to think being a night owl is a choice rather than something you can't help?

[lilypadpod]

Anyone else a night owl or live with one?

Frustrated with DH. He has always been a 'night owl'. In an ideal world he goes to bed around 5am gets up around 1pm. He still does this some weekends On work nights he goes to bed around 2am gets up 8-9am. He claims he can't help being like this, it's the way his brain is wired! He feels spaced out and grumpy in mornings even if he goes to bed early. By evening he's at his best.

I feel it's possible to train yourself to function well in mornings and get up early. I've always had to get up at 6am for work and feel a lie-in is a luxury! I'm fed up of living in different time zones and feel he should make more effort to get into a normal sleep schedule! I have to get up when baby is up (around 5:30am) and I go to bed at 9pm as he feeds 4x night. DH sometimes makes a big effort and gets up at 9am on a weekend but I still feel this is too late! More often it's 10-11am. And he's never energetic or enthusiastic in the mornings, he does everything in slow motion which puts a real dampener on the day. I suggested he get up at 7am sometimes so we can have a full day out as a family but he thinks this is very U! He faffs around for a couple of hours 'waking up' and having breakfast so if he gets up at 10 it's lunch-time by time he's ready... and I want him to take baby so I can get ready too!

AIBU to think he should/can adapt his sleep pattern to suit family life?

I meant young children not young.

DH and I are both naturally night owls.

When I read threads about men who stay awake half the night and then sleep all morning, I think

If both of us kept our preferred hours, then nobody would be looking after ours kids in the morning.

Of course it can be tempered. To a point. To us a very early night is 11pm on a schoolnight.

He has tempered his tendencies less well than I have and can be a grumpy pita some mornings.

But no fucker in my house is staying up for the best hours (midnight - 3am) while I have to go to bed to be up early to deal with our kids.

That happens on Super Bowl Sunday. Full stop.

Luckily neither of has disordered sleep (Insometimes have wakeful nights, but can manage fine on 4 hours sleep for a day or two) so it's just about remembering that we are parents now.

I trained myself out of being a night owl and life has improved immeasurably. Of course he can train himself, it's about sleep hygiene and a bit of discipline.

Evening is downtime and telly/Mumsnet/hobby - it requires a little bit of self control to turn that off. And getting into a different sleep pattern so you can switch off requires a bit of effort too. But with commitment it can be done in a fortnight.

Sounds as though there are other problems here, though. OP's DH refusing to see the impact of his behaviour been the most significant.

I'm 47, I've always been a night owl.

If I could, I opted to work evenings/nights.

I've been a LP and forced myself up, but regardless of how much sleep I've had, I'm in a 'fuzz' of a morning.

I naturally 'wake up' around 2pm, even if I've been out of bed all morning. At around 7pm I'm at my peak, this is when I now (older teens), go to the gym/walk the dog, if my neighbors are out, I start 'heavy' cleaning.

I have obviously had to conform to a up at 6/7-bed at 10/11 routine, but I wasn't at my best.

It's NOT a choice. You cannot train out of it and becoming someone who is cheerfully up early in the morning. I would be seriously peeved at a partner who tried to chivvy me into being enthusiastic in the morning. I do prep for the morning the night before to minimise morning efforts because I'm NOT a morning person and never will be.

But as Bathtime said, it can be tempered and he needs to do this at weekends.

That said, 7am for a family day out when your child is a baby? Why? Where are you going?

Listen, you'll have years of that when your child starts doing sports and hobbies.

Got to be honest I don't see why both of you should be up at 7am for a full day together.

Also some people are perky in a morning (me) some people it takes a while (rest of my family).

You can't force someone to be up and perky.

That said, 7am for a family day out when your child is a baby? Why? Where are you going?

I think 7 is a reasonable "wake up" time in a house with a baby.

Someone has to be up from 5.30 in this case, so having everyone rising by 7 and up, dressed and breakfasted by around 9, sounds fair to me.

Unless someone is having an agreed lie in.

Sleeping until 10 or 11 is a major lie in with a baby that wakes up before 6.

Being a "night owl" doesn't give you first dibs at all lie ins.

