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! ;)