Angry at husband waking me up

[Jadefeather7]

I don’t know if it’s pregnancy hormones or if I’m right to feel really angry. I feel totally exhausted these days and the nausea has started to set in especially in the evenings.

The night before last my husband woke up at 5am and went downstairs to get a drink. I mentioned that this had woken me up and that I couldn’t sleep after but didn’t make a big deal out of it. Last night I went to bed at 11pm. My husband ordered a pizza at 1am and slammed the door which was loud enough to wake me. When I wake up in a panic I’m not able to go to sleep after for hours. He knows this because it’s happened two or three times before. I was also feeling really sick ( mine is worse at night) so that made getting back to sleep harder.

He was sleeping in another room as he had been up late. I went in and had to shake him to wake him up. He’s a very heavy sleeper and can fall asleep within minutes whenever he wants. I told him he would need to deal with the baby in the morning but because he’s a heavy sleeper and often misses the baby crying and his alarm I had a feeling he wouldn’t do it. I finally went to sleep at 6.30am only to wake up every 15-20 mins worried that I had missed my baby crying. At 7.45 I went to wake the baby up (45 minutes after his usual wake up time) . He must have heard me and then started trying to get involved.

I feel really annoyed as I think he’s being really inconsiderate and not thinking about the fact that I need to rest right now. I also think he should have offered himself to look after the baby this morning. Am I being unreasonable?

You are coming across as solely responsible for the baby every night including the WOHP's days off? I was, and slept too lightly to be rested, being on 'guard duty' with a heavy sleeping, perfectly rested husband next to me...

The rote MN stance is that a working parent takes over some of the a.m. waking responsibilities on their days off. Otherwise you end up with a parent like myself with broken sleep for 700+ consecutive nights. If he is responsible on some nights or mornings, he needs to fully own it and not have you alert and worrying that he won't.
YANBU on some points.

So the basics are you were woken up by your husband through the night, this doesn't happen often, are you being unreasonable to then expect him to get up at 7am with the baby without agreeing it earlier ?

I would say, yes, you do sound like you are overreacting.
He made too much noise and accidentally woke you up, so you had a bad nights sleep. It should be a 2minute conversation of

OP "don't slam the door at 1am you woke me up and I couldn't get back to sleep, can you do breakfast in the morning so I can catch back up and try and get a good night sleep"

DH reply "yes of course it's fine, I don't start work until 10am, I will get up while you relax"

Job done, anything more than that is just far too much drama for my liking

Oh and if you shook me awake in the middle of the night you would have got a very different response and I may have tried to strangle you or worse , but you have already acknowledged that was wrong.

Okay, so this happened the night before last, so over 2 days ago now. People can tell you that you're right, or that you're wrong till they're blue in the face but I'm genuinely curious about what conservation you've had with your partner since this all happened. If you were posting this on the evening/morning it all went down to vent that'd be totally fine and a different story. It's been 2 days since this happened, so what conversation did you and your husband have (if any)? You left off saying you think he heard you tending to the baby and then decided to get up and try to help. I'm assuming you shrugged off his help at that point and have now been quietly brooding about what went down? Why don't you pull him aside and tell him you want to talk to him! He genuinely seems like he does try to take your needs into consideration, he doesn't sound like he's done anything out of malice. He honestly sounds very similar to my DP and what might be construed as him being rude or inconsiderate by some, I've come to understand that he's just hopelessly oblivious when it comes to certain things. However if I take the time to talk to him and tell him that what he's doing has upset or frustrated me - he's always apologetic for inadvertently upsetting me and does whatever he can to make sure the issue doesn't happen again. If say, it's something like waking me up for a drink like I posted earlier - sometimes we make a compromise and we both bend a little to find a resolution. Don't get me wrong, I've gotten VERY upset with him in the past, but I find if I'm still dwelling on something that happened days prior I write him a note and explain what happened, how it made me feel, and what I'd like him/us to do about it in the future. If you don't think you can talk to your partner calmly at this stage without getting frustrated and upset, I'd suggest writing it out. Then once he reads it, you've got a good place to start from. If you think you can keep all your thoughts organized, stick to the issue at hand and work together to fight the issue instead of fighting each other, by all means do so without any pre-written letter. The point is that you need to talk to your partner about what's upsetting you, the longer you bottle stuff like this in the more likely you are to start resenting him and resentment kills relationships, so give him a chance and let him know you need to talk to him about some things that have been upsetting you then pick a time and sort it out, you'll more than likely feel much better afterwards and be glad that you did.