The question is not so much "can be train himself out of being a night owl?" But "can be train himself out of being a lazy, selfish prick?"

Night owl since birth (and probably before). Married to a night owl and mother to another night owl since birth.

Time zone changes cause a temporary effect for us - a couple of weeks, perhaps.

While we can all get up and face the day to suit society (bloody school), it's not the most productive thing for us. I'm studying at the moment and the difference in my brain's ability after 9pm and before is marked.

It's genetic. There's loads of evidence which I can't be bothered to find about it. People are genetically either larks, owls or robins.

I'm a robin.Asleep at 10-30 to 11, and up always at 7
Dh is an owl. Rarely goes to sleep before 1 or 2. He says he's at his best at 5.00pm, when I'm winding down. I'm at mu best about 10.30-11am.

Did is also an owl. Despite everything we've tried, she is never asleep before 9:30 to 10. But she likes to sleep late. As does Dh. I can't lie in for live nor money🙁

Mil is also an owl. So it's travelled through 3 generations so far

I'm a night owl and no, I can't help it. I am also a parent so had to get my shit together to do parenting things at all hour when they were little. I get up early now even when I am off work or on lates to see secondary age kids off to the bus because i don't want them to go out without having seen me. I wouldn't leap up at 7am for a random 'full day out' and I don't do much talking in the morning but nabbing all the downtime in the early hours then sleeping until 1pm when you have a baby to look after is taking the piss I think.

My exh has been a postie for 20 years so gets up early. It is never something he has got used to ever. He is better in the evening and try as he might lots over the years he has never managed to reset his body clock. Ds2 takes after him and even at 5 and at school all day would cope much better with a nap when he gets in and a later night to get him up for school in the morning.
I think when I look at my 3 dc and see how different their sleep needs are I wouldn't say it's a choice. Ds1 needs an early night and is an early riser he has done since tiny. Dd has always had what I would class as a normal sleep pattern and ds2 like I said is better at night than in the morning. And he is the only one of the three that has had to get up every morning since he was born because the other two had school so he had no choice but it's not something he has ever adjusted to and still needs to be crane lifted or of bed every morning.

The fact that you dh let's it affect his ability to function in family life is the problem not the late nights.

I'm a lark DD and dh are owls. Unfortunately for school DD is at her best in the evening. However having a baby that slept until mid-morning was great.

And dh always gets up in the morning when needed and stays in bed when not needed. He was always great at night waking DD too.

Nightowl here. I agree with your husband that that's the way your brain is wired. I have been the same since I was a child and only the hormonal changes age brings are making me a "morning" person (I wake up at 6 nowadays, but I still go to bed late, I can never manage to sleep more than 5-6 hrs nowadays).

You cannot train yourself out of it but you can make some arrangements: If you need to feed the baby 4x a night, feed the baby and hand it to your DH for settling down/ nappy change as soon as the feed finishes. He is awake anyway, so he can and should help. If you are most rested you can go though babyhood in a better and more relaxed way. Let him do the work when you need your sleep/ naps.

If you are lucky, your children will not inherit the nightowlness. Mine was thrashing aimlessly on his bed until at least 11pm, even when we have ALWAYS had a routine and he always went to bed at 7. I tried everything, lights off, warm baths, earlier mornings, changing what he eats and at what times he eats, and NOTHING worked. After 5 years of trying very hard (and not having much diwn time myself) I recovered my sanity when I accepted that he is like me, so now he goes to bed with a book and no screens (tv, ipod, xbox) and as long as he is not noisy he can stay up until he wants. He still manages to wake up himself, get ready and out of the door by 7:20 am without the need to hurry him up, though. (and is in the top set of everything in school so, I guess that like me, he doesn't need so much sleep)

I think YABU to presume it's a choice. There are people who are 'night owls' who don't help themselves, but it's not always an option. I was an awful one from aged about 13 to 23. So much less functional in the mornings. And there's a lot written about how this is normal for teenagers. I remember thinking how much better I'd feel if school started at 10am instead of 9. And then I sort of reset myself over a period of a couple of months once I started working in a career rather than bars, temping etc around study. But I'm not sure I could've done this much earlier, or certainly not during the middle of adolescence either: it may be that my 'resetting' coincided with getting towards the mid 20s when the brain has become fully adult. I do know I could've been a bit more disciplined though, should've kept a 2am til 10.30 or 11 pattern instead of sometimes staying up until 4 and sleeping past midday. These days, I'm the absolute opposite, early up early bed, just as well with young children. And I don't think I could reset that either. I just can't keep my eyes open that late.

