The battle to get DH out of bed in the school holidays.

[Sleepiboi]

Kids only broke up on Tuesday and I'm already annoyed with him.

Kids are teens, so sleep in when not in school. On school days DH has to drive them /collect them as we moved further away for a bigger house and transport links aren't great.

But when it comes to the holidays he just won't get out of bed.

It causes so much tension. He would happily sleep in till midday every day if I left him.

But I wake up at around 7.30am and get up to sort the animals and other stuff that needs doing and I have to go in and wake him up 7 times over the course of hours.

He doesn't seem to think it's an issue but I think it's awful to just sleep all morning, every day.

This is just the age old issue of a night owl being married to a lark and the idea that it is more worthy doing jobs during the day. I used to be with a lark and it just led to both of us being resentful.

Thankfully I am with a night owl now. If I clean at 8am or 8pm it makes no difference (though nothing noisy then). If you have to get up for young kids that's different and I of course get up for work or events etc.

Depending on the animals there are auto feeders and such now. Give him jobs to do when he gets up. Honestly the key to a lot of issues is just accepting people live and do things differently to you. In the house it sounds like you are the only one who gets up early, why is it okay for everyone else to change for your preference?

What other jobs need doing in the morning apart from feeding/walking the animals? Can these other jobs be moved until the afternoon? He can sort the animals for their walks good etc in the later part of the day too. As long as your division of household work is fairly split I really couldn't get worked up about this. If there is a backstory with him not looking for work or something, that puts a slightly different view on things, although people can still look for jobs online in the afternoon/evening. Some people just aren't early risers and if there is no real reason to be one - small kids, school drop off etc - then I kind of don't see why they should really.

Is he depressed maybe?

Your DH is a lazy irresponsible twat. Why can’t you see that?

Aside from the depression question, and no matter what our judgments are or aren’t, you have three choices as I see it, after having voiced your feelings:

1. Do nothing

2. Decide this is too much. You feel used and devalued. Leave him.

3. Decide that you’ve been going through a lot and you love him to bits. Learn to be okay with his ‘flaw’. Stand by him & change the demands after realising life without him would not be nicer.

YABU he does the school runs for the rest of the time, just let him lie in. You aren't his mother.

Why are you posting here when you clearly only want people to agree with you? This is a place to get opinions, not just for us robots to agree with you. Is this what you are like all the time? How annoying.

Decide what you’re annoyed about. Are you annoyed because you’re left with whatever responsibilities must be undertaken in the morning, or are you just a bit po-faced because it doesn’t fit in with your idea of appropriate? If the former, then you need to come to an agreement. If the latter, then you may need to accept that is how an adult man
chooses to spend his time for a limited period and continue to carry on with your own preferred earlier starts.

I do this. I am a night person. My most productive time of day starts about 10pm. There’s no right or wrong about wake and sleep times. People just differ. And it’s much more healthy to sleep in your natural sleep window.

If he’s leaving all the jobs to you though, just leave some for him to do in the afternoons/evenings.

Let him sleep OP you waking him sounds bizzare to me. You wake up and do jobs. He can do some in the afternoon and you can rest . Why are you waking someone when they don’t need to be up??! You don’t control him .

Why the hassle? Let him sleep. Do what you want to do and leave him to it. If that's what he wants to do, so what? Why waste your time trying to wake him up? Do something more interesting instead.

Can't be that many morning jobs to do every day. My DH sleeps in till about half 11 but probably goes to bed around 3am, always been a night owl. I work ft, he's his mum's carer and she sleeps till afternoon usually. Used to annoy me but tbh the peace of a cuppa and pottering around with the dogs is fine. He also gets up earlier withe the dogs on a Sunday so I can sleep in.

If your husband sleeps in and your children sleep in and you don't, then you are the odd one out and maybe you should be sleeping in too. If you work to a majority rule, then they are right and you are wrong and you need to change.

Do the rest of the family complain because you get up early? So what makes you right and them wrong?

If this is the only thing you have to worry/complain about you should think yourself lucky and learn to live with it.

Find this stuff very hard to believe, sorry.

Until recently in human history, all human beings had to follow the norms of natural light plus a little (expensive) candle/firelight, and teenagers were expected to work alongside adults, learning from and assisting them; it is only very recently that society has become wealthy enough for teenagers to spend years on end being economically unproductive, consuming media and pursuing hobbies.

It does not make a lot of sense to suggest that it is natural or healthy for teenagers to be up all night being exposed to artificial light, and teenagers' mental health was worst during the pandemic when staying up very late and sleeping very late was the commonest.

What you find hard to believe is neither here nor there. This was a finding from actual research.

As for your very confident second paragraph, wait till you hear about the widespread Medieval practice of biphasic sleep.

What time does he go to bed at? Does he help around the house in the afternoon/evening?

The OP has refused to answer this multiple times from the very beginning. I think it’s safe to assume he pulls his weight, just not at times she deems not-lazy. If it were otherwise we would have heard by now.

I think it's nice to have the house to yourself, to potter etc.

Is he up all night on his phone or something? Adults should only need 7-8 hours sleep.
I think if he’s genuinely THAT tired that he’s sleeping 12 hours then he should go to the doctors, have blood tests to see why he’s so tired. He might be low in something or depressed, or have something else going on?? It seems odd if he’s actually asleep all that time rather than just laid in bed on his phone being an arse??
I would do the jobs I had to do (animals can’t wait etc) but the jobs like hoovering and mopping floors can wait…. I’d tell him you’ve left him some jobs… or I’d get up and go out!!

It wasn't staying up and sleeping late that caused the problems with mental health, it was spending hour after hour after hour on the bloody internet. The crap that people, and especially young people, are exposed to is frightening. Add to that the unnatural situation of not being with their mates and socializing it is no wonder there were mental health problems.

I remember once getting up and going to work, coming in after work and my ex was still in bed, he was sat in bed on the game console and hadn’t been up and done anything… that wound me up, so I can’t imagine every day!
id talk to him, tell him you expect him to get up and help, maybe compromise and say you’ll be waking him at 10am everyday and expecting him to get up!! …. but please do rule out physical/mental health reasons first…

Someone sleeping weekends can be anger making too. My exH would sleep every Saturday until 4pm - we both worked full time.
It meant we didn't see the sun in winter at the weekend and it drove me nuts.

I don't understand why you didn't see the sun if the winter because your husband slept. Can't you leave the house without him?

Unfortunately some women like to be martyrs and try to guilt trip husband/partner about what they missed out on. Then you get the sulk and when you ask what the problem is the reply is "if you don't know, I'm not telling you" which makes no sense because if you knew you wouldn't be asking. I am a woman and I don't understand them, so what hope have blokes got?

@T1Dmama

id talk to him, tell him you expect him to get up and help, maybe compromise and say you’ll be waking him at 10am everyday and expecting him to get up!! …. but please do rule out physical/mental health reasons first…

I'd say no.
As long as he gets whatever he needs to get done then he doesn't need to get up early.