About women / wives / mums doing all (or most of) the night wakings

[MaidinChelsea79]

A random question but a genuinely confused one...

Read another thread about a woman who's husband never wakes up for their toddler and it's prompted me to think about this scenario...

If a husband works full time (whether from home or otherwise) and a wife / mum is SAHP the general wisdom on Mumsnet is that the woman does all the night wakings (perhaps having one night off at the weekend). The fact that she is then potentially exhausted all day looking after a baby/toddler with sleep regressions and also running a home is deemed less important than the husband's feeling rested for work, because he's bringing in the money.

If the woman/wife/mum returns to work, she is now "at work" and the husband and wife now share the night wakings.

Have I got that right?

Does the amount / proportion of money she's bringing in affect the amount of sleep she's deemed worthy of having?

In our case it was because h could potentially hurt himself or others if he went to work tired. So yes I did all the wakings. I still am the one who deals with night problems eg eldest age 12 had anxiety about an issue which manifested at bedtime. By the time I calmed him and settled myself it was gone midnight. H is on early shifts so alarm off at 5 30. I’m a light sleeper so that was that. After 12 years I just get on with it.

DH started taking on more of the night wakings after I fell asleep one lunch time and he ended up taking our 6 month old back to work with him as he couldn't wake me up properly.

I did every single night, ex refused point blank to get out of bed unless it was to decamp to the spare room. No matter how many times I explained/negotiated. I also did 99.9995% of nappies, day or night. I left when ds was three.

Being a full time working single mum is easy compared to living with some men.

I did most of the night wakings. I was able to nap when the baby napped, mostly, so I didn’t feel hard done by.

My first baby was a lot harder than my second. My second would sleep a few hours at a time so I’d nap then. my first baby was v.sick, hospitalized for many months, and I stayed at the hospital and DH would visit after work and bring me food/clothes, care for the baby for a few hours before he’d head home to sleep (only one parent could stay overnight).

On maternity leave With the second, when DH came home from work, he’d take the pressure off, I’d have a soak in the tub, and I’d go to bed early to get some sleep. We were/are a good team.

It’s funny how we ended up in pink and blue roles, we didn’t plan that. We just played to our strengths, and it always felt fair.

Surely it’s not about how much sleep somebody is “worthy” of having based on how much money they earn so much as the practicality that if you’re reliant on one source of income you need to protect that - and somebody who has to go to work and therefore concentrate and perform at tasks whilst sitting or standing up wide awake for hours needs to be able to do that well, unless you want to risk their job and therefore your sole source of money.

If you’re a SAHP tired during the day because you were up at night then you have the option of lolling about in the house (even if you believe you should be up and about at baby sing song and swimming lessons) without it actually affecting anything much. That doesn’t mean you should do every single night waking, and your working partner should absolutely take over nights at weekends. And “running the house” should be an equal split between both of you, not something the SAHP also has total responsibility for. But sharing all nights and risking your working partner being let go for not performing well isn’t an option for many people.

You can’t be sacked from running your home even if you do a crap job or fall asleep. You can be sacked from a job. So it makes sense for the person who needs to perform in order to remain employed to be well rested.

I do all of the night feeds during the week as my partner wakes up at 5am for work so needs to be rested, he uses forklifts so needs to be alert. But he'll get up and make the bottles for me and then go back to sleep which is nice. Then on Friday and Saturday nights we swap over so I get a little more sleep and he lets me have a lie in. He also takes over when he gets home from work so I can get half an hour to myself.

I don't think this is necessarily a question of worth. I think a family reliant on a single income needs to take steps to ensure that income is preserved. Maintaining the work performance of the primary earner is quite a sensible decision.

In these situations then I think it's fair that the SAHP gets some additional rest, for example by the working parent doing night wakings on Fridays and Saturdays.

I can't believe the amount of posts in general in Mumsnet where mum is the one who deals with the night wakings, even when back to work after maternity leave. Unless you're operating heavy machinery or have a job like a surgeon, you don't deserve to be more "well rested" just because the other isn't bringing in money.

Well for us, my husband does have one of the jobs mentioned above and needed to be on his feet, alert and performing at a high level for very long hours in addition to being on call, so I had a much easier time at home with the kids. In addition I was breast feeding, and as he couldn’t do that there didn’t seem much point both of us having to wake up.

It wasn’t at all about “worth” it was about fairness and practicality.

I was doing a degree when my DC were born and my DH was working full-time in a job that required concentration and the ability to react quickly. I was also using my brain, of course, but I could nap before/after classes, and do my essays when I chose. So, it worked best for us. Plus I'm a lighter sleeper so I'd wake up when the baby got slightly restless. before they fully awoke. DH could sleep through an earthquake, they'd be full-on crying before he woke up!

We both work and I do the night wakes.. but he does the laundry and all the cooking. Do what works for your family.

Yeah, it’s not about deserving sleep. If you are both dependent on one income you need to protect that. And if someone has to drive, operate machinery, climb ladders, make complex decisions, they need to be alert enough to do those things safely for everyone’s benefit.

If you add breastfeeding to the equation makes sense that the mum does the night feeds? I'm the one feeding the baby or if DH was to give him a bottle I'm going to have to wake to pump anyway so not much point.

