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AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

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Original poster

am I or is DH over sleeping habits?

72 replies

MatchsticksForMyEyes · 12/03/2012 20:52

DH is a night owl and would prefer to stay up til half 11ish every night. I like to get to sleep around half 10 as I am always the one who gets up with the dc every morning. I don't mind this as DH gets up later and I then go back to bed for an hour at the weekend, so that bit is fine.
He thinks I should be able to get to sleep with his reading light on and pages rustling etc whereas I've told him I need it to be dark and silent for me to sleep.
On the nights where he has decided to have an early night he starts bloody snoring within seconds so almost every night I take myself off to the spare room.
DH has now started muttering about how we should be in the same bed since we are married and says I am selfish for expecting him to go to sleep exactly when I want to.
I think he is selfish for wanting me to stay awake longer than I want to when I'm knackered and put up with sleepless nights listening to him snore when it took me 19 months to get DS to sleep through.

OP posts:

otchayaniye · 12/03/2012 20:59

As a co-sleeping mother of two whose first took ages to sleep through, and whose second (7months) is regularly waking every two hours, you have my sympathy!

I also need complete darkness and peace to get to sleep.

And I think while your children are little and you are doing the settling, your sleep needs take preference and he should decamp to the spare room if he wants to rustle papers.

How about a compromise, you wear an eyemask (tempur pedic do a fab one) and he gets a kindle and puts it on night mode?

Ifyoucantsayanythingnice · 12/03/2012 21:02

Tricky - YANBU regarding the reading light and rustling pages but the snoring can't be helped sometimes. I have regulary elbowed DP in the back gently nudged him and asked him to lie on his side, not his back.

DP goes to bed later than me but stays downstairs and creeps into bed so as not to wake the demon banshee so as not to disturb me. He often sleeps on the sofa when DD is unsettled so I can put her in bed with me. This is no reflection on our relationship IMO.

So I'm not any help at all really

JarethTheGoblinKing · 12/03/2012 21:04

He is BU

otchayaniye · 12/03/2012 21:04

I also have this thing where in my insomniac, sleep deprived state, I have fixated hugely on my husband's very loud, sinusy breathing (it's not exactly snoring but it's still very loud and disturbs me). We laugh about it later, but when I've been trying to get to sleep after being woken so often and for what seems like years, it really winds me up. My husband understands this and decamps to sofa when it's bad as he empathises with me and knows what it's like to look after small children ( he's part-time and works long nights and gets only a few hours sleep in the day so he can muck in with the children)

It's a passing phase so I think a partner should be kind to the ragged sleep deprived one.

catgirl1976 · 12/03/2012 21:05

Feel your pain

DH comes to bed around 3am. Stomps upstairs. Flushes loo. Switches lights one. Wakes me up, sometimes wakes 16 week old DS up. Snores.

Its tricky as you can't make someone sleep when they are not tired.

I don't think YABU on the spare room front but it is lonely without someone in the bed with you and its not ideal, but sometimes sleep is paramount. I like the eyemask and kindle idea.

Pseudo341 · 12/03/2012 21:05

My DH reads under the duvet with a small book light so that it doesn't bother me, he'd be in the spare room to do his reading otherwise, you need to find something like that so that you can ignore his reading. Also, does he snore in any position or only when lying on his back? When DH starts snoring I give him a shove and tell him to roll over, which he does and the snoring stops. If your DH can get to sleep as easily as mine can, and it sounds like he can, he probably won't even remember the interruption in the morning.

Original poster

MatchsticksForMyEyes · 12/03/2012 21:05

I don't think it has any bearing on our relationship either but he obviously does. The snoring happens whatever side he is on unfortunately. He likes more cuddles in bed than I do. I can't stand anyone cuddling me when I want to sleep, I feel like I'm too confined.
I sound like a bitch, don't I?

OP posts:

Tee2072 · 12/03/2012 21:06

Sleeping in separate beds is not a reflection on your marriage. I hate sharing a bed and often sleep in our spare room. I have a fantastic marriage.

Sleep is the most important thing in the world. Do what you have to get the amount you need.

Pseudo341 · 12/03/2012 21:06

YANBU btw, but since you need him to make some changes for you be reasonable when you bring the subject up.

LydiaWickham · 12/03/2012 21:07

He could read in other parts of the house, he is keeping you awake and forcing you to wait until he decides it's time for sleep. The bedroom is for sex and sleep - he can read elsewhere.

As for snoring, have you pointed out to him that snoring can be a sign of serious problems? Get him to the GP.

TroublesomeEx · 12/03/2012 21:07

My DH and I have very different sleep habits.

He is a night owl and a horrific snorer. He'd sleep through a train crash.

I'm an early to sleep, early to rise person and sleep very lightly when I do.

We just sleep separately. Like Ifyoucan'tsayanythingnice said, it's no reflection on our relationship. If anything, our relationship is better because there's no resentment there.

catgirl1976 · 12/03/2012 21:08

What sort of problems Lydia? DH snores dreadfully

otchayaniye · 12/03/2012 21:08

Oh, and him muttering about being married is bollocks. I have a great marriage and we share a bed 50 pct of the time (night shifts, the odd sofa decamp)

People have to understand this tricky night phase isn't forever, and if one person is regularly tired from bfeeding and settling to sleep then the other shouldn't carp and should help during this phase

What would hurt our marriage would be him whining about it. I already have a toddler ....

