Finding Sleep

In doing a team shift with a baby there is one major question you have to ask yourself. Where in the day do I find sleep and how do I get enough drive time, and how will I get enough sleep time in order to function on the job? There are a couple of techniques and solutions that make this possible.

First of all there is one fact you will have to face:

You will mostly be cat napping.

This can take some getting used to. Be kind to yourself and realize that both you and your partner will both be short tempered, and in a 6ft by 8ft box this can be dangerous. Also, if your relationship is in the slightest bit rocky then do not even attempt to live this way; someone will end up hurt.
However if you are both strong and have a sturdy relationship you will pull through just fine. Now onto scheduling.

Scheduling
When scheduling your shifts you have to work around the baby. What hours of the day are they sleeping most consistently for the longest period of time?
My husband and I have found that our son sleeps best around the hours of 9pm and 3am with a short feed in the middle. So we each drive an 8.75 hour shift. My husband starts between 12pm and 2pm, and is on duty until midnight; if he finishes early he goes straight to bed. We both sleep between midnight and 3am. I take care of the short feeding at midnight, because I can feed him while I sleep (freaky right?). My shift starts at 3am and I drive through to between 12pm and 2pm. The 12pm - 2pm moves depending on who manages to get the most sleep.

Techniques
There are a couple of techniques that have come in handy:

Sleep Feeding:
You can either do this or you can't. It involves sleeping with you wrist up in the air while holding the bottle in the child's mouth.

The Auto-Feeder:
Wrap a receiving blanket or rag underneath a small size bottle so that it sits on an angle and will feed the child for you. The bottle needs to be full and some occasional correction is needed.

Utilizing your front seat:
Sometimes the baby can get bored spending all his time in the back in the bed, so I also recommend alternating between the bed in the back and the front seats (yes, it is safe to put the baby in the front seat, because semi-trucks do not have air bags). This can help out in a number of ways.
If the baby is crying out in one shift more than the other keeping him entertained with the world passing by can help with the crying and sometimes with helping him to fall asleep. This also allows the sleep-troubled driver to get some decent shut-eye while the driver on supervises. If the baby is auto-feeding the driver can safely reach over and correct the bottle in minor cases.


Taking a day off:
No matter what you do there will come a day where you will need a day off. It is absolutely unavoidable, just pick it wisely and use it to get some sleep, cook up and store some food in the freezer for your next couple of weeks.

Hopefully some of these ideas will help you out. Good luck and be safe! ;)

Sleeping Positions

Sleeping Positions

Let me start of by explaining a few things for anyone not familiar with the layout of a semi truck.

90% of semi trucks come with two single sized bunk beds.

For uncoupled team drivers this means one person has the top bunk and one person he bottom bunk, except when the truck is moving. When the truck is moving the member of the team not driving is also required to sleep on the bottom bunk.
Most husband and wife teams manage to share the bottom bunk when not driving and use the top bunk for storage.
Now the big question is how do you add in the child to a husband and wife team setting to this small amount of sleep space? There are a number of different ways.

Setting one:
Fill in the space at the head of the bed with blankets and pillows and the child sleeps in this space while the two adults sleep in the space below.
 This setting prevents the parents from rolling on the child, the child from rolling onto his/her front while the truck is moving and allows for "sleep feeding" a term I will explain next time. This is setting is good for most settings.

Setting two:
The child sleeps lengthwise in drivers side back corner, the taller adult sleeps next to the child and the shorter adult sleeps beneath the child. Please note, this only works if one adult is shorter than the other. While the truck is moving the child stays in it's position with the off duty adult sleeps protecting it.

Setting three:
Like in setting two the child and first adult share the same positions. However, the first adult curls their knees up so that the other adult can sleep curled up at the end of the bed. This is great for a driver coming to take a nap after a shift and for people that sleep scrunched up or diagonal.

Setting four:
The first adult sleeps up against the wall while the child sleeps on the outer rim of the bed. The other adult will need to stay up, however during feeding the second adult can hold the child, face the opposite direction of the first adult in bed while relaxing and keeping warm under the blankets if need be. This is great for an adult waiting to unload or staying up for time off, particularly in colder climates. It is not the safest position for the child while the truck is moving.

Setting five:
Two parents in bed and baby on the floor. The child is place between two evenly sized pillows covered with a pillow. This works for younger babies that do not move a lot and great for parents that toss and turn. Be very aware though if you have lowly positioned air vents because they can give the child a chill. If you must use this position then tilt any vents upward away from the child and cover him up with a blanket.

Well I hope this has been interesting for you guys and maybe helpful to some.