Adult son wants to move back mon - fri to ‘get a night’s sleep’

[HippPippy]

DS 27 and his gf recently had a baby. As you’d expect they are being woken up during the night. DS has asked if he can move back in mon - fri so he can get a proper night’s sleep so he can concentrate on going to work and do his job effectively.

DH thinks the idea is outrageous and he should just ‘get on with it’ , I feel a bit confused as to why he is even asking. Surely other new parents don’t do this? I get sleep deprivation is hard, but I am not overly enamoured with this idea. But I don’t want to be unsupportive either - how would you respond?

"A good compromise", lol OP. For who?

Everyone needs to wise up here. You for raising an entitled son, your son for realising he is now a parent and that involves responsibilities and sacrifice as the time for not wanting to be involved has now passed and the GF needs to wise up and unchain herself from a selfish man and his indulgent mother. You ARE the nightmare MIL and I'd probably scowl too if you placed your precious DS and his all important job above the needs of the baby he helped make and the mother of that child.

FFS, every job requires that you are awake and alert.

Has he not heard of caffeine?

Yes, but if you throw in night shifts or time changes, which is common in the aviation sector, it’s even harder to achieve.

That said, I can’t think of many jobs in aviation that give you Monday to Friday nights at home!

id find a compromise- say he can stay one night a week to catch up on the sleep he needs for work. Say that In the future, when his girlfriend is working you’ll offer her a child free night too, if she likes.

If this is him cracking then I get it op.your concerned. I bloody would be if my son came to me with this.he have to be thinking bloody crazily!
but also hear you don’t like your dil so this will be clouding things
and perhaps they both weren’t quite ready for this.
even if she is a hitch who scowls all the time she doesn’t deserve to be abandoned.
but if they aren’t coping they need to fun d a way through this. And that involves communication.
did the quick pregnancy force them into a relationship?
what you and do can do is offer babysitting to both. You could go round there to sleep,clean,cook help out.
or take baby to yours.
for now you and your dp need to go round,cook a good lasagne sit down and talk through how to help all find a way through this.
babies can be absolutely death at the door knackering.so you need to find a way.if they have your support they need to use it but in a way that is sensible.and that isn’t coming to your 4 nights a week.

he should be sleeping on the sofa after he does a night feed to allow his gf to sleep!! not moving back in with you

e.g he has baby until 11pm, feeds if needby and then sleeps 11.30 to get up...

i have zero sympathy for the moving out part, i do understand however heneeds to sleep, so a spare room or sofa is a compromise.

I'm not in aviation myself but is there not fail safes built in and colleagues who have to check things? Few jobs like that don't have systems which mitigate the 'lives are at risk' scenario. (Bit like the dead man's pedal on trains) I'd expect a lot of it is automated 🤷🏻‍♀️

I expect too that they have very regulated shift patterns and can probably only work a few hours without a break.

Usually you declare yourself fit to fly by signing in at work.

And come on how many jobs don't need you to be awake and alert??

If you really want to help, I would suggest he stays round once a week/fortnight/however often his girlfriend is comfortable with and that she has the opportunity to do the same to get rest.

Surely you can see that a moment’s lapse of concentration is worse if you’re a lorry driver or pilot than if you’re a librarian..

He needs to grow up and go home. I went back to work as a nurse as a single parent when DS was 6 weeks old.often very tired.
If he isn't up for the challenge of parenthood he should not have had a child.
I've never heard such nonsense.

Aviation is a huge sector, with hundreds of job roles.

he working hours strongly suggest he isn’t a pilot or air traffic controller. And I suspect OP
would have been quick to tell us if he was.

I have a lot of friends who are aeronautical engineers - but by 27 they could easily afford their own place and wouldn’t have been dosing with a partners sister.

yes designing, building and Maintaining planes is important work - but people who do those jobs have children. Men and women.

OP’s is not special and he needs to man up and parent.

Does anyone else get the impression he’s slying around actually breaking up with and leaving his relationship?

I think it's important you support your DS and have an open conversation about how they are both doing.

He sounds like he is bonding well with baby and It's important he accepts he cant just sleep out all week.

I think it's good of you to offer to have baby. To give them both a break?

Does the girlfriend have family local she can check in with as well, ( it doesn't sound like you are that close ) it is tough with a new baby.

