Morning vs Night person

[44PumpLane]

I may be entirely unreasonable and happy to hear it but I am starting to find this one trait in my husband quite annoying and want to know if it's just me.

For context he's a wonderful man, does more than his fair share of cooking, cleaning, laundry, parenting.

He is not a morning person, according to him I am a morning person.

This means that when the kids (3 year old twins) wake at 6.30/7 he gets annoyed, which I think is unfair as that's a perfectly reasonable time for kids to wake.

If he gets up with them in a morning, when I finally come down (by about 9am fully dressed and ready), he will disappear off for ages to have a relaxing bath to recover from the ordeal of having been up so early.

Later in the day he may even require a nap as he's so tired- which irritates me.

He then can't sleep until late at night (modnight/1am etc) whereas I will go to bed by about 10pm.

Sometimes we argue and his point is that as I physically can go to bed early and sleep then I should and I can get up with the kids at 7, because even when I lie in I'm usually awake by 8am anyway.

My point is that sometimes I want to stay up late to have some child free time to myself and have a leisurely browse of my phone in the morning.

His constant "I'm tired" has annoyed me so much that I've been up with the kids every day over the Christmas hols as it just feels like the easier option, but AIBU to find this incredibly irritating? Or is this genuinely something that people are afflicted with?

@my2bundles They all seem to finish at 3:30 here.

Littlereindeer you're living in cloud cuckoo land! School here starts at 8.40, we live a 10 minute walk away. We get up at 6.30am. I think you're going to have a massive shock to your system.

The owl tendency will come i useful later. We now have a 15 year old and my night owl tendencies have come in useful. DS spent years as a child waking between 4.30am and 6am (at the latest). I adjusted my clock because I had to but it was far far easier for DH who is a natural lark.

Nowadays DH slopes off to bed at 9.30pm regularly but I am the one who is up/able to pick up/drop off teenagers if needed as I am an owl and have reverted to type. It is a problem for work though as I start at 8.30am and would much prefer to start later and finish later. .

Is he doing more with them in the evening, DP is a morning person, though I'll be running about well into the evening getting things sorted whereas he windes down much earlier. I work nights at the weekend and do school mornings during the week shattered, I love a sneaky cat nap around 5pm.
If I have an actual afternoon sleep if he is off ill be up till 2am.

Would you have said the same if their natural waking time was 4.30 ....
DS regularly work for the day at this time for a long time. He didn't get up or even cry as we did train him to stay in bed, mostly happily but I would be woken by his loud chattering/talking/singing to himself as a toddler and later by his playing in his room which was rarely quiet. DS would do this for at least an hour or so, until one of us would eventually get up at around 5.30/6am for the day and he could come downstairs. However DH and I would have been awake for an hour by then. I am not sure how you can stop a young child chatting/singing, playing in the morning if they are not tired.

Anyway, DH would regularly take DS out at about 6am at the weekends so I could sleep. He found a local cafe that opened at 7am about a 20 minute walk away and he and DS became regulars the on weekend mornings . I did do 90% of the wake ups though, which were numerous for DS until he was about 3-4 years old.

Sunglasslover
I think you need to believe him a bit more when he says he's tired. Why is his tiredness irritating to you?

I think I find it irritating as I feel like I rarely get any child free time to myself. So his suggestion that I go to bed earlier (I could genuinely go to bed at 9 and go to sleep) and then do the mornings, means that by the time the kids go to sleep (7.30 approx) and we have our evening meal and do a quick tidy I wouldn't have any relaxation time in the day just for me.

Whereas he would then have all the rest of his evening up to midnight/1am and then I'd be up with the kids from 7ish getting them sorted.

I think if we didn't have children I wouldnt mind his preferred sleep pattern, but as we do have young kids I feel that his preferred sleep pattern basically robs me of any chance of down time to myself.

I'm stressing it's his preference as he does get up with them and will see to them overnight, it doesn't just fall to me. But we do have the occasional argument where he finds my stance unreasonable and he doesn't understand why I don't just leave him to it.