TattyDevine · 12/03/2012 21:09

I wear wax earplugs (boots do their own brand called Mufflers, or you can get ones called Quies) - I know you will say "but I need to hear the children" but I wear them, and did with newborns in same room and now with preschoolers in seperate rooms and I still hear them if they need to be heard, and if I don't DH does, and either goes to them or nudges me depending who has been doing more night wakings. Failing that, you'd hear a baby monitor through them, it just muffles out a lot of pages/light snoring type stuff.

Eyemask is a necessity for me too as DH is up at half-past-sparrow's-fart and either needs the ensuite light on or has a curtain open in summer to see, so I put one on about 5am or when light wakes me, or sometimes before.

You both have a point though, regardless of potential solutions - its a bit crap having to go to bed before you are ready but its also crap being kept awake - have been on both sides of the coin depending on circs - permenant spare room is a slippery slope, better to find compromise if possible. Plus, its great to be able to put clean washing on the spare room bed so it piles up to a mountain so high you need a sherpa to help you tackle it. Well, that works for me...

TwllBach · 12/03/2012 21:12

We are very much like you DP in that I like to be in bed for half ten and need silence and pitch black to sleep well. DP will often not come to bed till half 11/midnight or later during the weekend. That is fine, it's not an issue me. What does upset me though, is that when he comes to bed he turns the lamp on, which is on my side of the bed. Then he turns the hair dryer on to warm himself up. Normally the noise and the light wake me up enough to break my sleep and make me grumpy. He then falls asleep with the light on, waking me up again, this time enough to have to turn the light off.

It really upsets me because I rarely feel like I'm getting a decent nights sleep as it is, more often than not, broken.

What is more irritating though, is that when DP is feeling ill or tired, he wants to go to bed early and insists that I go at the exact same time. ffs.

otchayaniye · 12/03/2012 21:13

Oh god, i second the earplugs and I co-sleep. You can hear stuff, it just dulls it down. Not enough!

But their main use is when my neighbours party. And since we're good friends I like to party with them sometimes i can't keep barging in there telling them to turn off their drunken depeche mode reminiscing.

otchayaniye · 12/03/2012 21:14

Turns the hair dryer on to warm himself? Where do you live, Kamchatka?

LydiaWickham · 12/03/2012 21:15

Twllbach - he uses the hairdryer to warm himself up??? WTF? That's really antisocial and odd. Tell him to stop. Or he can use the hairdryer in another room. I would keep poking DH in the ribs until he got up and switched off the light - what am i saying, DH wouldn't put a light on when I was already alseep, because he's not a selfish arse.

Catgirl - it's probably fine - but my Dad's GP wanted my Dad to have a lot of tests after he mentioned he snores. Worth checking it's not a sign of something else/not caused by something that could be fixed easily.

Moln · 12/03/2012 21:15

are you me?

Seriously this sounds exactly the same as this house (except we don't have a spare bed!!)

I'm always asking DH why he thinks the bedroom should be like he wants he? Light on till late and/or TV on (the very fact there's a tv in the room)

I want to go to bed early and turn off the light, have silence. He insists on going to bed when I go but sitting up reading/watching tv. then he goes to sleep and snores

I think I've be exhausted now for 15 years

Original poster

MatchsticksForMyEyes · 12/03/2012 21:17

DS is now sleeping through, which is why the possibility of going to bed at half 10 and getting 6-7 hours straight sleep is such a draw for me.
He won't go to the GP. It took me months to get him to go about his hernia and after that surgery he said never again, so I know he never have anything done about it.
We have started watching TV in bed, which makes the problem worse as at least before I could go to bed when I liked and he could come in when he liked and sometimes manage to not wake me.

OP posts:

Moln · 12/03/2012 21:22

I'm baffled by the warming himself up with the hair dryer.

Why? What?

That's just plain and simply weird.

ivanapoo · 12/03/2012 21:22

YANBU but I dont think your DH is either in wanting to sleep in same bed. It can be a surprisingly emotive thing and he may see it as a rejection.

Why not go into the same bed for cuddles but then one of you go to sleep in the spare room? I've accepted that sometimes we do sleep better apart (I'm really fidgety in bed and wake up a lot)

Original poster

MatchsticksForMyEyes · 12/03/2012 21:24

Yeah that's what we are doing at the moment, but he wants me to stay the whole night and I just wouldn't get enough sleep and I'm bloody evil when I'm too tired.

OP posts:

DorothyGherkins · 12/03/2012 21:26

Oh catgirl - i thought i was the only one with a partner who came to bed at 3 am ! I ve never got used to it, and hate it, I need blackness and peace to sleep, but everynight I get the flush noises, sink gurgling empty, doors closing etc.in what, to me, is the middle of the night. Then if I m very lucky he starts snoring as soon as he hits the bed. Separate room for me too, I m afraid.

jinsei · 12/03/2012 21:26

DH and I are not very compatible in our sleeping habits - neither of us sleep that well in the same bed. We both like our sleep. So he often sleeps in the spare room and I have ours. It doesn't prevent nighttime visits.

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