To change my OH's routine for my sake?

[Boomerwang]

My OH is a chef and works from about 2-12pm, including travelling time.

I do not work. We have a 7 month old baby, which I look after on my own when he is at work. We share equally when he has a day off.

He often stays up til 3-4am after coming home from work and falls asleep on the sofa. I get up at 5-6am when the baby wakes me. OH doesn't get up until about 1pm, just before it's time to go to work.

I go to bed at around 10-11pm but I'm still tired sometimes if I've not slept well and would love a nap before OH goes to work while he looks after the baby. The baby doesn't sleep more than 10 minutes about 4 times in the day.

WIBU to ask him to go to bed earlier and wake up earlier so that he can look after the baby for an hour or so before going to work? I'm asking here first because I want to know if I'm being selfish. I have a feeling that I am, because he works hard, and he has trouble sleeping too, but would asking him to go to bed by 2am and get up at 12 be ok or not?

What are his reasons for staying up so late after getting home? Does he need that time to chill out before he can sleep?
I'd be tempted to ask him to get up earlier so you can spend time together as a family , not so you can hand the baby over to him! If he's going to bed at 3-4am, getting up at 12 shouldn't be too much of a problem for him, though I would be careful that the pair of you seem to be passing ships in the night, and focus on a little time together if possible, over possibly breeding resentment over one of you always being 'left with the baby'.

Yanbu, routines have to change for everyone when you have a baby although I know how hard it can working strange hours. What happens on his days off?

I think if he is working then you should look after the baby actually, as he does help when it's his day off. BUT I do think he should go to bed and get up earlier to spend time with you and the baby before going to work. Have you asked him? Do you think he is doing it on purpose so he doesn't have to look after baby in morning?

I wish I could say that on his days off we do things together and fix things that need to be fixed, clean things that need to be cleaned and tie up loose ends, but all that happens is he watches TV or goes on his pc while I do some housework, between us we manage the baby. I do not begrudge him some well earned time to relax and he always lets me go for a nap on his days off. The reason he's up til 4am is because he falls asleep watching one of his godawful series like Stargate then he wakes up with a crick in his neck. I've told him to go to bed when he's tired but he reckons he can't sleep.

I don't think you're being unreasonable. You do need wind-down time after coming home from a job like that, but a couple of hours should do it, so he should be able to be in bed by 2, and give you an hour off.

I don't think that an hour of childcare a day is even asking that much from someone who's working - DP and I share care/cooking etc. when he gets home from work and at the weekend (similar length day with commute, although a desk job rather than physical - not that he's any less tired) because he recognises how exhausted I am too, and that a change is as good as a rest (oh, and he misses our son - although he's 2 now, so a bit more interactive)

I don't think you're being unreasonable to ask

But working nights can really mess you up sleep wise, when I've done similar hours I've needed to stay up after getting home or I just couldn't sleep

I don't think YABU but I did used to work similar hours and it's really hard to go to sleep as soon as you get home. When you get home from work at 5 or 6pm, did you ever feel like going straight to bed? It's really a tricky one I'm afraid. But maybe if he knew he had to get up earlier he'd go to bed a bit sooner? I'm sure it's the 'knowing I can sleep till 1' that drives 'I'll just sit up and watch some telly before I go to bed.'

It sounds like currently he has 3ish hours leisure time a day. Presumably you have whatever time your dc sleeps for. But generally I think that people spend time staying up late doing leisure activities, time during the day is more likely to be spent catching up on housework and the like. Do you do any night waking too? It doesn't sound fair to me.

YANBU to ask for equal leisure time.

Even if he stays up a few hours after work, does he really need 9 hours sleep? Are you getting that much sleep? Surely he could Get up earlier and help out a bit.

Well on the basis of the kind responses here I was going to mention it to OH last night but he said 'I'm starting at 10am tomorrow, they've made a right mess of the kitchen since I went on holiday. I'll probably have early starts all week'

Do you think he smelt a rat?

She woke me up at 4.30am today. That'll teach me to dare stay up til midnight for the first time in ages.

Are you going back to work or are you to be a SAHM? If it is the latter I would look at getting the baby into the routine of having a long nap after lunch. I worked night shifts when ds's 1&2 were babies and had no childcare so, for me this was essential. With ds3 I took a year off but got him into the same routine because it worked for me. This would give you 2/3 hours to yourself during the day. You will soon be getting to the stage of baby settling for the night at a reasonable hour so you should have another few hours in the evening. You could then concentrate on doing something together on dh's days off and you would have time, just the two of you, in the afternoons.

The trouble is that working in a kitchen, especially at clean down time at the end of the evening, is incredibly hectic. Added to that, he will be on a bit of a 'high' from finishing service.

He will be coming home very hyped up and probably won't be able to sleep for a few hours even if he wanted to. ExDP was a chef and had exactly the same problem.

YANBU to want him to change his routine, but I don't think this is a case of him just being selfish, more that he has no choice other than to adopt this pattern.

You have my sympathy OP, this is one of the notorious issues of being in a relationship with a chef.

