DH works nights, asked for more help AIBU

[mummyof2est2009]

Hi there
DH works 12hr night shift. We have DD who's 7 and DS who is 2. Recently I have been struggling to get everything done especially in the evening i.e. Cooking dinner cleaning, bath and bedtime routines etc. By the time I've finished everything it's time for me to go to bed myself as DS gets up at 5am.

Asked DH if he would go to bed earlier and get up earlier so he can help with the part of the day I find most difficult. It works out he would still be able to get 7.5 hours sleep. He agreed that would be fine.

So we try it out... he gets up says he's too tired and goes back to bed. I'm so cross at him.
AIBU??

I really don't understand why its a two person job. There simply is no need if there is some system in place.

This is on the basis of not having a dish washer (if you have space get one).

Fill up the sink with hot soapy water. Start dinner. Wash up as you go. Children are playing in one room with toys.
Turn down heat and allow food to cook.
Tell children it's time to tidy up.
During this time the other rooms are being hoovered.
Check on the dinner and the children. If it's meat, take it out and allow to rest.
Hoover that final room.
Drain anything that needs it.
Fill up the sink with hot soapy water, and full it up as you are dishing up.
Eat and rest.
Take the children and wash up. 2 year old can dry the pans and put them away. The 7 year old can also help. They are only making space that is needed. No need to dry everything.

Bath is run. They do in together. Youngest one out first. Pj's story, good night. 7 year old hair washed, out dried, pj's bed.

Everything is done. It's 8pm and the dc's are in bed.
If it's the late night because of clubs etc, skip the bath. Plan ahead and either use a slow cooker, or do as much prep in the morning as possible.

Its really not hard.

I'm afraid YABU. 12 hours is a long shift to do, and doubly hard if it's nights

Your morning is very spread out. Most working parents go to work straight after school drop off. Why not get yourself ready before taking your DD and it will free up the rest of your morning for housework. Ideal time to sort tea (get a slow cooker if you don't have one). Cut back on the housework. Cut back on baths and get your DD to bathe/shower herself.

RougeSeas Assuming it's a straight 3-on-3-off shift, that's 42 hours per week on average.

Sorry Rouge I see the thread has moved on and I'm behind the times.

YABU. I have worked nights and you say you don't like to not have time to unwind before sleep, yet you are expecting him to do that.

Working nights is hard enough anyway, as you are fighting your natural body clock, years of genetic programming, what our parents worked hard to train us to establish!

Don't try getting rid of naps. There have been studies that show that naps help aid a good nights sleep, not spoil it, and you have found this yourself. Obviously this is only until a certain age, but your child comes under that at only 2.

I do think your DDs point of view should be considered in this though and he may be doing a little bit of avoidance of involvement in family life by saying he is tired after he has had a good sleep.

It takes time to everything worked out - and things can change from year to year. It def gets better as the children get older. I did nights until my eldest was almost 7. I'm glad I stopped. They started to really affect me. Most of my close friends still do them and it doesn't get any easier. Also, everyone counts the day before and the day after night shifts as days off - they really aren't, especially the one after a night - I remember having a huge row with a new head of personnel over this very subject. He really thought you could just stay up and get straight back into normal life. Even when told that was like me asking him to work from 0900 until 2130 then stay up all night he still couldn't get it. It took for one of his minions to do a nightshift with us. She lasted until 0530 then went home as she was "ruined."
Quite a lot of companies weight the hours to reflect how awful nights can be. So hours between 0700 to 2100 are worth a certain amount, 2200 to 0100 more and 0200 until 0600 worth the most. And then they will give compensation in either time off or more money. Ours were in time off, but that personnel guy wanted all hours to be the same.
I always say you don't know how tired feels until you've done some nights. Oh, that feeling when you finally get into bed! Give me a newborn any day!

changing a toddlers sleep/bedtime pattern doesn't have to = hours of screaming and cry-it-out.

The "novelty" technique works well, basically you change things around so there's a new exciting novelty.. and sneak in a new routine that goes with it.

Re-arranging furniture or new bedlinen or even pjs or a "snuggle toy" that they have to "settle to sleep" themselves can be enough to make new bedtime boundaries fun.

You don't have to leave the screaming in the dark. You can get them bedside lights and put off the main lights and make a deal with them "you can read another books if you put the light out yourself" after kinda thing

I've worked shifts. Varying ones over a long period. It's fucking brutal and you can't really understand how brutal unless you've done it.

I'm on my own. I have an 8yo and a 2yo. Somehow I manage to get them up and sorted every morning, 2 mornings a week we're out the door by 7am as I have to go to work early those days, 2 days the eldest has after school stuff. It's bloody hard work, but it's possible.

I think the real issue here is the 2yo's sleep. My eldest woke that early and it was hell. Nothing helped, and it drove me up the wall. I reckon if you can fix that, then the rest will become SO much easier. My youngest doesn't actually go to sleep until after 8pm now, but still wants at 6am. Bugger all I can do about that until she drops her nap, I reckon.

But honestly, if I can manage it, you can.

Would it be possible for DH to run the hoover round when he gets in from work? Instead of going to bed earlier and getting up earlier he could do some housework in his 'evening' time like millions of other parents. And he really should be doing half the housework on his days off if you are doing the vast majority (all?) when he is working.

Plus, work out a schedule. Two nights a week you all have low effort food, two nights a week you batch cook. Then you do proper cooking 3 nights per week, eat from the batch cooking 2 nights and have 2 nights per week where you manage with easy food, because it really isn't going to do any lasting damage.

