My youngest is 2 1/2, so we're fortunately past the frequent late night baby rallies for the most part.
But having a weird schedule definitely helped in those days. I'm typically up until about 2am, so I was able to race over and fix the late night baby outbreaks until then.
But it was a little brutal when they happened at 4am or so.
Baby #2 is coming in April, so I'll keep this new work schedule in mind! My 2 year old woke up at 2AM last week, and I couldn't sleep after, so it was work time! Got a lot done, then had an hour nap after "lunch", and after it felt like I got a full night's sleep. Probably the most productive day I had that week!
i myself keep what most people would call "strange hours", often times staying up 'till 6:00 in the morning or so working on music and such. the "eerie silence" you speak of during those wee hours does indeed seem to be the perfect backdrop for me to make my noise uninterrupted. however, many of my friends are always trying to convince me that the ONLY way i can "really be in tune" and "optimize my body and mind" is to rise with the sun and go to sleep when it gets dark, just like we would do in our "natural state". but, as you can probably tell by my heavy use of quotations, i don't buy it.
Scott, great to hear you have the flexibility. I have a 9 month old, 2 year old, 12 year old and 8 year old. (I think that is all of them). I began working EST (I life in PST) in 2005. At first I had trouble being ready for work at 6am. But, I've kept that schedule I wake up early so that even when I have a long day, I'm still home for dinner, but when they days are normal, I get to be at the school to pick up my oldest and have all evening with the fam. You're right too, with all the ways we can be connected, you can still answer important emails and questions with no real disruption to them. I love the schedule and it works so much better than 9am to 6pm, that schedule seems so old school.
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For the past week I've been doing some life hacking and experimenting with a major schedule shift.
Long story short, because our son Jason has been sleeping very poorly, I decided to try changing up my schedule. Recently he's been up every hour after midnight, just needing a little comfort to get him back to sleep. Of course his minor wake-up results in his mom or me having to get out of bed to help him out. That doesn't make for a very restful night.
Fighting is futile, so I'm rolling with the punches. I changed my schedule so I'm getting up for the day at 1am-2am. Instead of traipsing around in a state of stupor, I'm getting work done in the eerie silence of the wee hours of the morning.
The family is up for the day around 6am, lunchtime for me. I spend a few hours, get them out of the house, and it's back to work until mid-day.
Is it working?
There have been some intended and unintended side-effects to this plan.
First, it is working. When the kids wake up, I'm in there like a shot. My wife sleeps through it, and she can tune out knowing that I'm on the case. She's happy, I'm happy.
I'm super productive in the quiet morning hours, with no interruptions from telephoe, email, and IMs. Even twitter is super quiet. Many affiliate marketers who keep strange hours, or pull 24-hour coding sessions, already know the magic of these as working hours.
I get the afternoon and its daylight to take some time for myself and run errands or do some fun stuff. On Wednesday, instead of taking a nap for a few hours, I shot over to Mt. Wachusett for a few hours of guilt-free skiing. I even participated in the GeekDads@Home podcast from the summit.
Otherwise, I'll work a very long day, or catch a nap.
We're starting to work with a development team in India. This brings me much closer to their timezone. Though they don't know it yet. The cat's out of the bag. (Yes guys, I am up. Skype away.)
My local co-workers are dealing with this just fine. I'm so connected even when I'm out of the office that they probably haven't even noticed much difference. We've already got flexible working hours, and focus on the morning as "core" hours where we all try to be around. This syncs up with that just fine.
So far the downside is that I'm now pretty well off schedule with people on the West Coast. This makes for some late meetings.
And I'm feeling a little jet-lagged. It's like I've just moved to England.
When do you Sleep?
Luckily, I'm the type of person who doesn't need that much sleep. 5 hours is enough. So if I can make sure I'm in bed by 9:00, I'm pretty safe. Yes, my evenings are cut short, but that's a small price to pay as they're usually spent snoozing in front of the television anyway.
I've taken a few afternoon naps. They're incredibly recharging. Siestas are way underrated!
The weekends may get a bit rough as I sync up with the rest of the world and the evening activities. I hope I can manage that.