To not get out of bed just to say bye.

[LadyDane]

I work shifts, never full night's but early & lates and when I'm on a late I may not get in until 10:30/11pm, then I need to eat, wash and wind down so I can often not be in bed until gone midnight.

My husband tends to leave for work around 7:30am.

He has an older son who stays with us a week on week off. He is 11 and has been walking to school since the start of the year.

Me and DH can't seem to agree on this. DH ensures SS's alarm is set in the evening and he knows to make some cereal and brush teeth and what time he needs to leave but he's always mithering me to get up and 'see him off, say good morning, good bye, doesn't want him getting up to an empty house all the time'.

There is no choice when I'm on earlies as I leave before DH anyway so there is literally no one else in when SS gets up but DH expects me to get up when I've been on lates just to do this. I don't think it's necessary and if he's that bothered he should go into work late.

AIBU not to get up early after working late just to say goodbye?

You think its sexist to expect a man to be able to parent independently for 3 mornings and evenings a week? FYI, expecting a woman to be on call 24/7 so a man doesn't have to parent alone is not you 'believing in equality' is it? You don't think men are capable of parenting alone or will struggle if they do. I cant cope with people tying themselves in knots to skirt around saying "women should do it all" Just bloody own it.

Yeah...after and before working more hours than DH will do that day 😂

You also don’t see your own daughter in the mornings either 5 days a week

Wrong. Stop making things up and read please.

Working 6 hours it seems

Where did you learn to count? I'm at work for 11 hours per shift.

Sorry I can't summon up much sympathy for DH because he has to get his own daughter up 3 times a week. I do that 4 days a week whilst he 'lols about in bed' at the weekend. I'm also the one to pick her up when I work earlies. So poor DH, 3 times a week every fortnight he has to take and collect his own daughter. He's not doing me a favour, she's his daughter 😂

So is op doing the other 4 days of the week not her doing her fair share then ?

YABU
You get plenty of sleep.
Poor kid getting up to no one caring about him

While he gets a lie-in during the weekends which he needs while thinking OP doesn’t. Him waking her up means she doesn’t get one. He only takes their daughter to nursery 3x a week if I read correctly. He rather wake her up instead of spend time with his son in the mornings. I bet that is more upsetting (if his son actually cares) than OP not waking up. His dad taking his sister to nursery but not spending time with him before he leaves with them.

Be a bit different if OP didn’t work.

Apparently I'm only doing my fair share if I do the whole week and DH NEVER has to parent alone ever.

So basically the dad organised 50/50 custody, expecting SM to be the one to sort out his son in the mornings. Just apply the ‘what would he do if I didn’t exist’ rule, as usually SP’s don’t exist in regards to making any other kind of decisions regarding DSC anyway.

Yanbu.

You should not have married somebody who already had children when you don’t want to do normal things with him.

If your own child ended up in the same position as you SS, you might think differently.

Ops doing 4 mornings out of 7, dh doing three, how exactly is dh doing 'more than his fair share ' of mornings when he's doing less mornings? Either your maths skills are lacking or you think dh's 'fair share' should be half that of ops.

Yes. You’re the stepmum so standards are much higher for you than the actual father, unfortunately by some posters.

You are joking, right?

A man would be crucified on Mumsnet if he thought working til 10pm was enough to absolve himself of parental responsibility in the mornings!

OPs DH will have done a full days work, bedtime and dinner time the night before alone, then gets up and gets the child up and ready alone, and then goes and does another full days work, and then (assuming OP is on another late) does dinner and bedtime alone again, and up again in the morning to get their DD ready all by himself - and rinse and repeat. She's gone to work, and that's all! He's doing far more than his fair share of the hard bits of parenting, and he's doing them solo. OP chooses to stay up late at night and lay in on weekday mornings instead of pulling her weight. If the sexes were reversed, and it was a woman doing all the early mornings whilst her husband laid in bed after a 10pm finish, she'd be told to haul his lazy arse out of bed!

Finishing at 10pm at night neither requires a lay in, nor absolves a parent of responsibility for pulling their weight in the morning, regardless of their gender. BOTH parents should be getting up and dealing with their child in the mornings when they are available to do so (i.e. not at work). It's unreasonable of OP to leave it all to her husband on the basis that she finished work at 10pm at night, and then chose to stay up afterwards.

It's absolutely reasonable to share the weekend morning lay ins equally.

I mean there's posters here who literally think him taking his own daughter to school is a favour to me so it's quite clear they think women should be doing the vast majority (I do the majority already but obviously it's still not enough because DH sometimes has to look after our daughter alone... DUN DUN DUNNNN).

