DH constantly having naps and it’s driving me mad.

[ChangeTheProphecy]

DH has always been a napper, I can’t really sleep in the day time so don’t know if this is clouding my judgement. On weekends or days he isn’t working (he’s part time) he will go to sleep for a couple of hours in the afternoon and it infuriates me because it just feels so lazy. The DC and I are downstairs getting on with life and he’s snoring away upstairs. Is this normal?

Billions of people are biphasal sleepers. It is the norm in more countries than not.

I think he needs to negotiate this with you. I love a nap but I'd never go off and take one at the weekend and leave dh with the kids unless he was happy for me to do so

Yep. My husband falls asleep in the garden for a couple of hours a day on weekends if the sun is out. I don’t I’ve a toss. He works hard and if he fancies “forty winks” as he calls it, then all power to him.

I love to nap, I operate at my absolute best getting a shorter sleep at night and then having a nap mid afternoon.

Wouldn't shirk family responsibilities to do it though.

When he's not napping is he helpful and involved? My sister used to nap, she wouldn't sleep longer than 5-6 hours at night and then have afternoon naps.

Has your DH been a shift worker?

We used to say she got stuck at toddler training stage, but she managed to change it for work, but ended up in shift work as it suited her.

I used to hate daytime napping when my kids were little, now I love nothing more than going to bed for a couple of hours!

Mine does this and it annoys the fuck out of me. Every night he says right I’m going to do x y amd z in my lunch break. Says it again in the morning, I then find hes actually went to bed and had a kip; and he goes in the spare room which is closest to his office, so messes it up

fucks me right off. I crack on and do what I said I’d do. He does nothing. Goes for a Kip. I actually wondered why he was so quiet today, ss he didn’t have the bank holiday, shouted up, and he was in bed.

it really really annoys me. It really does, I told him straight I’m not managing the house and garden myself on top of working full time, whilst he fucking doses and plays golf.

Naps are great! Two hours is on the ling side though, he must be totally out of it after them. He'd be better off doing a short nap - half hour or so.

DH does work hard but so do I. He’s part time in a physical job, I’m full time in a desk job. I do all the cooking, all the washing, most of the school runs, most of the cleaning. He just does what he wants and takes himself out of family time. The DC this afternoon were desperate to show him an activity they had been working on and he just skulks upstairs and goes to bed. He then went to bed this evening at 9 and I know he’s now going to wake at 5, lie there tossing and turning so I get woken up and then get annoyed when I get cross with him. Apparently it’s normal to wake at 6 and everyone gets up for work at that time.

Power naps have plenty of benefits.
They feature on Just One Thing podcast.
Not getting enough sleep by contrast shortens longevity.
You might want to grab your own nap time, too

The naps are not the issue, the issue is he doesn’t seem to be doing any work around the house, leaving you with all of it. I think you wouldn’t mind his naps if he’d been pulling his weight the rest of the day on a weekend.

I actually wouldn’t even care if he wasn’t pulling his weight, what I care about is the constant negativity and when he tires himself out complaining about how hard done by he is, he then goes for a nap. It’s like living with an angry toddler

I sleep in the afternoon when I'm home. X

Why is he part time but you do most things round the house?

You don't mind that you're working full time AND doing all the domestic work whilst he's part time and doing fuck all? You really should mind.

Do you think there's an underlying health problem?

Dh gets up very early, works likes a dog, has an afternoon nap. And?
I get up late, as does ds2, and we join Dh for afternoon naps.
All works a treat.

I would be asking him to get his thyroid tested - just to rule that out. Daytime tiredness was my DH's main symptom..

Yeah this is a not doing stuff problem not a nap problem.

I sleep 5/6 hours a night in the week and nap like crazy (today, 3 hours, glorious) on the weekends but I’m also a relatively functional member of the household. My brain does something different during a nap, I can feel it. Wouldn’t say I NEEDED it but I definitely work better with naps. If I didn’t have the job I do, I’d split sleep into two four hour blocks I think.

Agreed that it’s not necessarily the napping but the shirking and laziness that is the problem.

I would separate the shared workload issues from the matter of sleep/naps.

Renegotiating the former is not going to be helped by going after the latter.

He should be pulling his weight, that is what is lazy about him.

I am sure he knows you are driven to anger by his naps and so he may have fallen into a pattern of feeling like he has to either complain a lot how tired he is to justify the nap, or sneak off to nap by disappearing upstairs.

Relax on the naps in return for him doing more around the house when awake. Seems like a fair deal.

Nap good, lazy bad.

Thyroid test. If it’s ok, take your own downtime and leave him with DC. Every day. Don’t be a martyr.

I have a nap in the afternoon. I get grumpy if I don't. Unless I have food instead. Essentially I'm a toddler.

I work / out of the house for long hours and if I sit down in front of say flog it when I get home I'm out for the count .

Sleep apnea? Does he snore? Can make you very sleepy in the day.