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?

[LovelyFriend]

So all these night owls saying he can't change, do you think it is reasonable for the OP to be up with the children every single morning. What about the division of "personal time" - should the op get one and her h get loads because it's U to expect him to modify his behaviour now he has a family. A family he only has because the op is keeping it all together

[SenecaFalls]

I'm a night owl and have been all my life. In order to work, I have trained myself to go to bed around midnight and get up at 7. Right now I am experiencing disordered sleep because for the past week I have had to get up unusually early for a project at work. The project finished yesterday and I went to bed early last night because I was so tired, and now here I am at 3:45 in the morning (I'm in the States) mumsnetting. It will take me several days to get back to my normal sleep pattern.

[BreconBeBuggered]

I'm a night owl, as are the DC. Even if I have an early start, or had one that day, I won't sleep before midnight at the earliest, and it's often more like 2am. However. It's one thing to have preferences, and quite another to opt out of responsibilities. Going to bed at 5am, even at weekends, is the behaviour of a student, not an adult with a young family.

[bakeoffcake]

I don't think he can help what you're brain is wired to do BUT he has a family and needs to step up and get involved.

I am night owl but for years have had to get up at 6.30 to see to my DC. DH was always already up as he's a lark (ex farmer and always up at 5) but he had to get to work etc so I got up to to sort out the DC.

Now DC are both at uni and I work from home. I don't wake until around 8.30, which is fine as I don't have responsibilities for anyone else. Your H does have other responsibilities and needs to stop taking the piss

[InsufficientlyCaffeinated]

I'm a night owl, dp is an early bird. Since we've lived together I have started to go to bed earlier but will be up reading for an hour or two after dp sleeps (I like to read a lot anyway so go to the bed at the same time as him to get some reading in rather than faff about online or watch TV). Struggle to sleep properly before midnight - 1am though and even if I do sleep early and therefore get up early my brain will not function properly until at least 10am so basically the morning hours in between waking and being functional are dead hours. I'd rather sleep late, wake late, and therefore have more of my day to be functional.

DP gets very grumpy if he isn't asleep by 10pm and ideally he'd go to bed at 9 but stays up until 10 most nights with me. He's wide awake before 6 every morning though and usually gets up and does some cleaning, makes breakfast etc and then brings me coffee up after 7:30 (and that is still too early!)

I think you can learn to adapt a little although you can't completely change your natural preference. Could he try getting up a bit earlier gradually over a period of time. It's easier to start at that end rather than going to be earlier because if you can't sleep it's frustrating to just lie there but if he's getting up earlier he might get tired earlier. Maybe include some exercise in to his day too. After a weekend away walking recently I came home and slept at 9pm so wearing yourself out can work!

It's also a good idea to avoid stimulating the brain late at night. I feel like I'm buzzing with ideas and creativity at about 10pm and if I get stuck in to doing something creative I'll be up all night. Reading helps when I know it's not appropriate to stay up all night. Given time off and without DP here I'd definitely reset back to my natural pattern!

Although if you're feeding a young baby your clashing sleep patterns could be put to good use surely? Perhaps he could do later feeds and early morning feeds before he goes to bed. I'd imagine there's a greater number of hours where one of you is up so build your feed schedule around it. You shouldn't be getting up 4 times a night if dp is already awake!

[bakeoffcake]

Those saying he can't help it- what would he do if he was a single parent which he may end up being if the OP gets really fed up and divorces him

He'd have to get up then! Saying "he can't help it" is pathetic!!

[Orangeanddemons]

Oh no, he should be doing his stuff. It may be generic, but it doesn't give you an excuse to shirk.

If he's awake until 5 he should be doing all the night time stuff, to allow the op to sleep. Or should get up early once at the weekend.

He's using it as an excuse, but you can still override it.

