Early morning division of parenting labour. How do you do it in your family?

[RebornFlame]

I just want reassurance that I’m not the only mum that has an otherwise decent partner who cannot get out of bed except 5 minutes before work or 9-10ish on a day off. It’s not that I want a lie in (well I would but we’ve got a toddler and a older ds) but I would just find the 5am-9am slog easier if he would get up with me sometimes.

We’ve been on two holidays this year and he didn’t get up with me or before 9am once!

AIBU, a mug, a martyr?

Three days a week I’m up to get ready for work before anyone else is awake, so he gets up and does everything with dcs those days. The other days, we generally get up at the same time, unless one of us is ill or had a bad night. If anything I tend to sleep longer on weekends because the dc tend to bother me more at night (we co sleep and youngest tends to be in my space a lot more). But I made it really clear when first dc was born that I wasn’t doing things while he got the lie ins and this would always be a team effort and he agreed and that’s how it’s been.

Monday to Friday we all get up together. Wednesday to Friday are the days I commute which means DH gets up earlier than he would for a normal work day so.we can both get DC ready for nursery and he takes them.

Weekends we alternate lie ins (not lay ins) and he always gives me the choice of which one I want. Who ever is getting the lie in is up by about 9.15 at the latest.

Your Dh sounds selfish. And kind of mean, actually, if I understand your update correctly, are you intimating that he can't be trusted to be calm and kind to your child with special needs? That is heartbreaking. Have you taken on the mornings to spare your child being on the receiving end of your DH's bad mood?

Imagine forcing a grizzly bear out of hibernation and then asking it to make your children breakfast....

To be honest he's got to get used to it and suck it up. That's being a parent...I know as someone given to rising early, early rising is generally left to me, but my job often means I have to be up at 4am. It doesn't matter how early you like to rise, no one likes being up at that hour- you just have to do it. What would be do is he had to be up at 6am for work? It drives me spare that people who like a lie in behave like they can't function of they get up early. They can, they just don't want to

Some of my friends alternate. We’ve never been able to do that so we seem to be of the view that if one of us is suffering the other has to as well which probably isn’t a model I’d recommend. I’m a light sleeper and he isn’t so I always wake up first and I struggle to get back to bed. When I’m feeling nice I take the kids back downstairs so he can have a lie in but because I never get one, I’m less inclined to let my husband have one unless he has been working really hard or is ill.

**Have you taken on the mornings to spare your child being on the receiving end of your DH's bad mood?

Yes this 100% I don’t want everyone starting the day of such a negative footing so that’s why I get up.

You can’t rest if you are on hyper alert for your son getting distressed downstairs :(

I don’t really buy the “not a morning person” stuff. I am a morning person and H is not. Before we had children, fine, we could suit ourselves. But with a small child (and another on the way) we both muck in, with good grace. That is the expectation. Illness or particularly stressful periods are taken into account of course, but “I am not a morning person” is not an excuse for leaving your partner alone to slog through every single early morning with small children

I feel sorry for you. And your child

When DC were babies I used to always get up. Now they are bigger DH gets up with them during the week (he gets up for work anyway) makes bfast, watch cartoons, whatever and I get up at the weekends. It's harder when they are babies because everybody is so bloody tired all the time!

I really wouldn't describe myself as a morning person, and I certainly wouldn't describe DH as a morning person, but we both manage to get up with DS, just as we manage to get up for work - neither of those things feel optional!

@RebornFlame does your DH do anything to address his tiredness? Goes to bed at a decent time, not necking double espressos at bedtime etc? If he's really exhausted I'd send him to the GP. DH was struggling to get out of bed despite going to bed at 10pm, turns out he was vit D deficient and now is a new man.

90% of the time I get up with DS at 7am as I'm awake, and DH joins us at 8am. I get frequent migraines so if I wake up ill I just nudge DH and he gets up with DS.

We generally split it between us. I am naturally more of a morning person however the one who is in the most need of sleep is the one that gets to lie in.

The kids are big enough to get up without an adult now, but we used to alternate it. Trouble was, by the time I'd heard the kids, woken DH, heard him faff about and he'd actually got the kids, I was wide awake.
So, I used to get up every day, and then at weekends, I used to go back for a morning nap while he actually took the kids out for a couple of hours.

