Who is being unreasonable?

[Beth2511]

Me and oh have never been able to agree on this in years so thought I'd put it to the trusty mumsnet jury.

3/4 nights a week he works until 1am, normally home by 1.30. He thinks that because he works late he should then be fine to sleep in until 1pm, spend an hour getting ready then head straight to work.

This means i dont basically see him for 4/5 days with a 19 month old and 23 weeks pregnant. I think he should be up 10/11ish because i currently get absolutely no help or even adult company for several days in a row and dd is in a "trying" phase. If he got up at 11 he would have two hours where he cpuld perhaps spend 30 minutes doing a household job and then time with me and dd.

What time would you say is fair? So unbelievably tired :(

Of course you're being reasonable. They're his children too, aren't they?

The absolute selfishness of some of the partners on these threads makes me wonder how the hell they get anyone to be interested in them.

Does he really need 12 hours sleep a night? Or is he just lazing in bed?

YANBU

Does he stay up for a few hours after he gets home, claiming he "has to unwind?"

He should be tucked up by 2am and up by 10/11.

what time does he go to bed?

This has been going on for years yet you still chose to have 2 children with him despite not thinking its ok?

Yanbu

Its not necessary for him to have 12 hours sleep after work! Asking him to be up for 10am would be fine imo.

When my partner does a finish at work he could get home any time between 11:30 to 2 in the morning, he works in a kitchen so just depends how busy it is. We have a 3yr old and I'm currently pregnant too. Unless I'm at a toddler group with DD then he gets up between 10 and 10:30 so he gets to spend time with us before he goes to work again. He's normally tired because of this cause he doesn't go to bed till around 3 but he would still choose to do something with us. He works shifts so our routine changes every week.

Yanbu he should be up 10/11ish to spend time with his family and help around the house, he's not a single man.

Feel for you op

How does he manage to sleep betweeen 10 and 1? In our house he would have had that toddler climbing all over him, the noise is always high.

Actually, after he had had 8 hours sleep, I'd pop the toddler on the bed next to him and go out to do whatever I need to do on my own, maybe a fitness club with friends, or the shopping, a coffee and chat, or a daytime class on something interesting, volunteering somewhere.

If he doesn't want to spend time with you, you can't force him, so make other friends for adult company. Those 3 hours between 10 and 1 are a good time.

Even if he wound down for an hour and then had eight hours sleep he'd be getting up at 10.30.

Working lates/nights is hard. I think it's not unreasonable for him to have maybe one or two long lies a week (assuming working five days). That still leaves most days getting up at a reasonable time so you get to see him and he can be an active parent to DD ...

My dp works 12 hour nights, it is hard as they often don't get quality sleep. He works 6pm til 6am and then sleeps til 3 when I get home from work unless it is a Thursday as he takes his other kids to school so doesn't get to bed til 930 so gets up about 430.

It can be very difficult to go to sleep right after work. When I get home at 3am, it usually takes me at least two hours to wind down enough to fall asleep, even though I am quite tired, due to working a day shift three days each week and this very late shift only once per week.

YANBU to want him awake and spending time with you all, but he is also NBU in that he works a very odd shift and there are studies that show that nighttime sleep is the most restorative, and sleep at other times is of poorer quality, due to our own biorhythms. He may need those "extra" hours of sleep.

He's on 3 or 4 night shifts EVERY week? Ouch. Does he also work other shifts as well? Or is that the total of his working week? If he works other shifts as well, the exhaustion from swapping back and forth between nights and days, and the way it fucks your body clock, won't be helping, and sleep quality in the day tends to be way worse than at night due to noise and light. So might be able to do a bit more wake time with you, but likely to be tired and grumpy as hell. If he only does those shifts, then surely on some of the other days he needs to give you a major lie in to catch up?

I think my doubts are coming from the fact he does seem genuinely exhausted, it seems like he could sleep all day and still be tired. Hes normally asleep within the hour and still takes some rousing at 1pm in the afternoon.

I might try see if he will compromise and alternate between early wake up and a late one. Its not that he doesnt want to spend time with us, he just always complains he doesnt have time to and he cant see that he is spending so much time in bed that he cant have it all ways. If i wanted to spend time with my family id happily sacrifice an hour or two of sleep to do so.

Most frustrating as he is so good in other ways he just cant see how stuck in this cycle he is and how hard work it is at the moment.

What does he do on his days off?

Working til 1am doesn't count as a night shift to me, I work until 8am. Now that ruins your body clock.

A typical rota is an early (6am-3pm) friday, nights saturday, Sunday, monday and tuesday.

Thursday and friday nights i always make sure he gets an early night as that open is always tough. I work weds-sats which are shifts set around his work after one scary early shift on a wednesday where he didnt hear dd wake up.

Has he had any potential health reasons for the exhaustion ruled out?

My DH works late once a week. He gets in about half twelve, to sleep about half one. This morning he was up at eight, same every week and he's none the worse for it.

Dh works 10-6. He is home at 0630 and goes straight to bed. Up at 1230 at the latest. His last shift he will come home and either watch football and take ds1 to his voluntary work, before he comes to bed, go straight to bed and get up at 10 or stay awake until bedtime (he might doze on the sofa)
YANBU to want him to spend time with you all.

I'm also wondering if there could be a health reason for his exhaustion, as it seems more than you would normally expect?

If not, then no YANBU. A 10am get up will still give him 8 hours of sleep which should be enough for most adults (and certainly more than I get most nights).

It's not like you're expecting him up at 6am.

YANBU. That's a ridiculous amount of sleeping to do when he has a family to spend time with. When I'm at work I get up at 6:30am. DH does the same. So do lots of our friends. As far as I am aware, none of my friends go to bed at 7:30pm to facilitate this. DH and I certainly don't. Yet that is the equivalent of what your DP is doing.

I'd be royally pissed off if DH came home from work and went to bed at 7:30, leaving me with all the household chores and childcare to take care of, plus not spending any time with us. Your OH is doing exactly this, except he's shirking his responsibilities in the morning instead of the evening.

If your DP claims he is genuinely too tired to be awake any earlier than 1pm then he needs to go to the doctors. It's not normal to be unable to function on less than 11 hours sleep.

My XP was like this.

Note the use of EX.

Slightly different situation and hours, plus I was working too, but basically it was the shear refusal to get up and spend time with DS or I yet plenty of time for 'his' activities.

In the end I told him as he clearly didn't want to be part of the family he needed to think about leaving.

he cheated on me a week later and I forced his hand

I used to work nightshifts. The only time I ever slept that late was when I'd finished work at 6am and was in bed by 7am. That was when I had no children so no-one else to get up for.

I used to find that I actually felt far more tired if I stayed in bed longer than that. Maybe his tiredness is because he's staying in bed for too long?

If it's a medical reason then he needs to see a GP to get it checked out. Otherwise he should be up by about 10am and spending time with his family.

I had an ex that did this but it was pre children. I left the house at 8am. He wouldn't get up until 12pm and headed for work at 2. He would finish work sometime around 11pm but I was already in bed ready for my early start.

Even If I had a morning off he still wouldn't get up an hour or 2 earlier so we could eat lunch together and he couldn't understand why I wanted to spend sunday with him and he's spend all day in bed. Needless to say it didn't work.

Felt like I was living a single life and decided to make it a permanent thing.

He's a lazy arse. No healthy adult needs 12 hours in bed - he should be up around 9:30 ish to pitch in with his family. Can't you send your toddler in to wake him in the mornings?