[FattyNinjaOwl]

Nope not a choice. I'm a night owl. I would love to be able to sleep earlier, but I can't. But I still get up in a morning. And through the night. I'm alone with 3 DC. Even when DP stays over, I get up. A lie in for me is 8 am, and that's when he gets up with the older ones and leaves me with the baby. (I've tried going to bed earlier etc, nothing helps me drop off. I'm wide a wake and its probably going to stay that way)
I've recently got myself a fitness band that tracks sleep. Last night I managed 4 hours, 2 in deep sleep, the rest light sleep and one wake up in between. I was still up at half 6 getting breakfast ready for my DS1 who happens to be the complete opposite of me and a morning person. DD and DS2 take a bit longer to wake (so they should, they are the ones who have me up all night!)

[Elledouble]

My partner used to claim to be a night owl. Strangely since living with me, going to bed at 11 and giving him short shrift for insisting he couldn't possibly start work before 9.30am, he now goes to bed and gets up about the same times as me. And he gets the fuck on with things in the morning instead of sitting around in his dressing gown, taking 30mins to eat a bowl of cereal in front of the telly.

So maybe for some people it can't be helped, but some are definitely taking the piss.

[outputgap]

I'm a night owl and my dc were never larks, interestingly. Both slept in the mornings until 10 from tiny babies. Everyone assumes babies rise at 5.30 or whatever, but not mine, thank God.

[JizzyStradlin]

But why should OP coddle him jeanne? A couple of months of him getting up at 8.30, despite being an improvement, still means every single 5.30am start falls to her. All the early mornings too. That's not fair.

[Seeyounearertime]

definitely not a choice for some, definitely a choice for others.

Personally if i try to go to bed at a sensible time my brain will tick over and keep firing until 1-2am anyway. However, if i go to bed at 11.30am i find i'm asleep by 12.30am.
I then wake sporadically between 4am and when i finally get up, around 7.30am.
That's pretty much every day now and it's taken me about 20 years to get into this satisfactory routine.
Before i would be awake until 3am, up for work at 7am, 12 hour shifts, then be up till 3 am etc.

[JeanneDeMontbaston]

Yes, you're right jizzy. I guess it depends how much she can get him to see reason.

I don't really understand why he thinks he has to be on top form first thing, either. Most people are not, surely?

[BigSandyBalls2015]

I think it is a part of who you are to a certain extent, but your DH is taking the piss and needs to at least try and alter this pattern. We'd all love to do what we like sleep wise but real life means we can't!

I have twin teenage girls. One has always loved her sleep, is ideally tucked up by 9.30/10 every night, and up bright and early - she struggles with sleepovers as all her mates want to stay awake and she just wants to sleep. Her sister is the opposite, reads in bed until gone midnight and can't get up. In the holidays I don't see her until about 2pm.

[Birdsgottafly]

""So all these night owls saying he can't change, do you think it is reasonable for the OP to be up with the children every single morning""

No, you don't get out of being a parent. As said, as a LP, I had to put up with feeling tired, being 'fuzzy'. I'd just organise my day, so we might be in the park of a morning, but doing stuff that needed greater energy/more supervision, later on.

You can't train yourself out of it, but you can get through it.

[JizzyStradlin]

I'm not on top form first thing, and I never sleep past 9 at the latest even if I have the choice. Just need to be sufficiently awake to keep the DC alive! Though I too have never had especially early risers, and have been very grateful for that. Nice 7.30 wake up suits us all!

[museumum]

My dh likes to stay up later than me. In the small baby days he'd see to ds till around 1am, bringing him to me in bed for a bf if he was hungry and taking him away again, doing any nappies and the awful trying to settle him back in his cot.
Being an owl doesn't mean not doing any baby duties. Even now he gets up to ds in the night as he wakes far faster and easier than I do and ds is used to him coming (since he stopped bf in the night)

[BoffinMum]

My DH tries to pull this one fairly regularly. Basically my position is if you leave all the early stuff to another person as a parent, you are abdicating your responsibility. Everyone is entitled to the odd lie in but not to start making excuses for opting out.