@GoNoodle the OP says the baby can sleep 12 hours straight so there isn’t any night duty needed

YABVU- and too be honest at some point your DH will realise its just not worth living with such a controlling partner.

OP has said she can't sleep with ear protection (which would solve all noise problems - I use them now) because she is listening out for the one time the child may be needful in the night.
As the child sleeps beautifully, it is even more reason for both parents to share taking on the 'guard duty' aspect, as it will definitely be easier than most nights for a lot of people.
Father is a heavy sleeper and she worries he won't wake to attend to the child so she is always 'on' while unwell with morning sickness and latterly, ill with bronchitis. The dude has a 10 a.m. start so has it pretty cushy, time and sleep-wise.

Not at you prawn, but the handmaidenry on this thread is something else. She has only asked that her partner be quiet in the....clue....night time hours.

I have trouble getting to sleep and staying asleep, always have. I also have to get up to drink or use the loo at night, neither of those things are unreasonable. I use an app with yoga nitra that helps me sleep and I use it every night to train my body that hearing it means sleep.

He was inconsiderate slamming the door obviously, but with the rest of the stuff, you are being unreasonable. I honestly get how it is when you are tired and your brain won't switch off and adding to that, the additional exhaustion of pregnancy, but light sleepers have to find a way to manage that. People cannot be expected to not move at night, get a drink if thirsty or otherwise live their lives. I get it, I really do, but you are being unreasonable.

But even if he fails to hear the baby cry won’t it wake the OP ? It sounds like this baby is a great sleeper & doesn’t wake up in the night... isn’t this what most parents would only dream of ? So her anxieties that he is going to wake up & not be heard are not even based in reality.

I believe the OP’s real issue is her light sleeping & not being able to self soothing & get back to sleep.

How can she be a light sleeper yet be anxious she won’t hear the baby cry ? Who isn’t actually crying at night anyway ? Stressing husband won’t wake up in the morning to tend to the baby, when the baby apparently sleeps in so late she has to wake them too ?

None of this makes sense, so I believe the real issue is OP is being controlling about everyone else’s sleep patterns to pander to her preferred schedule.

She is getting enough sleep by the sounds of it, waking up naturally & isn’t so psychically exhausted she is having to nap in the day. She gets snappy at being woken up & needs better coping mechanisms so that a bump in the night doesn’t fill her with rage.

My dh is so LOUD. Loud walking, talking, door slamming etc. When he’s on the phone it’s like he’s trying to reach the other person through physical space not phone lines.
When you’re on the verge of sleep and a door slams it can feel like a jolt of electricity through you. All ten times worse when you feel like crap. So I sympathise.
But you’ve said he’s an easy sleeper, waking him up randomly is just going to frustrate you more and possibly create bad feeling from him. I would simply explain how bad you’re feeling and ask him please to be as quiet as possible when you’re asleep. As well as working on techniques to help you sleep more soundly.

He is vv sound sleeper and feels no responsibility for seeing to DC or your routine with DC.
You are v light sleeper who can't get back to sleep.
I am wondering if his late nights mean, very handily for him, that he never gets up and sees to DC despite being a WOHp.
I think what you need to do is think through EXACTLY what you would like to happen - not anything that means he has to have a personality transplant, but what could happen that would suit you.
I suggest him having a baby monitor at max volume next to his bed and an alarm to wake him at 7pm at the other side of the room so he has to get up to answer it. And he uses this arrangement a couple of days a week. These are your lie in days. You have left everything he could possibly need for baby in the night and in the morning so you don't have to worry and he doesn't have to wake you.
You get a break and he shapes up.

But if you are pregnant now, how are you going to deal with night feeds again (getting back to sleep then?). How did you deal with it before?

If my partner woke me up by physically shaking me I'd find that incredibly alarming. I don't know why anyone would think that's ok to do to someone else.

I have an 8 week old and I had hg so vomiting all day and all night. Tablets stopped the vomiting but not the nausea so I get it. It kept me up most of the night and I worked 40hrs a week minimum with 2 other kids at home so I understand the tiredness. However none of that would have been an excuse for so much anger as is displayed here. Please consider discussing it with your midwife/gp as they can signpost you to techniques you can try for the anger and the sleep.