Like the posters who like to tell me she's MY daughter as if she's not also his 😂

I thought you were going to say shifts as in nights or very late finishes but 11? I do the same 3 nights a week and get up the next morning with the kids who wake about 6.30, maybe I should be getting more sleep or I’m used to little sleep but I couldn’t sleep in knowing my step son was getting up and heading off to school without anyone saying goodbye to him.
If your really that tired can’t you get up 10mins before he heads out then go back to bed?

So getting a reasonable amount of sleep between two 11 hour shifts is lazy? Really?

Right! Many posters calling OP lazy seem to be ignoring that part along with all of her other posts.

Of course men can parent independently and OPs DH is doing so. He isn't struggling with managing but he can only be in one place at a time. There are 2 kids in this family and so I don't think it is unreasonable for OP to get up after 8 hours of sleep to see the older child off to school while her DH manages all morning care for the DD and gets her to nursery. No one is expecting any woman to be on call for 24/7. In this family, her DH is home more with the kids than she is.

So it seems, and god forbid you should actually need a decent amount of sleep between shifts of what is very close to a full time job over three days ! Poor dh, how does he cope 😂

You could tell dh that yes, you'll see his son off but since that costs you your rare lie ins he'll have to share the weekend lie ins with you, so you get either Saturday or Sunday.
See how long he maintains the view that DS can't see himself out!

I don't like that he's making this your responsibility. That said, I'd get up to see mine off and so I'd do it for a step child too. But it's not on for dh to behave as if you are not nice for not doing it. If you have lots of early shifts, you do need to catch up on sleep when you don't.

Poor kid, he's 11, not 17.

I would get up for my own kid, even if it was just for 10mn, coming home at 10:30/11pm is not late , you are being precious 🙄. Most people are still up at that time, because we all have work/ chores/ stuff to do, even after a full day at work + commute. It's life.

No one is asking you to take him for an early morning bootcamp between 11 hour shifts, but it feels strangely cold to insist on staying in bed. I know he's not your child, but he's the one forced to spend time in the house of his step-mother who doesn't sound terribly happy to have him

I think you're fine OP. The lad is hardly being left to fend for himself 24 hours a day, and it sounds like you contribute a lot to his upbringing. Even if DH didn't get him fully out of bed he could easily give him a 7am kiss and ask if he'd like to get up now to have breakfast with DH/DD or sleep an extra half hour.

My money is on him opting for extra sleep! He's far from lonely or neglected.

I don’t get what all the drama is about.

I’m with you OP.

I doubt the SS even cares if he says goodbye to you or not in the morning - no offence meant of course.

When I was younger my mum would leave for work before me and my sister woke up and we’d just get ourselves up and ready and off to school ourselves with no issue at all.

If you DH is so bothered about DSS having someone to speak to in the morning then DSS can get up earlier …… but I doubt DSS is bothered enough about a morning farewell party to do that 😂

And yes 6-7 hours sleep is enough for an adult but it is much more bearable for a person who has a normal work pattern and has had 4-5 hours at home to wind down after work before they even go to bed, as opposed to someone who goes to bed an hour after getting home from a very late shift.

It would be the equivalent of someone getting in from work at 7pm, going to bed at 8pm and then being expected to wake up full of beans at 2am to start their day because they’ve had the magical 6 hours sleep.

I used to do shift work and usually got home at about 10pm and by the time I wound down and had something to eat it was easily gone 11pm. I would get up at 6am with the children and I would be absolutely exhausted despite the 7 hours sleep.

Down Time is so important prior to going to bed in relation to how much rest the body/mind gets overall. OP doesn’t get that down time whereas a lot of people saying “6 hours sleep is plenty for an adult” probably do.

The fact he wakes you up after your late shift would really annoy me and I'd do exactly the same to him on the weekend.

Remember on mn parents ( mums ) are not allowed any type of life until their little darlings leave home aged 50 😁

This

This is a really bad suggestion from a sleep hygiene point of view. Medical advice is you can't compensate for chronic lack of sleep by sleeping in on weekends - on the contrary it will exacerbate adverse health consequences. OP already works unhealthy fluctuating shift patterns and obviously finds it difficult to cope (hence needing time to unwind begins bed.)

The suggestion of some posters of just getting up early, then going back to sleep for another hour is equally batshit - one hour isn't enough for a restful sleep cycle including REM sleep, and I bet once rudely awakened OP isn't even able to go back to sleep easily.

OP as so often you have a DH problem. As other have pointed out he clearly isn't worried about dss getting up by himself when you're on earlies. But what I find much more alarming is that from your posts he persists in waking you up even though you've explicitly told him not to. That's disrespectful and bordering on coercive. Does he behave like this on other occasions?

Tricky. Dads responsibility but if you’re a team it’s yours too. It would depend for me on the dynamics. Do you parent usually? If so you should do it. If DH doesn’t allow you/want you to parent usually then no you shouldn’t do it.