What particularly annoys me is the walking around in a dressing gown for 2 hours followed by running a bath and then putting off actually getting into it, as a means of basically stretching out the morning while I am running around. He then also says 'I haven't had any breakfast' at about 11.30 just when I am trying to stop the teens raiding the kitchen so I can get the lunch ready.

If I make him get up to do something, he will do it, but then he goes back to bed until around lunchtime, which is equally annoying.

So, I have a rule of not tiptoeing around after about 8 or 9am, and if I have had enough, I tell him he is in charge and I go off to another room for a lie in.

[Bogeyface]

I am a night owl and really struggle. I always have been, I would be sent to bed around 8ish as a kid and still be lying awake when my mum went to bed at 11 and would often hear my dad going up at 12. This is when I was 8 years old or so. Its not something I can help.

Saying that you can "train" yourself out of it, is like saying to a chronic insomniac "Well just go to bed earlier", it really isnt that simple!

Sounds like he isnt making an effort to understand that night owl or not, he is still a father who needs to participate, and I think you a blaming the wrong thing. He cant blame being a night owl but he can blame himself for not sucking up early wakings etc. Having said that, I hate the "one up, all up" mentality. You need to discuss having one lie in each at the weekend and stop martyring yourself.

[Seeyounearertime]

I think there needs to be some line and definition between "night owl" and "Lazy fucker" TBH.

Lazing around and letting the other parent do everything in the morning isn't a night owl, that's a lazy fucker and should be kicked squarely in the lazy arse.

As far as i'm concerned, if the house wakes at 7am for school, work, etc, then everyone wakes at 7am, no matter what time they went to bed.
Being tired is an adults default position so it';s no excuse to do shit all whilst everyone around them does stuff.

[BarricadesBabe]

Your post makes me really angry on your behalf. He should be getting up and adjusting himself to the hours of family life. It's hard but it's what parents who are night owls have to do. What would he do if you weren't there? Or if you were a night owl too? He would have to do it, wouldn't he? It's selfish, self indulgent behaviour and he is being very u.

This ^

I'm a night owl too but once you have DC you have to develop a bit of self-discipline and get on with it. If a lark can manage night feeds, a night owl can manage an early start. It's just part of being a grown-up.

[BoffinMum]

I think people underestimate the power of doing meditation/relaxation at night, possibly helped by an app, in terms of helping people cope with being out of their natural time zone.

I also think sleep is one thing but loafing about for hours without getting washed and dressed is just lazy. That has nothing to do with sleep.

[PansOnFire]

It's not a choice as such but it's something that can be managed. I'm a night owl, I also have a baby, a toddler and a full time job that starts at 7.45am each day. So whilst naturally my bedtime would be somewhere around 3/4am and my morning would begin at 10am, it's not a plausible way of life. I really have to make an effort to maintain a 10pm-6am routine but I do it, the problems arise when I give in and stay up late, it takes me ages to retrain myself without being utterly exhausted during the day but I persevere because it's not fair to DH or the DC. Your DH sound selfish OP.

[notquitehuman]

No he can't help it. And posters calling him pathetic is pretty mean. I have a sleep disorder that means I can only doze off just before dawn. I am wide awake until 3 or 4am.

However, since he chose to have children unfortunately he will have to learn to drag himself out of bed. I'm living on four hours sleep today myself, so it can be done. I feel like I've been run over, but gotta get on with it.

[Lalalili]

Owl too, but since kids I've had to force myself onto an earlier schedule. I'm exhausted but that's just how it is. Dh does, thank god, get up with dc1 who has to leave the house at 7 and wakes me when dc leaves. However I did all the nighttime parenting with babies and toddlers. Why is your dh not doing the nighttime stuff, at the very least, in return for you covering mornings? Even if you have to feed, he could do the changing/soothing/rocking etc. If you're bf he could feed the baby ebm. You must be exhausted.