DP starts and finishes at a different time each day. Shiftwork has its pros and cons. One of the big pros is that he's often around a lot during the day which means he gets to spend a lot of time with the kids).

However, the big con is that he's often not home till the early hours and not in bed till 3am(ish) which means that when DDs get up at 7ish that is a lot of time to keep quiet and generally pad around the house before I feel OK about getting on with normal life.

We live in a one-storey house where the bedrooms aren't that far from the living area so any day-to-day noises like loading the dishwasher, children squealing or generally being a bit loud will disturb him. Nor can I go and have a shower unless I manage to squeeze it in the night before or before the kids get up because I can't leave DD1 unsupervised and she won't always come in the shower with me.

I think we have a solution - we're lucky enough to have a huge garden so I think we'll just build a granny flat that DP can sleep in when he's on really late shifts and that means we can go about our business as usual without having to be quiet.

But just wondering how other people manage?