to think DH should just leave the hall light on?

[ShadowStar]

DS1 (3yrs) likes us to leave the hall light on and his door open when he goes to sleep. He gets upset if it's too dark. We've tried a few nightlights, and they've either been too dim or cast shadows that frighten him, so when I put him to bed I leave the hall light on.

DH likes it to be dark when he goes to sleep, so he turns the hall light off before he goes to bed. DH usually goes to bed after me.

This means that if DS1 wakes in the night, I get woken by him screaming to have the light turned on. DH is a heavy sleeper and usually sleeps through this.

The issue I'm having with DH is that he won't close our bedroom door or even leave it slightly ajar so that we can leave the hall light on for DS1 and still have it dark in the bedroom for DH. He insists that we have to leave the door fully open so that we can hear DC if they wake in the night and that to close our door would be mean and bad parenting. I've pointed out that we have baby monitors in both the DCs rooms, which will alert us if they start crying or calling for us, but apparently this isn't good enough.

AIBU to tell DH to leave our door ajar and leave the hall light on?

YANBU. We keep the landing light on and our door ajar. Both of our DCs cry if it's dark and I was the same.

DH didn't like it at first but has adapted.

YANBU - light on - DH deal with it.

I don't get why he has to have to door open (to be a good parent) but turns of the light which your child needs (bad parent) and doesn't do the night waking a anyway (bad parent).

If you woke him to go and deal with DS every time then he might change his mind.

How big is your house? I have our door shut (solid fire doors) and I can here my kids.

Why don't you tell your husband how it's going to be? Why does he get the last word?

Your husband is mean

Ask him where he is lacking in his life that he needs to assert HIS wants before his toddler son's .

Yanbu. How about the bathroom light instead of the brighter hall light? Our bathroom light is on all night with low energy bulbs. DD age 6 goes to the loo through the night and happily jumps back into bed. DD age 3 for this reason has never slept in total darkness. We can close our bedroom door so it's ajar and sleep fine. I too would probably find it strange sleeping in total darkness now.
You do what you have to for sleep is the motto in our house

Ask a fire fighter about this. Leaving doors closed at night is MUCH safer in the event of a fire.

We had dimmer switches installed in DC's rooms for years as night lights weren't bright enough.

Tell him its a fire risk to leave doors open. I know what he means...I struggle shutting all the doors at night but it IS a fire risk to leave them open.

To be fair, I hate having the landing light on, even if the door is shut, the light edge round the door annoys me.

Make him get up when ds wakes, and then he may be more open to solutions!

I also close all doors after reading too many mn threads because of fire.
We have a dim plug in night light on landing for midnight loo trips. I would put a dim light in ds room, and shut the doors
Or lamp on landing a leave ds door open and shut yours
Or one of those teddies which light up when you squeeze them.

I would say that I think kids do sleep better in darker rooms, so I always try and get them to sleep in the darkest they will accept.

The fire fighters I work with have a really scary picture they show to illustrate this. It's of a door, opened by fire fighters after a fire, into a child's room. The outside of the door is black, completely charred, the inside is a normal child's bedroom, no smoke damage, nothing. The child survived. They have other pictures too, which are not so happy.

Close the doors.

Our DCs have a night light attached to the ceiling light in their rooms, its just light enough to see but not bright enough to make scary shadows.

We also leave the bathroom light on for the kids if they need the loo in the night as they could never find the switch in the dark.

We close bedroom doors mostly except ds's door as he needs the light from the bathroom to sleep.

Your DH is being mean to ds if he needs the light to sleep then IMO its cruel to turn it off knowing he'll be scared if he wakes up. I'm 26 and still hate sleeping in the dark so I leave the tv on in our room at night. Luckily DH doesn't mind either way or I'd probably have to sleep on the sofa.

I hadn't even thought of the fire safety aspect of leaving the doors open. I don't think DH has either. That's a very unsettling thought.

Of course, this would mean closing DS1's door against the hall light too. I think we'll have to look into a bigger variety of nightlights or fitting a dimmer switch.

The points about hall light on so DS1 can find the bathroom at night is a good one too - we have been potty training DS1. He still wears pull-ups to bed as he doesn't reliably wake for wees, but there's been a few occasions when he's woken us early in the morning to announce that he's done a wee in the potty. And he's nowhere near tall enough to reach the light switches yet.