100%. But as pp have commented, it may be deliberate - having been enthusiastic about the baby, his enthusiasm may be waning in the face of the reality of caring for a small baby and this may be the first step towards extricating himself from active parenting. In which case, you can hardly blame his girlfriend if she's going round with a face like thunder, especially if he was much more enthusiastic than she was about the idea of a baby to start with.

I would speak to them both together and say you want to support them, and is this what they both want, the say it's ok for so long.

I think this is just a get on with it situation…. I had children without any external support… not one dot… I would go mad at my son if he chose that he couldn’t support the mother of his child at this point !! Or any.. … it took two people to make this baby and two people to suck up the shitty times…honestly we don’t just get to choose not to support partners or offspring..: it al sounds really lame

It doesn't make any sense. If he was a pilot or air traffic controller he would be well paid enough to have his own place and could sleep in his spare room not at yours. And both those jobs would have shift patterns not Monday-Friday.
Think you need to find out if his GF is okay, she could have PND and be struggling , if she got pregnant as soon as they met and wasn't happy about it then no wonder she is miserable now, newborns are hard work and a massive adjustment. I think you should offer support to both of them, go round there and find out how she is doing, look after baby while they nap or something.
If my DH had suggested going back to his Mum's to sleep after first baby I would have told him to stay there. Your DH is right.

@Honeyroar my DD1's best friend is an ear, nose, and throat surgeon who returned to work (in the US) six weeks after her first baby was born.

Lives depending on her? Yes. She is on call for emergencies and does her hospital rounds at 5am.
Shift changes? Yes.
Trying to get time to pump in between procedures? Yes.
Sleeping all night at 6 weeks? No. Still not sleeping through at 4 months.

She and her H have managed to pack, sell their apartment, and move to another city since the baby was born. Her H holds down a responsible job too. They have pulled together.

This young man needs to get over himself. In particular he needs to stop whining about doing housework and cooking and babycare.

He has two jobs now, and he needs to recalibrate his notion that one if those jobs is beneath him.

Hos attitude is the sort that ends relationships.

If his girlfriend is ok with it then I don’t see the problem with him just sleeping at yours on work nights. When I was off on maternity leave and my husband was working the next day I didn’t expect him to help at all during the nights unless I was absolutely desperate. I think he should do the night times at the weekend though to give his girlfriend a break. Sounds like your son is pulling his weight the rest of the time he’s at home. This is all only if his gf is happy with it.

I agree, I want to support them both. DS absolutely adores both gf and the baby - would do anything for them. I am concerned she has not bonded with the baby at all. I think this is why they have temporarily moved in to be with her sister who she is very close to - it’s not because of financial reasons.

I get the impression she doesn’t seem to want to take care of the baby - she just sits glued to her mobile when they visit and doesn’t interact at all with the baby.
If anyone wants to make the relationship work it’s my son. She doesn’t seem particularly bothered.

I don’t dislike gf, I try and make an effort with her but it is not reciprocated, she’s clearly not interested in forming any kind of relationship with me or DH. It’s a shame as we would have liked to have been involved in the baby’s life, she’s not an easy person to get along with - even before the baby was born, but we’re all different.

they will need to work it out themselves, it’s a difficult time for all new parents.

Sounds like she may have post natal depression OP. Has her personality changed since having the baby or was she always this way? She doesn’t sound happy. It’s good she has her sister to support her and if she is saying she’s happy for your son to stay with you during the week then it sounds like you’d be doing them both a favour.

I work in urgent care perinatal mental health, and it sounds like gf is starting to get poorly imo.
i would make sure she’s ok too if you can

The girlfriend has post natal depression.

Sorry, OP, but you are also going to have to hoist your big girl knickers and put your money where your mouth is, along with your son.

He either adores them both or he gets to sleep. It's one or the other. You don't get a girl pregnant early in a relationship, persuade her to keep the baby, then bolt to mummy to sleep when the baby arrives and reality sets in and still claim to adore the baby and his mother.

It's all in or nothing.

If he is in a safety critical job, then I would offer allow a couple of nights - but would also offer the same to gf (eg on weekend). I would also offer childcare if needed. being responsible for baby is also a safety critical job - and I have at times been too tired or taken my eye off the ball (though i have been so lucky that things have been ok).

Essentially they should be getting advice about how best to manage it (he should discuss with occupational health; they should look into baby sleep consultants, using annual or sick/unpaid leave to bridge this sleep issue).

I hope the gf can see the gp and health visitor - could PND be playing a role?