We both work Mon-Fri so lay ins don't happen in the week. We split getting the kids ready and to where they need to be between us in a way that's fair considering commute length, car use etc.
We take it in turns to lay in at the weekend - one gets Saturday, the other gets Sunday.

I'm a lark and DH is an owl. He dealt with anything after 10pm and I dealt with anything after 5am.

It worked very well for us. I'm usually awake and alert early in the morning and he isn't/wasn't. In an emergency, if a DS was ill, he would always step up though.

lisasimpsonsbff no he doesn’t address his tiredness and I’ve raised that with him many times. It’s not all his fairly as sometimes he’ll not get in from work till 22:30 ish but then he’ll always stay up till about 2am!

And when he’s not working he’ll still stay up till gone midnight every night.

Sorry. That was to dreaming

I do it all during the week but I'm a sahp so don't mind

At the weekend we have a lie in each and he's normally really good and will let me go back to bed after he's got up.

Hes being very selfish. I did all gets ups while breastfeeding but now I do the one or two night get ups, dh gets up at 530 and I get up at 7. Sometimes hes done breakfast for our two sometimes not. On the weekend dh tends to go back to bed for an hour at 7 which I dont mind. This will only be Oct-Feb though as hes a farmer and other times of year hes got to be up and out early

He'll have to adjust like the rest of us. He sounds whiny and selfish. Plus I notice you talk about you putting the toddler to bed - why isn't he doing all that when you get up every morning?

My exh was like this. Attempted to give me a lie in once and I got up after 20 minutes because all I could hear was him shouting and the children crying. He doesn’t have them overnight now we’re divorced so I basically haven’t had a lie in since the early part of 2010. I love reading the posts here where people take turns properly.

Toddler’s still BFing to sleep so it’s not an option.

I’ve got to wake him now anyway as I’m off to work. Thanks for all the responses.

Imagine forcing a grizzly bear out of hibernation and then asking it to make your children breakfast....

They're his children too OP

He's a lazy git

I'm up first at weekends, because dh gets up first in the week, plus I sleep in with dd atm.
It's absolutely not acceptable for your dh never to get up and always to let you do the early mornings, unless you actually like it.

But when do you put your toddler to bed for her/him to be waking that early?

I struggle to get up in the early mornings, but it's part of having small children (and unfortunately one of the parts that sometimes sticks when you have SEN children). Has he not got over this in seven years? That's appalling.

Your DS likely has ADHD. That means it's highly likely either you or your partner does, too. Do you think it might be him? ADHD can make it difficult for adults to get up in the morning (sadly, not children, though you may find DS turns into a grizzly bear when he's a teen as well - fun on school mornings). That's the root of my own struggle BTW.

Unless there is a genuine trade off here - say he goes to work stupidly early during the week so that he can finish early to spend time with the family, and/or he goes to bed really late because a child gets up for 3 hours in the middle of the night and needs supervision, and/or he's extremely apologetic and accommodating of you having unlimited naps later in the day - you need to be taking turns at weekends to get a lie in. And that means the person whose turn it is to get up gets up with minimal disruption to the other one and then manages it as best they can.

I tend to do a bit of sitting up in bed and letting DS2 mooch around the bedroom until he gets destructive or wants to be loud and then I get up into a really warm dressing gown and fluffy socks (sensory - leaving the warmth of the duvet feels unbearable) and immediately go to brush my teeth and then make coffee.

I don't change DC out of pyjamas immediately (just a nappy if needed) and we make extremely simple food for breakfast - I favour toast or microwave porridge, DH prefers to cut up apple and put in a snack bowl with dry cereal or crackers. TV is allowed in the morning and I don't tend to do much actual parenting other than damage limitation. We stay in the most childproof room.

Most important - there is never any sniping about how "I got up at 6" or "I only got 3 hours' sleep" - competitive tiredness helps nobody. We have a kind of "open nap policy" - if it doesn't interfere with plans then we let each other nap without question. I guess we probably get out and do less than most families seem to at weekends, but we see weekends as for relaxing and recovering from the stress of the week, not packing as many activities into as possible.