I think yabu. Most people Don't go to bed as soon as they get home from work. My dh sees us as a family for about half an hour in the morning and the dc for about 20 minutes to half an hour in the evenings. He puts them to bed which is his quality time with them.

If he goes to bed at 2am he should get up at 10am and you should herbs break and he should spend time with the dc.

Don't most people get up just before they go to work?

I wouldn't be able to get to sleep straight after work at 4-5pm.

I stay up for 5-6 hours, isn't that what he's doing?

YANBU - it is very unhealthy for your OH to stay up almost all night and sleep all morning, apart from anything. And of course he ought to want to be around to see you and the baby.

Does he see the baby at all during his working week?

So if he's going in early this week...maybe he'll find he has to go to sleep earlier when he comes home. Perhaps this actually could be the ideal time to ask him if its possible to adjust his routine - once the kitchen is sorted and he's back to going in at his normal time, of course, split the difference on what time he has to be in by 10 versus 2.

I would also concentrate on a better/ longer napping schedule for baby

At this age would have
9am -1hr
1pm-2/3hrs
4.30pm- 30/45mins depending on lunch nap length

This will hopefully get baby uses to sleeping regularly and may sleep through better at night for you, and allow you to also have some downtime in the day

actually seeing your partner leaves at 2pm I would schedule naps so baby have afternoon nap later , say just before 2 ( could this be partners main thing of putting her down to nap for the afternoon?)

With a later sleep schedule of say 2-4 nap then poss another at 5.30 for 30 mins, she could last until 8pm and once on 12 hr ish night schedule should hopefully sleep until 7/8am for you.

You can schedule when a baby sleeps? What if she doesn't sleep? She'll just cry and upset herself. I know they should have routines but I figured she'd settle herself into her own routine. Am I being unkind by not doing it for her?

At 8.15am I woke up OH and asked if he would take her before going to work, so I got 45 minutes of shut eye but no actual sleep. It was better than nothing. It wasn't the time to talk about his sleeping pattern as he was short with me because of his tiredness. Another restless night it seems.

So, now I add to the mix that he can't sleep well. That makes both of us. I love my girl to bits but sometimes I wish she could spend one night a month with someone else so we can catch up. All our family are miles away :/

Well sleep kinda breeds sleep imo. Many night sleep problems can be solved/ adjusted by sorting day sleeps .

Just as an idea, a baby of that age ( well up to 2 according to te sleep clinic) should be averaging 15hrs asleep out of 24. So if she sleeps that through the night in one go then fair enough, but most don't. Therefore to get enough I I have always scheduled ( not to the min, but with say half hour). I personally find it easier as I know when they will sleep ( have multiple little ones napping), I can arrange to go out/ invite people over etc when they are due to be awake ( or vis versa)

I have usually tried to have main lunchtime nap in cot and the others in the pram. So maybe she would sleep if for example at 9am you lay down cosy in pram and head outfit a walk/ to wherever you want to go and they sleep on route.

There is many websites/ books with advice over napping/ sleep if you want that. You can of course let them go with the flow but the napping way generally gives you a happier/ less wingy child in between :)

OP - what about shifting your sleep pattern and going to bed earlier. It's always the approach I've had to catching up on sleep.

OP - don't worry about not having 'routines'.

Plenty of us follow our baby's natural patterns as they develop, and it works out fine.

Babies don't read the books that tell them how they 'should' behave. If you have a baby you can put down and who will amuse themselves nicely before falling asleep, then good for you!

Otherwise, if you really want to 'schedule? naps in a very organised way, you could look at the wide range of sleep help books available. None of which were any real use to me, btw. In a nutshell, you either put up with a lot of screaming and crying from your baby, as you try and make it sleep at certain times - or there are gentler methods (No Cry Sleep solution for example) which apparently work for some people.

I would be very wary of the 'routine queens' who basically tell you that if you don't force your baby into a particular pattern of sleep, then you will have an unhappy baby. That's very unpleasant.

The reason he can't get to sleep, is because he's not waking early enough. Hopefully by getting up earlier to start at 10 am he will go to sleep earlier. Once the early starts finish, you are able to say 'look, you went to sleep at this time, woke up at this time and it worked well, Can we please do that for US now.'

Btw Im not a routine / crying baby advocate. I have never left a baby to cry to sleep. I would actually recommend the no cry to sleep solution for ideas

I could get him to try sleeping earlier, but he insists he cannot sleep until he's tired. It's probably because he's stressed. I will leave him alone for today as I just took 11 letters out of the mailbox. 10 are bills including 2 from a debt collector. I think I'll suck it up for now and just try to catch naps when the baby does.

I absolutely appreciate the time you guys have taken to respond to my AIBU and I will definitely bear them in mind when I finally tackle my OH over this.

OP, YANBU to ask for a small change, ie shifting his sleep an hour earlier.

And also, you're almost certainly right about your DD settling into her own routine, and soon. 7 months is about the time they begin to start crawling, which means they're suddenly using loads more energy, and so they sleep better. Anecdotally, both from speaking to many baby group mums of terrible day sleepers, and lurking the sleep boards here, this is the time when previously bad dozers turn into champion slumberers.