Aibu to think 10am is a long enough lie-in when you have young DC’s?

[SickOfTheHeatAlready]

DH and I take it in turns of a weekend with regards to who gets up with the DC’s (we have an almost 2 and a half year old, and a one year old) meaning that each of us will get one ‘lay in’ per week. Monday-Friday DH is up and out the door by 6:30am, returns home around 5:30pm.. on a ‘good’ day, the DC’s will wake up at 7am latest, but lately it’s been anywhere from 4:30am so understandably, both DH and I are shattered by the weekend and very much look forward to some extra sleep.

But here’s my niggle, when it’s my turn to sleep in, I’m normally up no later than 9:30am.. 10am at an absolute push if I’m feeling especially wiped out. If I sleep in much longer than that, I feel like I’ve lost half my day, plus, to me, 9:30 is give or take anywhere between 3 & 4 hrs later than I’d usually wake up so it’s a welcome break! Not to mention DC2 goes down for a nap around 11am, and usually doesn’t get back up until around 1/2, so if I stayed in bed much later than the time that I do, I’d only see him for about 4-5hrs before he was due to go back to bed for the night!

My DH however, can easily, and will easily stay in bed until a tornado hits the house. He seems to be able to sleep through any and all noise that the DC’s make in the morning (I do try my best to keep them as quiet as I can for as long as I can, though) and more often than not, I’m still sat there at 11-11:30am waiting for him to get up. I always end up having to go in and prod him and tell him to wake up, then he surfaces about 15 minutes after that (if he doesn’t just fall straight back to sleep, that is). But honestly, if I didn’t go in and stir him, we’d probably not see him til well past midday and I can’t work out if I’m BU to think that 10am is a plenty long enough lay in when you have small DC’s.

I’m half ‘should I let him sleep for as long as he wants?’ and half ‘fuck no, I don’t stay in bed until lunch time!’

If you didn’t choose to limit your own lie in, would he allow you to sleep as long as you wanted?

8.30am here. We're both normally up at 5.30am so it's a long lie in 😁 10am and you've wasted half the day.

I'm with you. I think 10am is a really good lie in. When my kids were little I'd always yell up the stairs to my OH at about 9.45 if he wasn't already up. These days, now they're older, he's miraculously up by about 8.45 at weekends!

Why don't you agree how long the lie-in will last for? If you don't want to spend all the time in bed, do something else surf in bed. If you haven't talked about it, you can't really be annoyed he's not doing things the way you would prefer to, though.

I suppose 10am is ok. I never had much of a problem with mine who didn't like getting up in the morning, hee just like me. My husband doesn't lay in so long.

11am is better than 10.

That's difficult.
Because if you get woken up from a lie in, however late that may be, it's no longer a proper lie in.
Is there something you want to do at 10am, or is it just you want help?
How about - anything after 10am counts as his down time. Equal down time is considered fair, so if he lies in till 11am, you've got 1 hour down time at another point in the weekend to do what you want with?

We did speak a while back and agreed that 10am would be the latest either of us would get up. In his own words 'he could sleep all day so if he's still in bed at 10am, he'll just keep sleeping and sleeping'. For a few months, I stuck to waking him up at 10, but after a while, he was annoyed that I was 'disturbing' him and frankly I became pissed off at having to be his personal alarm clock after I'd been up with the DC's for hours and hours.

It's less that we have somewhere to be or something to do at 10am, and more about not wasting the day and being up to help the other person out.
If we wanted to do anything of a weekend with the DC's, it'd have to be on my 'lay in' day, as otherwise we wouldn't get out of the house until 1pm with the way DH is.

Also, I'm with the kids all day, every day, Monday to Sunday, so I know how long a day can feel when they decide to get up at 4:30-5... it'd be nice for him to think 'I'll sleep for a few hours then get up and pitch in'.

I get my dh up by 9.30 latest as I hardly ever sleep in late . My kids are on there teens and 1 has autism so I get up with him usually 7.30-8 . I don't like sleeping in as usually have loads to do but I like a hour drinking coffee mumsnetting etc at the weeked . But tbh my dh has a lie in in the week as he works shifts .

