if I’m nursing I’ll let him know when we are done. He takes him for as long as he likes. It’s always been 1 to 1.5 hours each time. (I have supplied over 50 oz of frozen breastmilk in his freezer and given him bottles if he would like to feed). Now that baby is older and falling naturally into a schedule it’s been hard on the baby. When he comes for the last 4 times has been during a nap time. Baby is asleep or drowsy but co parent comes. Then will text me the whole time letting me know baby woke up or baby won’t go to sleep at all. I try to be helpful and text suggestions but when they get back baby is extremelyyyy tired and overstimulated, didn’t settle etc. It takes longer than usual to get him to eat the next nursing session, it takes longer to get him back to sleep for a little nap and then it’s been interrupting bath and bedtime because baby will sleep longer and I hate waking him up after he had skipped an entire nap.
Do I suggest a set time for co parent? Do I suggest the visits should be longer or shorter? Sometimes I feel like the baby is having trouble settling because he isn’t familiar with co parent but maybe longer periods would help them both. I just don’t want to make it worse for the baby and him be overtired or overstimulated for even longer. I’m trying to be helpful but also I do not push for co parent to visit. It’s been all on him to reach out if he wants to see baby. Co parenting a tiny infant has been challenging on many levels.