That said, I think what you're actually asking is whether you should have to do all the early morning getups when you've already done 4 night feeds. The answer to that being no. You should get a weekend lie in. He can catch up on sleep later in the day if he needs to. He also shouldn't be going to bed at 5am at weekend either. If he's capable of going at 2am, that's what he ought to be doing. That's just self-indulgent. One day a week, he goes to bed at 2am, gets up when baby does, and finishes his sleep after you've got up. I do also sort of understand where you're coming from about wanting him up earlier. 7am is probably excessive at weekend, but it's incredibly annoying when you've had to drag yourself up really early then your partner swans out of bed hours later and still takes their time getting functional. Fuck that. If you get a lie in, you don't also get hours to decompress after getting up. When you have kids, it's one or the other.

Also, forgive me for stating the bleeding obvious, but if he's up that late why can't he do some of the night feeds? Even if you're ebf, you could think about expressing so he can at least do a couple of them? You must be absolutely, utterly exhausted.

Yep I can totally help the bouts of insomnia that hit me several times a year.

I do try very hard to not be a night owl, I generally just end up very tired.
My brain just loves working at it's best in the late evening.

YABU it's not a choice to be a night owl or a lark, you just are. I'm a night owl but I'm also a mother to a 2 year old and a 7 month old, a grown up and a partner so I couldn't and wouldn't indulge it. Your dh is being ridiculous. He can stay up late and sleep in one night a week, that's reasonable I think.

I was going to come on and say it's not a choice.

But 5am bedtimes are taking the piss. 2am is also, IMO, taking the piss.

I do think you need to adapt towards him. 6/7am starts are pretty early. How about getting him to get up consistently at 8/8.30 every day - weekend or not - for a couple of months, and then he'll really know if that's doable. I find it quite hard to believe he couldn't cope with it for the sake of his family.

After all, I can't imagine you're bouncing with joy at the 5.30 feeds, are you?

I think you naturally have a tendency to be one or the other BUT I do think it's possible to retrain your body and reset the clock so to speak. Since having my son, he now sleeps a solid 12 hours a night waking about 7:30am I still rise naturally every day by about 6:45am feeling fine. Before motherhood I would have considered 8:30am to be extremely early and would have slept til 10am at the weekend.

Frankly if he wants to be and engaged parent/family member he needs to change. If he wants to keep bachelor hours he needs to go elsewhere

It's partly choice and partly conditioning. Because he has done it for years it's a habit. For example for about a year I couldn't just "go to bed" I had to fall asleep on the sofa and then drag myself upstairs in the early hours.
Now I feel I HAVE to listen to something to get me to sleep. I know I don't have to but that's how I have conditioned myself and it's a step better than the sofa and DW thinking I am avoiding her.

A robin is someone who is in between larks and owls. So doesn't get up really early, say about 5-6, but gets up at a normalise time.

Our society caters for robins and larks, but not owls. I think although I'm not sure that there are a fewer owls than any other type. Also it changes as you get older, so teens are natural owls, but older people tend to move towards a more larkish pattern.

My nickname is Cinderella. I can't remember the last time I was awake at midnight. I just start to feel sleepy by 9, and am bang out by 11 every night.

I don't think it's a choice either, and I'm the complete opposite. Unless I'm out and having a good time, nothing will keep me up beyond 10:30pm. I will just fall asleep, and nothing will stop me.

Being with someone who went to bed at 5am and slept all the next morning would therefore be completely untenable for me, so you have my sympathy.

It's not a chouce, it's genetics.

I'm an owl. When writing my thesis, I had an extended period of (almost) 'free-running' - I just woke/ate/slept when I wanted. It settled out around 2pm wake/7am sleep.