I get my dh up by 9.30 latest

Did you mean to write "dc"? You surely don't "get" an adult "up" do you?

10am is definitely long enough. When the DCs were small, we took it in turns too and I'd wake him up at 9.45 (I was normally awake earlier on 'my turn'). Any longer and it feels as though a big chunk of the day has gone.

It really pisses me off that so many men struggle to adjust to the realities and practicalities of having small children. My DH did (although his adjustments were more hobby related 🙄). I just wanted to shout 'FFS, what did you think would HAPPEN to our lives when we chose to have a small age gap between our DCs??!'.

We have the exact same situation in our house. We have a 3 year old and a 11 month old, and the youngest can be up any time from 5.15am onwards. When it's my turn to lie in, I normally get up by around 8.30am, but DH will quite happily stay there all day so I tend to send DC1 up to prod him.

I don't know why it irritates me so much. Maybe I'm just jealous that he can sleep through all of the noise, whereas I get fed up of hearing crashing, banging and crying.

We have had this problem. It is awful being the one who has been up since 5am, sat around waiting for the other to wake up, and slowly get themselves round to a point of wanting to go out. By that point you have been up 6/7 hours and are climbing the walls!
No one sleeps later than 8.30/9am now.

Our kids are 3 and 1 (nearly 2) and are up at 7am no matter what time they get to bed. We are both up 6.30am to get to work. We rotate our line ins too but the latest would be 9am otherwise we would never get anything done. I work a Saturday so Sunday is the only day we get any real family time together. Our kids go down for a nap at midday so if either of us is really tired we can go for a lie down with them. Make your expectations of dh clearer. Not much point in getting annoyed with him if you limit your life in yourself.

It was my turn to lie in this morning.. I was up at 6.30 . 9.30 would be the absolute dream, even 8am.

silvercatowner I certainly do! If I didn't, he'd have been asleep until 11. Why is that a problem?

I’m on the fence about this. I can see your point of view, but a lie in shouldn’t have a time limit! I hate people saying “wasting half the day” if you stay in bed till 12. It’s not a waste if you enjoy it! Especially if there’s nothing specific to get up for. Why is sleeping a waste as opposed to sitting on the sofa watching TV?

I like a pp’s suggestion that if he sleeps past 10, any additional time is “down time” and you then get the same to do what you want. That seems the fairest solution.

I am like your DH and could sleep until midday. I ask my DH to wake me at 9.30 or 10 depending on what we are doing. I prefer that to an alarm and he normally sends one of the kids up and I get a nice cuddle to wake me up. I agree that any later than this and so much of the day is wasted. So if it were me in your shoes I would go back to waking him at 10 but remind him the night before that you are going to do this. Perhaps have a plan for something you want to do that day before your baby sleeps such as going out to park or to cafe for breakfast?

@Silvercatowner yes because he'd sleep all morning and I have a autistic teen that I can't leave on his own so if I want to shower go out then he needs to take over .
Some people can sleep forever my dh is one of them .

10am is very late for me but then I don't really do lay ins. On a very very rare lay in it would be until 7.30am. I just can't sleep any later and feel like I've wasted the day.

It's a MN thing MsVestible. You're apparently not supposed to discuss bed times or wake times with the other adults in the house, even when it's causing massive hassle to others!

YANBU OP and your DH probably needs to look at his 'sleep hygiene' as getting up at crack of dawn then sleeping all day Sunday is terrible for sleep quality.

Geez that’s late. I’d have a terrible headache, we’re both up at 5.20 each morning and we are up by 7.30am at weekends at very latest.

Our lie-ins last until 8am!! If either is still asleep then, the other brings them up a coffee and tells them it’s 8am 😂 we are always out of the house before 9am no matter what because the kids would go stir crazy otherwise!

If the DC are old enough to get upstairs on their own, then send them up to wake him up. 'But they just wanted to see their daddy'

If you have no plans for the day then I don’t have a major issue with it to be honest. Sometimes you just need to catch up on sleep.

If there are plans. Or one of the children is being particularly demanding that morning then that’s different.