to ask DH not to kiss DS goodbye in the mornings?

[notanumber]

Am currently on maternity leave, at home full time with 2.5 year old DS and six week old DD.

DH has a demanding job and does his fair share of the childcare and housework when he gets home from work, I have absolutely no complaints there.

He fairly often spends week-nights sleeping in another room as DD wakes to feed three or four times and he can't really work properly after a night of such disturbed sleep. I fully support him doing this and don't begrudge him the unbroken sleep (though wish I could have some too!).

However... when he leaves for work in the morning, he says goodbye to me and DD (who is asleep at this point) and then goes in to DS's room and kisses him goodbye. Now DS is usually on his way to wakefulness at this point and Daddy coming in wakes him up properly.

This means that Ds - in true toddler fashion - is immediately racing about demanding breakfast and wanting me to play with his trains and tell him whether clouds are girls or boys and find his blue wellies and God knows what else.

If DH didn't rouse him, DS wouldn't wake for at least another twenty minutes meaning I would get a precious twenty minutes weeping defeatedly over a sleep training manual to just prepare myself for the day and try to get myself into a fit state to look after the children without losing the plot. Or possibly just get another twenty minutes sleep.

It's only twenty minutes I know, but I'm really really knackered at the moment and the full on-ness of DS immediately as I wake up is really hard work and I'd do so much better if I had that tiny bit of breathing space in the morning before he wakes up naturally.

So...AIBU to ask DH not to kiss DS goodye in the mornings, even though DH loves doing it and thinks it's really important for their relationship?

well, to be fair to the OP's DH, it might just not have occurred to him, we don't know if she's tried suggesting he doesn't kiss him goodbye yet.

I would get this sorted now, though, because a toddler usually gets up early, so it's only 20 min earlier at this point, say at 6.30am. But an older child will sleep later, mine now sleep til 7.30-8 and if they were woken an hour early to indulge a parent, I would consider that quite selfish. I don't disagree with morning kissing in principle, if we are all awake and there's time, how lovely, but to deliberately wake up sleeping children by kissing them is a bit odd to me.

It's not about the kissing. It's about the waking up

At what age do older children sleep later? My DS is now 7 and unfailingly wakes between 6 and 6.30 a.m.

YADNBU. I would hate it if DH woke my one year old up just to kiss him and then go straight off to work. And I would tell him so pronto! There are other ways of expressing love. A note...A phone call... A long play on an early weekend morning while mummy sleeps and feeds the newborn in bed....

Sleep is so important to sanity and I'm sure that the people who think you are being unreasonable have forgotten what having a new baby is like!

sleepinglion that's tough - what's his bedtime? it took ds a few months to start sleeping later from a later bedtime but it's finally working - he's 6 and a half

Sleeping lion, mine also go to bed later now, at about 7.30-8 for the nearly five year old and 9 or even later for the nearly seven year old (I put her to bed at 8 and let her read until she falls asleep). They aren't sleeping more, I've just moved their bedtimes on as 7 seems way too early now.

Think my poor DH is getting a bit of a unfair pasting here! Honestly, he's guilty of thoughtlessness at worst, he isn't being deliberately selfish.

He has a very distant relationship with his own father who shook his hand as a boy, rather than kiss or hug him (!) so he tries really hard to make DS feel loved, and the kissing him goodbye is tied up in this.

And no, I wouldn't at all like leaving my DC for the day without kissing them goodbye.

I'm also aware that though it's sometimes soul destroying really hard work being at home with small children all day, it's also fantastic to be able to spend so much time with them as they grow up and something I'm really lucky to be able to do. While DH misses out on all the drudgery and sleeplessness etc, he also misses the lovely bits too, so I feel mean begrudinging him a kiss for that reason alone.

It's tricky though, as DS wants to see me right away when he wakes up, so the (very sensible) ideas around DH giving him breakfast and CBeebies probably won't work unfortunately. It's just not feasible for DH to keep him away from me as he makes a beeline for the bedroom and would have a paddy be very upset if prevented from doing so - which would wake me up and therefore defeat the object.

Hmmm. I'll talk to DH and explain the situation and see what he thinks. I just wanted to get an idea as to whether I am being hugely unreasonable before broaching it.

Thanks for all your imput - much appreciated.

Oh, sorry, some of you asked what time DH leaves. It's not that early really, about 7:15am.

Wow, ydnbu! It would never occur to either me or my dh to wake our children to kiss them goodbye when we leave for work! How strange!

YANBU

I leave for work at 6.30 am 3 days a week and would never dream of going into the kids rooms - they sleep too lightly at that time of the morning to risk it!

Missing out a morning kiss does not mean he loves them any less etc etc, and if the worst occured I'd like to think my kids know that I love them, regardless of whether I gave them a goodbye kiss or not last time I saw them.

It's time to be practical, not sentimental, imho