Although I must say I like the suggestion by a previous poster of me just getting up with the kids and taking them out for a few hours but then making my husband have them for a few hours when we get back so I still get a bit of down time.

Night person.
DH used to be a morning person, when I met him, but kids and career have killed that!

Any functioning adult needs to be able to wake up at the time required for their life. Especially if they are parents. Your DH seems to be doing that OP, so I don't see the problem. (Though I don't see why you got dressed and ready before relieving him of the kids. Surely if he'd had the kids since early you should have taken the kids when you woke, allowed him to get ready, then, swapped again to let you get ready?)

I can't function if my normal waking time is before 7am. I can do it for one-off things.
Before before 7 is nighttime.
I'm not firing on all cylinders till 10am.

We are up for school at 7am and 8.30 at the weekends for activities. Long term it kills me. I have a major low at about 6pm, when I could easily nap (rarely do). Then I ping awake again at about 8pm and can keep going to 1am. If I do nap at 6.30 and don't set an alarm I will sleep till morning.

I have just had 3 days of sleeping till I wake, 9.30/10ish. Bliss. I feel so alive. Don't constantly feel like I'm going to fall asleep standing up.

Going to bed early is pointless unless I'm sleepy. I just lie I bed restless getting more and more frustrated.

Although I must say I like the suggestion by a previous poster of me just getting up with the kids and taking them out for a few hours but then making my husband have them for a few hours when we get back so I still get a bit of down time.

This sounds good. My DH used to do that.

But he should take his share of mornings too, if you need him to.

isittheholidaysyet
Your DH seems to be doing that OP, so I don't see the problem.

My problem is because he then disappears for 2 hours for a bath and to get ready while faffing on his phone and then requires an hours nap at 3pm and is grumpy through the day so it's not exactly great for a day of having two toddlers to entertain so I find it irritating.... I'd rather he just get on with it.

(Though I don't see why you got dressed and ready before relieving him of the kids. Surely if he'd had the kids since early you should have taken the kids when you woke, allowed him to get ready, then, swapped again to let you get ready?)

He woiod have had the kids since about 7am and its the routine in our house for the lie in parent to get ready before they come down.
If I didn't get ready before I came down I'd be waiting hours for him to come down.

I am very much a night person. Preferred sleeping time probably about 1am to 9am. I find it hard to think clearly in the morning but can easily work into the small hours even if I had to get up early.

However, as a functioning adult with small children, i spent many years getting up and going to bed a lot earlier than I wanted to. Anyone can go to bed / sleep at 10pm if they're sleep deprived enough!

Congratulations to the people who just adjusted their kids' sleeping patterns so they woke up later and can't imagine why other less excellent parents wouldn't do the same. I had a child who woke at 5:30 (on average - sometimes 4:30) for years. Of course I tried to change it, I tried fucking everything! He's 13 now and still wakes before 7am every day so I guess he's just a lark.

Congratulations to the people who just adjusted their kids' sleeping patterns

I'm sure some kids are naturally early risers.

But some parents haven't tried everything.

I have friends who struggled with very early rising kids. They said they had tried everything. We went to a kids party when their eldest was 7years which finished at 9pm. She said he had never been up that late before.

So she hadn't tried everything then. She hadn't tried 3 weeks of keeping them up till 10/11pm every night. Yes it would be 3 weeks of hell, if it hadn't worked, but what if it had?

(OP, I agree 6.30/7am is a reasonable wake-up for little kids)

What parent I their right mind would keep a 7 year old up untill 10pm for 3 weeks? Trying everything does not mean trying ridiculous suggestions.

What parent I their right mind would keep a 7 year old up untill 10pm for 3 weeks?

Do it when they are 1 year old and can sleep in, and night and day are still artificial concepts imposed by parents.

Most kids grow put of early rising by school age, because school is so exhausting.