My DH and I do 'shifts' as he is a night owl and I am a morning person. So he will stay up later to say 1am with our baby and we will swap over and he can sleep until around 8am and feel rested enough for work. I go to bed around 10pm so get a few solid hours at least to help me function.

Unfortunately napping during the day is rarely an option as we have a toddler too, but if I've had a bad night I can fluff about the house, I'd rather he was able to concentrate at work.

DH doesn’t do a critical job. But he finds it difficult to function on less sleep than I do. I also breastfeed and am taking a year of maternity leave. It is just way easier for me to do all the night wakings - it’s a big faff to sterilise and express milk and then warm it when needed.

When I go back to work baby will be 1 and stopped breast feeding. Night wakings after Thad have tended to be short - which is fine for me to deal with. Do whatever works.

Basically a mild-mod degree of tiredness in sahp is unlikely to have a huge impact on the family. Whilst the same for the working parent can annoy bosses and result in family financial difficulty if working parent is fired. Obviously a severe degree of tiredness in sahp can be dangerous for the kids though.

As others have said its about protecting income.In my case im breastfeeding and even if I wasn't my partner like most men is a heavy sleeper and would only wake up once there is heavy crying...by then I'd be up anyway

My DP has just started doing nights, DD is 3.8 years! I’m heavily pregnant and had been co sleeping as she likes to be able to reach out and touch in the night and wakes if no one is there. It won’t be safe to cosleep with new baby and DD and so DP is on cuddle duty.
The difference in his parenting is amazing! He never really understood how tiring it is to do the nights but now he gets it and is much more attuned to DD in the day. He’s realised if she doesn’t eat well, is over tired etc it makes the night difficult and so suddenly he’s interested in what happens day to day.

I’m hoping to get him involved in the baby’s nights much earlier now but will do all the nights whilst feeding BG at night as he lacks the boobs to really help with that.

For us it was never about who works, it started with me breastfeeding and then he just didn’t get what he needed to do and so felt fine about leaving it to me.

DH did most night wakings with DS, he’s just better at being tired than I am. He works Ft but for a bank so nothing life threatening! In fact once back at work my job was less safe done tired.
DS was FF so he was always a shared job and he was a good sleeper too.

I did all the night wakings because boobs. DP did all the absolutely everything else – cooking cleaning nappies getting up on the weekends life admin big shop meal planning bins – because I did the night wakings. Once I stopped breastfeeding through the night we adjusted the workload, and split the mornings and wakings more evenly.

If my husband was a surgeon for example I would do them all. He's not so I don't. At the moment he does them all because we're night weaning, but previously I did them all i she would only accept me.

Both our roles are equally important even though I can't get sacked from being a sahm it's still important that I sleep so I can be a good one! My husband also copes a lot better on less sleep than I do.

I have done all of the nights from 3 weeks old while working full time and my DW on mat leave. I’m in a very senior role and our income depends on me. But I am not in charge of machinery or in life and death situations, and so therefore it’s fine that I’m tired. My DW takes over at 6 so I get a little longer uninterrupted and on weekends I get a long lie-in.

I’m not saying everyone should set up like this but I think it’s a very convenient excuse that many men can use when they claim they can’t risk being tired at work. Just allows them to avoid responsibility. Most people in most jobs can risk being tired without getting sacked.

It’s similar to so many men seeming to claim they just cannot wake up when they hear a baby cry, because they sleep too deep. So they better not be responsible. I’m a deep sleeper too. But I’m capable of waking up when a baby cries like all women are 🤨

When our baby was small my DP insisted on waking with me every time the baby woke. His job is affected by tiredness and he deals with life or death situations on a daily basis but as he works days and nights I think he felt guilty that he was leaving me all night twice a week.
As the baby got older I did notice his ability to wake with the baby got poorer. He'd genuinely think she'd slept through and praise her then not understand why I was laughing. Sometimes she'd been up half the night and laid in our bed and he'd no idea.

She's now almost 2 and it's rare she's awake in the night but he never gets up or even wakes up if she cries or shouts from her bedroom. I barely sleep though (2-3hrs a night) so seems pointless him being woken too when I don't actually need him.

We have another baby due in a couple of weeks and I'm starting to worry he won't be putting in as much effort this time. He's a much deeper sleeper than I am and can't cope on the same amounts I can. I won't be allowing him to get away without helping much though, I'll just have to kick him until he wakes up.

@MintJulia

I did every single night, ex refused point blank to get out of bed unless it was to decamp to the spare room. No matter how many times I explained/negotiated. I also did 99.9995% of nappies, day or night. I left when ds was three.

Being a full time working single mum is easy compared to living with some men.

Snap. My ex only ever got up twice - both times for toddler vomit incidents which were horrific. He had to ring me one morning when I'd left for A&E in the middle of the night due to end-of-my-tether infant screaming (later diagnosed as reflux), I'll never forgive that.

Kids are now teens, he sees them a couple of times a year.

My dh did try and do his share especially in the early days, but it did make him ill (schizoaffective disorder). A (male) doctor told him it was fine to have another child as long as he got uninterrupted sleep every night and I did all the wakings. We stopped at one.

We shared all night waking from the very start, even when u was breastfeeding DH could still get up, change the babies nappy etc then give back to me to feed in bed

I honestly think, except in really rare circumstances where they genuinely must have that extra sleep, men who won't do night waking because they are working are pathetic.