I used to think that way about waking ds and to be honest, that's why dd was a terrible sleeper because I went to her at every shout. Maybe over the holidays you can work on it as it won't matter so much if your dd has a bit less sleep.

Or can he come in with you at 5am and play while you doze? Or cuddles with the lights off so it's not wide awake time?

One of my friends used the gro clock from 2 but I don't know if it would work for every child at that age

Tbh from about 2yo, I started to bellow 'go back to sleep!' from the warmth of my bed. Mixed results, but he got the idea eventually

Sortallthings lol I find it much harder with him than I did DD. I could have a full conversation with her at his age, he is very different. It seems once he's awake for the day that is it and there's nothing I can do

Theantiboop
Yes I will give it a go in the holidays. Before the clocks changed he was up at 6 which is fine with me but 5 is just a little too early

the problem seems that op resents her DP being asleep while she is soughting the kids out end of

like i said op get your DP to work days as you have had great advice here and you still dont want to make changes your end and think its DP that should alter his sleep pattern

i really hope you never become a single parent or your DP works away as imo you would never cope

One more thing to consider. How much quality sleep is your DH really getting? It sounds as though you're out of the house for 5, maybe 5 and a half hours. Is he able to get proper sleep when you're home? There must be noises in the house when you're home with the children so does this mean his sleep is disturbed? If so, it would explain why he's tired even after 7 or 8 hours in bed.

Stupid as it sounds he says he sleeps better when we are home although he does wear earplugs
I think he will be tired no matter what after all he does have to change his sleep pattern from night to day and back again every 3 days

My youngest is a law unto himself. It'll get so so much easier over the next few months. Mine is closer to 3, and its been a rough year on my own, but it's so much easier now.

Easy dinners may be the way forward. We have one night a week where we just eat sandwiches. Another is microwave meals (after late club). With salad. I'm not a total heathen

I think some people are being harsh here. The OP wants some help. Sometimes you do just feel sorry for yourself and get stuck in a rut. She has a partner at home and there's nothing wrong with asking for e tea help - it's called a partnership. Yes bathing 2 children might seem simple to you if you're accustomed to sitting around drinking tea, with plenty of me time, but that's obviously not the case for her. So why make her feel incapable?
OP, give it more time, talk again. You may find he's not able to do as you initially agreed and you need some other solution

That's a bit harsh sally, it's okay for parents to find life hard sometimes. The op clearly is taking some advice onboard and she doesn't have to do everything others suggest.

op, could you try getting your toddler to get up an hour later by moving his bed time back by 30 minutes for two weeks, then another 30 minutes after that? He would be cranky while he gets in to the habit, but in the long run it might be worth it.

Haven't read last first page or two, sorry.
I just wanted to disagree with a few posters about asking DH to get up earlier.
I worked nights as a single parent. 11.5 hours, nurse, very busy. I would work, get home, cup of tea and food, get DD up dressed and off to school, or my Mum's house. Go to bed. Sleep until school pick up, or if I was lucky, til about 4.30, do dinner, bath, bed and go back to work for 8pm.
I'm not super woman. It's what you do when you work nights and have young DC!
So, I think YANBU to expect him to do bath/bed time before work.

OP, get a grip. When I had 3 children under 3 dh was working abroad Mon - Fri. Life went on. Our 4 dcs are big now but I do dinner/club runs etc/cleaning because dh has a much longer commute than me. I get up at 5.45, leave for work at 7.30 with laundry done, get back around 5.30/6 and start cooking. Sometimes I even go out in the evening. It's what people do. Trust me, you'll want to remember the fun times in the future. You can sweat the little stuff or have a life. I choose having a life.

mummyof2est2009, what about the suggestion that's been made of you getting up at say half 2 or 3 am, to do housework then?

If you go to bed earlier, you'll get the same sleep.

Widowtwonky
Thank you, yes I am going to have a chat to him again and suggest on his days off we make sure we prepare and cook something that we can just double up ingredients and make 2 dinners or maybe just ready meals for him so me and kids can have very simple dinners to give me more time in the evenings. Him getting up earlier maybe isn't the solution but if we've tried it at least we know that doesn't work.

However, you should be able to manage it yourself too...
so I don't know. Maybe both of you need to be a bit more organised, or let some things slide.
It will get easier when DC are a bit older

I think the OP is getting an unnecessarily hard time here. She has taken on board several of the suggestions, so I'm not sure some of the most recent comments are justified.

OP - hope it all goes well. We couldn't cope with DH on nights so he changed jobs.

I used to do four days on, four days off but 12 hour shifts with a 45 minute commute. By the time day 4 arrived I was dead on my feet. I literally fell in the door and into bed. I can't imagine doing nightshifts for 12 hours.

Have you got a slow cooker?

I think if you have veg which your DH could prep and put in the slow cooker and some meat then by the time you get home the dinner could be ready. Just put everything in, meat, veg, potatoes and let it cook all day. That way your dh has a meal to take to work to microwave and you don't need to rush about doing dinner when you have a swimming day.

I do understand how hectic it can be and mine are a lot older than yours now. But Thursday are a headache in this house with DP coming home just as I take dd2 swimming, dd1 needing picked up and we tag-team the dinner! Literally doing bits each as we go in and out the house and we are lucky to have eaten and washed up by 7pm and still have to get dd2's hair etc done.

Stews etc on days like that are a godsend because it's in one pot (less dishes) and can be heated up really quickly using the microwave.

You could even prep the veg on a day he's at home so you have bags of chopped up veg in the fridge ready for the days/nights he's working.