Although I must say I like the suggestion by a previous poster of me just getting up with the kids and taking them out for a few hours but then making my husband have them for a few hours when we get back so I still get a bit of down time
We do this. DP brings them out early and I return the time in the afternoon.
You need to meet in the middle.

So your friend was supposed to try the 10pm bedtime age 1 a whole 6 years before it became a problem? Ok then.

Even if your friend has tried the 10pm bedtime suggested by you age 1 there's no guarantee it would have lasted untill age 7. My kids changed sleeping patterns several times over in those 6 years, because you know kids grow and change.

My2

No. He was a 4.30/5 am riser, from being a baby. She complained to me solidly about this. Told me how they had tried everything and he just wouldn't sleep. His brother came along, and guess what as parent and older child were up baking at 5.00am he also thought that was morning time.

He starts school, and within 3 weeks is now going to bed at 7.30/8am (instead of 6pm) and being woken at 7am.

She told me she had tried everything until that point. If at the age of 7 he had never been awake later than 9pm. Why the hell had she been moaning to me all this time?

Guess what? Both younger and baby (another early riser) brother immediately fall into a normal sleep pattern when the house is awake and active till 8pm and quiet till 6.30/7am.

Of course there are morning and evening people - it's called chronotype!
I wake naturally around 5.30 and have done for years. If I go to bed very late, I still wake at 5.30-6. Even as a teen ds is more of a morning person - he has got himself up for school at 6.30am all the way through secondary and rarely sleeps past 9.30 even if he has bee out or working until 2am! DH is an evening person who manages to get himself up for work but at any holiday time reverts to being more of an evening person.

Yes no guarantee, might not have worked at all.
But at least she would know.

I think there are morning and night people, and the only chance of changing is if people are bad in the morning because of lack of sleep or lifestyle factors. I work with someone who is not a morning person, who does not drink, smoke or take drugs, and who is polite and courteous about it.

Squeekums in different in tne uk. Tne majority don't have school buses and need parents to take children to school. This involves getting everyone ready to leave tne house by a certain time including younger Sibson, not just the school children. I certainly couldn't do that on your timetable so we get up earlier

We have to drive dd 10 minutes to the bus stop, she can't walk it or bike it, too far, it's literally a road in middle of nowhere. If we don't get up, there no school or we have to drive the 25 minutes to school. I also don't drive, so I have to get dp up to do the drive. We just don't like long drawn out mornings before we leave, we would fall back asleep.

There won't ever be younger siblings though, this shop is shut lol

Ooh yes the energy-burst, doesn't morning people get that
It dont sound like it lol
Its like my body finally wakes up fully

DH is a night owl and I'm a morning person (probably more the Robin than the Lark as a pp suggested).

The lie-ins can be bloody annoying, especially on days when the better weather is in the earlier part of the day and gone by the time DH is up, and dressed, then the DCs need lunch and my will power to make use of the day has evaporated

On the otherhand it always seemed pointless to force him up when I was naturally awake and not in a mode to lie in anyway. Some lie-in is fine, but not wiping out the first half of the day. My DCs are a bit older now so it's less critical. As it happens they are night owls. (Fortunately their school starts at 9 and is a 5 min walk away, so they are fine with a 7:30-8am get up!) The cost of that is in the evenings with their 9pm lights off time, but often not sleeping until towards 10pm.

There has to be some compromise between the night owls and morning people, and it's not fair for the earlier riser to cop hours more unsupported childcare.

I am a night person, I obviously get up and do what I need to do, but I feel awake and energised when most people go to bed. Years of having to get up before 6am have not changed this, it is just how I am wired. However, while I may be tired, I don't think it is on to opt out of family life because of it. He needs to do his fair share so you also get to have some lie ins or child free time.

Luckily I am married to another night person and I can't have children so won't have the issue with young children waking early. But in cases like this there has to be compromise.

Isthatthehplidaysyet so he just started school and his bedtimes ate now sorted. You said the child is 7, are you saying he didon't start school untill he was 7? Your version of events don't make any sense.

@my2bundles
I'm Scandi, kids start school at 6-7 years old here.